I finished Tuesday...

I'm working on embroidering a set of days-of-the-week kitchen towels. I made a set of them for one of My Darling's sisters for Christmas a couple of years ago, and now I'm finally doing a set for the other one.

The ones for D. were adorable--cute little puppies with various kitchen tools...very adorable, and apparently discontinued. The ones for S. are of animated kitchenware, and I'm considering getting the companion patterns as well.

The time is passing. The Pumpkin (because we are bigger than a Bean now, you know!) is growing. The children are learning. The belly is contracting......

I'm not bored--Heaven help me if I ever utter the phrase, "I'm bored!"--but I am a little stir crazy. That's silly. I have at least 10 more weeks of this inactivity business, for Pete's sake. I have just fewer than two dozen flour sack towels at my disposal, and a whole passel of heat transfer patterns and scads of embroidery floss. I have tubs full of fabric and patterns galore.

I also have a rather social nature...and the urge to go out in the absolutely-gorgeous-nearly-fallish-weather for a walk...and the urge to go visiting or picnicking or hiking or anything but sitting in my living room. It's getting stale in here.

But I finished Tuesday's towel, and it's darn cute. And I don't make them monochromatic, like the one on the website...I make them colorful and lively and personable, as any dancing sugar bowl should be! This last one, little Miss Tuesday, had me cracking up. She's a sauce pan with her lid at a rakish angle, and she's grinning and winking. I never knew spaghetti sauce could be so, well, saucy!

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I revamped our household chores the other day. The way it used to work was like this: The Frog was in charge of the kitchen. She loaded and unloaded the dishwasher, kept up the floor, kept the counter clear, and helped out with clearing and setting the table at mealtimes. The Pickle was in charge of the laundry room and bathroom. He loaded and ran both the washer and dryer, sorted laundry into the proper baskets, and kept the bathroom nice and clean. And the Reepicheep was in charge of the living room. She did Garbage Patrol (scraps, newspaper to the paper recycle--that sort of thing), Monkey Toy Patrol, and general straightening up of the couch and love seat. She kept Monkey's toys put neatly away in his little areas, and made sure that there were no stray dishes or anything of that sort out and about.

The thing is, the kids got tired of the repetition. The kitchen is demanding. The other rooms are, too. The grass is always greener. Two of them decided to trade...........which led to my bathroom and laundry room sparkling like the Hope Diamond, and my kitchen looking like...a river rock.

I broke up the rooms into levels of chores, and assigned three or four tasks in each room to each child. Now the Frog feeds the dogs and keeps the washer and dryer clear of "stuff" on top. The Pickle still runs the machines, but the Reepicheep takes the clean laundry to sort it. Reep sprays the bathroom sink with vinegar each morning and wipes it down, and puts a new hand towel on the ring. Frog keeps the bath towels and toys straightened up and put away. Pickle takes out the trash and cleans the toilet.

Like that. In each room. I made color-coded charts. I laminated them.

Maybe I am bored...............