How I am spending my weekend....

Last night found me in very rare circumstances. I was *alone*. Alone, I say! I was almost giddy with this! I am rarely even alone in the bathroom, so a whole evening....wow! Maria was at a slumber party, Kain was at his dad's house, John was at work and didn't get home until after 10pm....I had Jack with me, but he was in bed early. I, of course, spent the time doing what most mothers would do if they found themselves with a couple of free hours...I cleaned! Our upstairs school/play room is in absolutely horrifying condition. It is a secret nightmare of mine that someone will have a significant injury up there (given the mess, that's entirely possible) and I will have to endure the embarrassment of having paramedics see the messiest room in my house (trust me, that's saying something). Yesterday morning my daughter had her Little Flowers meeting. It was my turn to lead the meeting and the virtue was, haha, orderliness. So I guess I was feeling all motivated when I got home. See, in my defense, it's very difficult to clean this room once it gets really bad. The kids are always using it! You can't go in and clean a bit, then come back later and do a bit more because they will quickly undo anything that you've done. No, no, you must do this all in one swoop. I dowloaded some Catholic radio podcasts onto John's Ipod took up a few trashbags, and went to work. No, I'm not finished. I'm not even close! But John has said he will help me make sure I get some more time up there this weekend, and in the meantime the kids are banned from the room. Oh, the angst! Oh, the wailing and gnashing of teeth! They should be glad they weren't here last night to see how much I threw away, haha! My goal is to have it done before the weekend is over. I have this vision of a school room that is a delight to walk into each day, with our school table (actually an old dinette) cleared of piles, two small desks under the windows for Kain and Maria to use for their independent work (haven't actually bought those yet), a couple of small bookshelves and beanbag chairs to form a comfy reading corner, a small preschool table for Jack with some shelves to start filling with Montessori lessons, and most importantly, couple of toys shelves with a minimum of toys out at one time! I thought about posting before and after pictures, but honestly, I was too embarrassed. :) I might post an after picture though!