We've got bathtub!

We've made progress on our bathroom again. We cut two holes in the floor. One for the toilet and one for the bathtub. They are lovely, which I just realized is kinda funny since technically a hole is a non-entity. But it doesn't matter because holes are progress. They are a step forward towards having a non-basement bathroom once again.

In the words of an As Seen On TV info-mercial, "But wait! There's more!"

We also put our super-sweet, six-foot whirlpool tub in place!

Now when people look through the kitchen wall into the unfinished bathroom space they'll see a bathtub and I won't have to say, "This our bathroom. We're re-doing it."

They will see it and say, "So, you guys are redoing your bathroom, eh?" And I'll just have to say, "Yes." Less explaining the same things over and over = happy Tricia. Although it doesn't explain why there isn't a wall between our bathroom and kitchen. Oh well, I just have to remind myself, Baby steps.

Our tub is in place but it didn't go exactly as planned. But then again, does it ever?

First, we had to get the bathtub into the bathroom from its temporary home in our basement. It was a straight shot, so that was good, but we bought the largest dang tub that would fit in our tiny bathroom. It had to be turned onto its side and took three of us to get it up our very steep-very shallow basement stairs. That coupled with the fact that as whirpool tub it is wrapped around with tubes that state explicitly "DO NOT LIFT FROM TUBES!" made the whole process that much more difficult. There are tubes all the way around it. Where they heck do they expect me to grab it from?

Moving it into the bathroom used all my muscle reserves, but now we had to position it. Dug is over six feet tall and not what you would call 'lanky'. He never took baths because our previous bathtub was so shallow and short that the water didn't even cover his thighs when he sat completely upright. Nor could he lay down without his legs completely sticking out of the water since the tub was roughly the equivalent length from his head to his bum. He had had enough of this height discrimination so he bought a six-foot, really deep bathtub. A six-foot bathtub to fit in a space six-foot and one-half inch long. Yep. We had one-half inch to spare.

Let me see if I can illustrate with words how things were situated. Our new bathtub was now sitting in our 6'1/2" x 9' bathroom perfectly diagonal. Dug on one side, Chris on one end, and me on the side opposite Dug. Our goal was to get the bathtub parallel with the end wall. The six-foot one-half inch one. We first tried to get it in place by lifting one tub end really high so we could turn it and then lower the end in place. Our whirlpool pump stuck out too far and caught against the wood. We could only get the end to lower down to within two feet of the floor before it got stuck. Uh oh. Did we buy a tub that was geometrically impossible to set in place? I was instantly reminded of the "grandfather clock" word problem from eighth grade.

"Can a nine-foot grandfather clock be placed in a nine-foot room?" (The answer is 'no' because in order to get it through the door you have to tip it on its side and
once on its side you can't tip it back up again. The hypotenuse (or diagonal from one corner to the other corner) will be longer than nine feet. The clock corners would hit before you could stand it on end.)

I asked Dug, "Is it physically possible for us to get this tub in place?"
Dug, aka Mr. Physics, would have already calculated this with his astute gray matter. I thought the question was rhetorical but he answered, "I hope so."

Hmmm...not the reassurance I was looking for. Needless to say I was having to control the anxious thoughts shooting like popping corn into my brain. "How long will it take to get a new one?" "How much money will we lose since this was a special order?" "Does this screw up our calculations on how the room would be plumbed/tiled/etc?"

Our only hope was that the other end of the bathtub, the end without the pump, would be sloped enough to allow us to drop it into place. We unstuck the pump-end, rotated the entire thing back into a diagonal, then lifted the drain-end up while turning the bathtub in parallel with the end wall again. Apart from a few fingers getting pinched between the tub and the studs, it was gently lowered into its correct orientation with no hassle. *huge, anxiety-ridding sigh of relief* Thank God!

Second phase:


A tub usually has runners built onto the bottom, which the tub sits on. Dug studied up on tub installation and found that if you set the tub in a pool of cement, the cement hardens in contact with the entire bottom of the tub, not just the runners, and shores up the entire bottom surface. A person's weight is thereby displaced over the entirety of the bottom of the bathtub.

We had decided to apply this method to our bathtub installation. We put a sheet of plastic on the floor and after mixing up a bag of quik-crete, dumped it into the middle of the plastic. After letting it thicken up a bit, we took a trowel and piled it onto itself, making a good-size mound.

Somehow between the three of us we lifted the bathtub up and onto the mound, nestling it up against the back wall and into its soft-cushy pillow of quik-crete with one-quarter inch to spare on each end. Unforeseen problem #2: The runners are too tall. Our plan was to have the entire bottom of the tub shored up by the concrete, right? Well, we didn't measure the runners...oops! Our particular bathtub has three-inch tall runners. That means that we would have needed a mound of cement three-inches tall if it was going to be able to even touch the underside of the tub. The runners sank into the mound only an inch or so.

So what is the downside to this? Well, luckily it is only expended time and money. Nothing is gained, but nothing is really lost either. It's just an extra step that we didn't need since there was no way we were going to lay a 3" bed of concrete for that tub! Oh well! Live and learn. At least that's what we hope we are doing...

For now, I've got a bathtub in place and I see progress. That's all I care about.

Next step...plumbing time!

cheesecake pops *or* no catastrophes for once

This month, Elle at Feeding My Enthusiasms and Deborah at Taste and Tell hosted the Daring Bakers' Challenge of Cheesecake Pops from the cookbook Sticky, Chewy, Messy, Gooey by Jill O’Connor. Basically, frozen balls of cheesecake, dipped in chocolate, on a stick. My husband was ecstatic! (He's a cheesecake nut.)

This was definitely going to be a challenge as I had never attempted a cheesecake in my life. My friend, Bethany, and I decided to undertake the first part of the task together: Make the Cheesecake. (This is her first month as a Daring Baker, hooray!) Armed with five pounds of cream cheese, we began. It was nice to bounce ideas off another live person during a challenge as opposed to just reading other's posts with their tips/comments. The cheesecake came out beautifully and was probably one of the best cheesecakes I've tasted.


All in all, the whole recipe was pretty painless (good recipe Jill O'Connor!) and, unfortunately, that makes for a pretty bland post. The most crazy parts were having to cut the top crust off the cheesecake so harder bits weren't in it and rolling the balls with my hands since the cheesecake refused to be scooped.

After the cheesecake cooled, I molded the balls. After the balls froze, I needed to dip them in chocolate. And here's where I got creative: I made carmelized sugar decorations to give them a "gourmet" look. Believe it or not, they were super easy to make.

You take about a cup and a half of sugar and over medium heat melt it until your pan is filled with a puddle of brownish goo. Cool the outside of the pan with a plunge into cold water (careful not to get any inside with the melted sugar) and stir until it thickens just a bit. Once you've got it here you need to work quickly before the caramel stuff hardens into something akin to enamel. Use a spoon and drizzle the goo onto wax paper. Get crazy with it.

Once you've got out as much as possible, put the pot into the sink and fill it with water. (If you let it soak, changing the water every 10 minutes or so, the sugar will dissolve completely on its own. Good luck trying to clean it any other way.) The sugar will harden and you can break it into decorative pieces. If you're way better than me you can drizzle specific shapes. I just went for the "general chaos" method.

Caution: Once the sugar has completely melted, quit cooking or else it will get a burnt marshmallow taste. (Can you guess how I know that?) Personally, I'm quite the fan of burnt marshmallows, but no one else in my family cares for them too much. Also, the flavor overpowered the entire pop so we had to eat the decoration and pop separately to really appreciate the cheesecake.

After I made the caramel thingies I proceeded to dip the balls, then quickly smoosh a decoration onto it. It was fun. But since our little town didn't have lollipop sticks, I had to use bamboo skewers. This gave it quite a kitchen-weapon sort of feel as I let the dipped pops harden by stabbing the skewers into a block of styrofoam. I quite enjoyed it.

But nothing was enjoyed quite as much as eating those little suckers. Talk about the perfect amount of cheesecake. More than a bite, but not too much that those little thoughts of "this is a lot of cheesecake" creep into your mind. For the next three days or so, after lunch and dinner we'd all reach into the freezer and grab a pop. So good. So delicious. So now a part of my go-to recipe collection.

All in all it took three days, start-to-finish. But it could have been done much shorter than that. The nice part was that it didn't have to be. Of course, leaving the cheesecake pops sans chocolate in the freezer for a week might develop odd flavors, but it's not like bread where you have a specific window of time for the work to be done or it's bye-bye end product.

Here's the recipe and it comes highly recommended by me (my comments in red).

Cheesecake Pops
Makes 30 – 40 Pops

5 8-oz. packages cream cheese at room temperature
2 cups sugar
¼ cup all-purpose flour
¼ teaspoon salt
5 large eggs
2 egg yolks
2 teaspoons pure vanilla extract
¼ cup heavy cream

Boiling water as needed

Thirty to forty 8-inch lollipop sticks

1 pound chocolate, finely chopped – you can use all one kind or half and half of dark, milk, or white (Alternately, you can use 1 pound of flavored coatings, also known as summer coating, confectionary coating or wafer chocolate – candy supply stores carry colors, as well as the three kinds of chocolate.)

2 tablespoons vegetable shortening

(Note: White chocolate is harder to use this way, but not impossible)

Assorted decorations such as chopped nuts, colored jimmies, crushed peppermints, mini chocolate chips, sanding sugars, dragees) - Optional

Position oven rack in the middle of the oven and preheat to 325 degrees F. Set some water to boil.

In a large bowl, beat together the cream cheese, sugar, flour, and salt until smooth. If using a mixer, mix on low speed. Add the whole eggs and the egg yolks, one at a time, beating well (but still at low speed) after each addition. Beat in the vanilla and cream.

Grease a 10-inch cake pan (not a springform pan), and pour the batter into the cake pan. Place the pan in a larger roasting pan. Fill the roasting pan with the boiling water until it reaches halfway up the sides of the cake pan. Bake until the cheesecake is firm and slightly golden on top, 35 to 45 minutes.

Remove the cheesecake from the water bath and cool to room temperature. Cover the cheesecake with plastic wrap and refrigerate until very cold, at least 3 hours or up to overnight.

When the cheesecake is cold and very firm, scoop the cheesecake into 2-ounce balls (Mine were about the size of a large walnut but they only weighed one oz. I think it was the perfect size though. Two ounces would have been pretty darn big.) and place on a parchment paper-lined baking sheet. Carefully insert a lollipop stick into each cheesecake ball. Freeze the cheesecake pops, uncovered, until very hard, at least 1 – 2 hours.

When the cheesecake pops are frozen and ready for dipping, prepare the chocolate. In the top of a double boiler, set over simmering water, or in a heatproof bowl set over a pot of simmering water, heat half the chocolate and half the shortening, stirring often, until chocolate is melted and chocolate and shortening are combined. Stir until completely smooth. Do not heat the chocolate too much or your chocolate will lose it’s shine after it has dried. Save the rest of the chocolate and shortening for later dipping, or use another type of chocolate for variety. (I melted the whole amount at once and working quickly, having enough time to dip them all while the chocolate was still dippable. (Yeah, that' s a word I just made up. I had a bit leftover that I mixed with some almonds for some chocolate-covered almond bark stuff. Don't let good chocolate go to waste.)

Alternately, you can microwave the same amount of chocolate coating pieces on high at 30 second intervals, stirring until smooth.

Quickly dip a frozen cheesecake pop in the melted chocolate, swirling quickly to coat it completely. Shake off any excess into the melted chocolate. If you like, you can now roll the pops quickly in optional decorations. You can also drizzle them with a contrasting color of melted chocolate (dark chocolate drizzled over milk chocolate or white chocolate over dark chocolate, etc.) Place the pop on a clean parchment paper-lined baking sheet to set. Repeat with remaining pops, melting more chocolate and shortening (or confectionary chocolate pieces) as needed.

Refrigerate the pops for up to 24 hours, until ready to serve.

Eighty percent sounds pretty good, right?

Want a difficult quiz? Play the Paint Game. I got an eighty percent. Wrong, that is. The quiz is based on names of paint colors. You match the name to the correct color. Sounds easy enough until they throw out names like Pebble Mosaic and Russian Velvet. I mean what color fits both Shangrila Silk and Delhi Bazaar? (answer in comments)

Try it out, it's pretty fun (or frustrating, depending on which side of the personality spectrum you fall on.)

For the reader who doesn't think they have enough information on "Who Tricia Is"

Sometimes I am blown away by how narcissistic blogging is. "Hello world! Here I am. I am so important in my own eyes that I think my contemplations are significant enough to share with the world. I expect the world to read my compositions and care enough to comment on them."

But I digress...

The following information is what I really wanted to disseminate. (Isn't disseminate a great word? I learned it while working for the National Weather Service in college. I love that word.)

[MAIN POST SUBJECT]
In case you didn't notice, I put an About Me page on the blog. (The link is right under the blog title on the left hand side.) Just in case you want to know a bunch of Tricia trivia, like how I have an affinity for the words trivia and pediatrician because one is almost the same as my name and the other has my name in it. (Consider that a bonus, it isn't on the list.) Just in case you care...the option is available.
[END MAIN POST SUBJECT]

(I read somewhere on some blog that it is a good idea to have an About Me page. Lets readers know who you are. This is the product of my obedience.)

Choice Goods Wednesday?

I've been thinking...you know that whole 'quantity vs quality' issue? I've been thinking about it. And this is my conclusion: I don't know if I can recommend 52 items every year. That's a lot of stuff to really love. And I don't want to put stuff up that I like right now but am hoping I find something better. I want things that are so good I would be pretty darn surprised to find something better. So my conclusion? I'm going to have Choice Goods days. Not Wednesdays but Days. That way I can write about the things that truly are extraordinary. Do you agree? I hope so.

I'm glad I got that off my chest. I'm sure you're just as relieved.

So with that in mind...no choice good this week. But I promise you, when I have one, it will be choice!

Dug and Tricia vs The World, part 5 - Beer, Waffles and Chocolate Minus the Beer

I promise I'll finish the Kruger safari post at some point, but I'm having trouble accessing the pics. Something is wrong with our CD-ROM drive. (Who knows what the kids did to it.) For right now, I'm going to move on to Brussels.

On our return trip we had a 24-hr layover in Brussels, Belgium. Since Dug practically lived in Oklahoma last year, he has amassed quite a hefty sum of Marriott points. We decided that we would spend the day in Brussels, sleep in a hotel and then catch our flight home the next day. By using his Marriott points, we were able to book a room in the Brussels Marriott Hotel right in the middle of Brussels in the Grand Place. (This is the central market square and major tourist spot of the city.) We didn't even know how much it cost because we used his points and since he's a platinum member they upgrade our room automatically. (Later we found out the cheapest room was 489 euros a night! That's 773 US dollars, baby!) Anyway...

From the airport, we bought a ticket into the center of Brussels. Unfortunately we didn't know which side of the platform we were supposed to catch the train from. (There trains on both sides.) And of course, everything is in French and Flemish. (I only know rudimentary Spanish and it didn't help. The people who say Spanish and French are so similar are either big, fat liars or pretentious linguists who want you to know how smart they are.) Lucky for us a friendly English-speaker pointed us to the right train.

After getting off at our stop we come out of the railway station into the sun only to realize that we didn't get the address of our hotel before we left. Well, to be totally honest, we thought that since the website said it was located "at the Grand Place" that it would be somewhat easy to find. Right? (Keep your laughter to a minimum please.) Nope.

Undaunted, we started walking towards the tallest steeple we could find. (The Grand Place has these huge gothic buildings surrounding it and we knew that if we found them, we were at least somewhat in the right vicinity.) Before I go any further, I need to explain to you the nature of the streets of Brussels. Imagine a wagon wheel. Every intersection was like a wagon wheel and when you walked to the end of the "spoke" you were at another wagon wheel. And every spoke had a different name. That was Brussels. Even if we did have the address it was of no use since the roads didn't extend far enough to be followed for any sizable distance. I'm thinking that if you mapquested an address you would need about two pages to get you a mile.
Turn left onto Rue A. (0.1 m)
Turn right onto Rue B. (0.1m)
Turn right onto Rue C. (0.1 m)
Straight onto Rue D. (0.1 m)
Sl right onto Rue E. (0.1 m)
Are you starting to understand?

After asking a very friendly guy trying to sell us a guided bus tour we were pointed in what we hoped was the right direction. We did reach the Grand Place and it was breath-taking. I had to keep reminding myself that this wasn't a European theme park but it was the real deal. Although most of the people were tourists, I knew that some of these people really lived here, with the beautiful buildings and uneven but beautiful cobble streets. Seriously, the buildings were amazing. I thought the ones in DC were gorgeous, but they paled in comparison with Brussels.

We saw two policemen and asked them if they knew where the Marriott was. (Traveling tip: Whatever country you are in, try speaking English in their accent. They understand you much better.) Dug asked, "Do you know where the Marriott is?" *blank stare from policeman* "The Marriott? Hotel?" *policeman's brow furrows, head tilts and leans forward slightly* I ventured with my best French accent, "Meh-dee-ote?" (I know it doesn't look like it, but try saying it quickly out loud.) *suddenly comprehension dawns on his face and he nods in agreement* "Yes," he says. "Marriott!" I know at this moment Dug was thinking, "Yeah, that's what I've been saying the whole time!"

Now the policeman are giving directions in tandem. You know when one says something and then the other agrees and then gives their input which the other corrects in which they both agree that that one was right and then one gives the next direction...and the whole time they really aren't looking at you but having a conversation about the best way to give directions. Luckily Dug was here, because I really didn't get a lot of what they said. I just tried to remember important words. I heard one that sounded like Bus. I'm assuming we should look for a bus stop. And then they said the kicker, "Eet is next to zee MacDonald's!"

Of course it was next to McDonalds! We're Americans, why would they put any other kind of restaurant next to an American hotel? Even if you shell out over $700/night for the cheap rooms. Oh well, it is a good landmark you must admit.

So we followed what we understood of their directions and found that we were darn close to our hotel already. We walked a few "blocks" and we saw a sign that said "Bourse/Beurs." Aha! Our "bus." We were on the right track. And then, there across the street, we saw them. Those dang-blasted golden arches. And right above them, the word Marriott. Our search was at an end.

After checking in and showering off the filth of the last twenty hours of air travel we talked to the concierge. He suggested a few sites we could see and armed with a map, we were off. The first place he suggested we visit was the Grand Sablon. It was also the farthest so we thought we might start there and then hit the other sights on the way back.

The streets were so fascinating. The shortest buildings were five stories and all were squished together, and the road itself was quite narrow. That coupled with the seeming random angles of the streets made you feel like you were in a maze. We had almost made it to Sablon when I took the time to read the "Use This To Not Only Feel Like a Tourist But Look Like One, Too" map. Uh oh.
"Um, Dug."
"Yeah."
"I don't think we want to go to Sablon."
"Why not?"
"Let me read the description to you: 'This is a veritable Mecca of antique dealers...'"
I didn't have to read any further. I like browsing almost any type of shopping venue, while Dug is not so keen. But that wasn't really the big deal. Dug is not a fan of antiques. And since I'm not a huge antique person, either, we knew this wasn't the best use of our few precious Belgian hours. Now to form a new plan of attack.

But first, some energy! We had been smelling this amazing aroma and to our left and right, people were passing us with delicious piles of whipped cream and chocolate in their hands. As we turned a corner, there on our left was a waffle vendor. What are the three big Belgian favorites? Beer (yuck!), Chocolate and Waffles! We stopped and ordered a waffle with whipped cream and caramel. I can't even begin to describe how delicious it was. I don't want to know what it was made with, either. Something that rich and mmmmm can only be made with exceptionally high quantities of fat and sugar.

Our bellies laden with supreme deliciousness, we decided on the new target: Museum of Modern Art. We found it, but it was not easy. Our map said it was "there" but when we got "there," no museum. After a bit of "Let's Try This Way." We stumbled, quite by accident, upon the entrance. There were two options: Ancient and Modern. We decided to attack chronologically. Ancient.

In the first main atrium-type room we saw this beautiful shimmering green globe-like thing. (This ended up being my favorite piece.) When you got up to it, you could see that the entire thing was covered in beetles. It was beautiful and yet disturbing. The colors were amazing and yet they were dead beetles. (To be accurate, it was just their exoskeleton.) I was fascinated and yet repelled at the same time. If you will please forgive me, I forgot to note its name and artist, but after a little research, I'm fairly confident it was done by Jan Fabre.

We spent a few hours there and had only made it through the Ancient section when we decided to wind our way back to the hotel. By the time we got back it would be about right for some din-din. (That's 'dinner' for those who don't know.) More or less, the route back went past one of the main landmarks in Brussels: the Mannekin Pis. It is THE little statue of a young boy peeing into the fountain basin. I wasn't especially excited to see him, but since he was on the way...we did. Unfortunately he was dressed up as some sort of neon leprechaun, but we can check See Mannekin Pis off our Things To Do Before We Die list now.


We also stopped at this chocolate shop called Planete Chocolat. (waffles: check! chocolate: check!) We had just missed the Tasting Session, bummer! The two salespeople were super friendly although they barely spoke English and we didn't speak French, but they gave us some hot chocolate and some samples while we shopped. I was asking the main guy if they had almond but he didn't understand "almond." So I found this bag containing disks of chocolate with a variety of nuts sitting on top. I pointed to the almond and asked, "How do you say 'almond' in French?" He said, "Ohhh, that is ahl-mahnd." I almost laughed out loud. But once again, proof that if you speak with a French accent, French speakers will understand you better.

Our hotel was just a few blocks from this area called St. Catherine's which apparently is home to a well-known street of restaurants. As we walked around a corner, suddenly this huge gothic silhouette dominated our view. (It was the darker side of evening.) Aha! This must be the area's namesake, the church of St. Catherine. Walking past the church we were greeted by the restaurant district. There were two streets in parallel; a large cobblestone open area nestled in between the streets. Restaurant after restaurant lined both sides. How were we to choose? Especially since all the little chalkboard signs put out on the sidewalks were written in very foofy, French cursive that I couldn't read. Luckily, about half the restaurants were closed since it was late Sunday evening but that only narrowed our choices down to about fifteen. There was another problem, as well. The concierge didn't tell us that this was the famous "fish" row. Dug, although the chap was raised in Alaska, doesn't like fish. And that was the dominating feature of every menu. We crossed over to the other street and started checking those out as well. One stood out to us, something "d'or."

We had tried to look up good Belgian restaurants before we left the hotel but it was too difficult. Dug wrote down a few from Lonely Planet.com and we decided to put our trust in the concierge. I remembered one of the high-rated ones was something "d'or." (That restaurant and the one we were at were not the same, by the way. But that's how we finally made our decision.) That and the fact that its logo had a pig on it led us to finally choose this restaurant. If it has a pig, it probably has more choices than just fish, right? Wrong. Dug pretty much had his choice of three types of steak, that's it. I chose the Sole, but in hindsight I could have just eaten the bread and been happy. It was sooooo good. The butter was even delicious-er than any other butter I've ever had. Dinner was absolutely yummy.

The rest of the trip was uneventful except that Dug misread our flight departure time by 40 minutes and we were almost late for the train back to the airport which, although one leaves every 30 minutes, we would have been too late to catch our flight. But we weren't and we didn't.

One more "memory": As we were in the train, passing various Brussel streets, right off the track was what I thought was a lingerie store mannequin in the window. But it moved! And then I saw there were more! There was a whole street of store fronts with scantily-clad women in the windows advertising their "wares." I was unable to take my eyes away. Dug and I whipped our head towards each other, silmultaneously asking, "Did you see that?!" Ahhhh Europe.

endnote: Thank goodness we were only in Brussels for 24 hrs. We bought one bag of chocolate and ate one meal. The grand total for those two things? $200! The chocolate alone was $70 and what we bought could have fit in a lunch bag. (It was soooo good, though. Dang! It was good!)

Tools of the Trade - Reducing Sibling Fighting

I've decided to discontinue Factoid Friday. If I run into super-interesting facts, I'll just let you know, instead of having a feature. What I thought would be more helpful would be to post the things I've learned that have made my life easier. My 'tools of the trade' so to speak.

Something I found on the internet that I've tweaked so much that I can rightly call my own is "Kid of the Day." How it works is this: Each day is a different kid's "day." This means that if there is a decision to be made, they get to make it. Things like who gets the middle seat in the van, what kind of sandwiches we have for lunch, what movie they get to watch or who gets to sit by Mommy at dinner time. They will still argue, but when the all powerful phrase, "It's MY day!" is said, the argument is over. The trump card has been played. Each day it rotates, crowning the next kid decision-maker of the day. Of course this doesn't get rid of all fighting, but it does reduce specific recurring instances of fighting and whining. They know that their day is coming and they will get to choose what they want.

I've also added this philosophy to chores. There are certain chores that must be done everyday. I've divided them into four groups and each kid is assigned one group a day. It rotates with the "day's" kid getting the easy stuff. For example: If it's your day you get 1. clean the table off after meals 2. pick up toys/sweep the kitchen 3. day off of unloading dishwasher (we have 4 kids and 3 dishwasher zones) 4. pick up hall/stairs/landing.

Other kids get:

• kid #2 - 1. wash table 2. pick up/sweep dining room 3. unload top of dishwasher 4. set napkins/silverware for dinner
• kid #3 - 1. switch laundry to dryer 2. pick up/sweep back porch 3. unload bottom of dishwasher 4. set plates/cups out for dinner
• kid #4 - 1. make couch pillows look nice 2. pick up/sweep living room 3. unload silverware 4. set condiments etc. out for dinner
  

At left is our old chore list. (I'm currently working on the new one. This list has been in use for a little over a year and needed to be updated.) The "kid of the day" is upper left. I have four copies of the list attached to that ring. The only difference between them is that the names are rotated one spot on each subsequent copy. I also use a different color for each kid so that the non-readers can tell when it is "their day." The one in the photo is colored blue for my youngest boy. (The names are colored out to protect the not-so-innocent.) Each morning, I flip the page revealing the new "Kid of the Day" as well as everyone's daily ration of chores.

The kids have really taken to this and not only keep impeccable track of whose "day" it is, but have memorized what chores go with which day. (i.e. If it was my day yesterday, then I unload the top of the dishwasher today.) The chart itself is almost superfluous as we rarely have to consult it anymore.

If you're in need of a kid chore-management system or want a trick to help make kid decisions, try it out. If you already have something that works, let me know. My philosophy on this whole home-management job (as well as life in general) is that I use whatever works best...until something better comes along.