making work fun

This morning's post from Stephanie Nielson was about "Job Balls" for her children. Pure genius!! I'm stashing it here for future use.. : ) 


Here is a copy/paste of her post:

Job balls.

Asking my little children nicely to do things around the house wasn't cutting it anymore.
I needed something genius. Something that would work. Something down right fun.
So I came up with a plan.
It had to do with colorful balls.
And it had to work.

I wrote jobs down on the 50 soft golf ball sized balls. I have to admit coming up with 50 jobs became hard...after about the 25th one I was writing jobs such as:
"hug sister" or "pick up 10 strands of Jimmy hair on the couch.

I am making a tally of all the jobs done, and whoever has the most tallies, gets to pick out a treat.
Works for them, works for me. Hopefully this will last longer than a few weeks.

painted difference

A while ago, like last-year-ago, I chose this paint color out with Mark for a front door. I remember it being a soft, muted sage-like color. While my mother was here visiting, we decided to knock this off my to-do list. We started to paint, and as it had been so long, I thought my memory must be failing me - it looked BROWN. Like our house-color, almost. I was so upset and ready to go to the paint store for a fresh can of paint... with a color I thought Mark might like. 

My mom insisted that we just stick to it.. even when it was done, it did NOT look green. It still looked brown like our house, but I had begun to like it. Then we shut the door after it dried. 

We stepped back... 

IT WAS GREEN! HALLELUJAH! It must have just been the interior light or something. I have no idea! 

But I love it. 

shelving

Since moving in, Mark knew the problem this house had of little closet space (2 closets in the whole house). So the last week he has been working on shelving in our master bedroom and in my little laundry room. He really surprised me with how professional it looks! I love my husband and my new closet! Take a looksie: 
Pretty nice, eh? The two long shelves on the bottom are removable for my long dresses or tall boots. I've already taken the first, top one on the left down so my dresses can hang freely. 

Below is the "before" picture of the laundry room's unused space:  
I forgot to take a picture before I put my things back on the shelves. Before, all of this was crammed onto the one shelf! It is so nice to have three long, sturdy, clean shelves now. 
Now all that's left is painting my laundry room a bright color. It needs to be a happy room.  

Thank you, Mark!

peep hole

My personal body guard, and handyman, Mark, as he prepares the peep hole for both convenience and protection. There wasn't any way to see who was knocking at the door before Monday. I don't know how the previous wife lived here without her husband (while he was in Iraq) for a whole year with no peep-hole. 
This is the view without the actual glass. Straight-door-view onto the house across the street. 
I see a Buckwheat! ha ha This is with the fancy shmancy peep-hole we got. It has a 120* view, though there is a wall to the left of the door, we figured why not?