Housekeeping!
Oct 13, 2007 Lots of folks out there talking about how to keep a house clean. My philosophy is, try to do a little bit every day so things don’t add up. Some weeks, I practice this philosophy better than others, and, while my house is not immaculate, I really don’t fear having a guest “drop in” unannounced most days. I’ve gotten into the habit of having the kids sweep the living room of their toys every evening and to clean their rooms and make up their beds every morning.
(I do confess that I don’t usually make up the bed, Jim does. Like my mother, I hate making up the bed. I only found this secret out about my mom on our last trip to North Carolina to see them. She thinks it’s stupid to make up the bed because you’re only going to get back into it and mess it up. A point of view I heartily agree with…yet she made us make up our beds when we were kids. Why? Why do we torture our children so? To teach them responsibility, I guess. After all, much of life is made up of meaningless chores. It’s the stuff in between that can get interesting…but teaching them to have a task and stick to it every day will probably serve them well later in their. I won’t care if they don’t make up their beds when their grownups as long as they turn out to be responsible grown ups. I think that, unfortunately, that means giving them a few meaningless chores and holding the responsible for them with all due loss of privileges when the “forget them” when they’re young.)
My problem of late is what to do with the numerous pieces of paper with art projects scrawled on them that now occupy the house. The kids have seen a relative explosion in creativity lately. Ana’s piano skills seem to be improving (I’m biased, of course) and both children enjoy drawing, especially now that they are learning how in school. Mike always left little pieces of paper everywhere and I would pile them up in his room and then eventually throw them away. I don’t know what to do with Ana and David’s since they are here every day and produce much larger amounts of paper waste. Accordion file maybe…for each kid.
Suggestions from you other creative types are appreciated!
Reader Comments (16)
Maybe you could teach them about scrapbooking? I suppose one argument for making kids make the bed, even if the adults don't is, their friends are more likely to come over and spend time in their bedroom :-)
The kids would only make more mess with a scrap book...
I also doubt that other kids would mind if the beds weren't made...:)
My mother also insisted on a made bed. Hers was always perfect and wanted mine to be too. I don't have room in my life to worry about it much, so I just pull up the covers and call it good. I try to get the children to do the same, but am horribly inconsistent about it, which means, I guess, that I don't care too much!
The paper issue...there's a tough one. I explain to my children that there is no possible way we can keep every single thing, otherwise we would literally drown in paper. I do throw stuff out behind their backs...how many drawings do I need of the same exact flower or rocketship? Sometimes we go through it together and I ask them to pick their two or three favorites of any given pile. I picked up a couple of large posterboard art carriers at an art supply store to store the larger stuff in. For school stuff, I pretty much save everything all year then go through it in the summer and keep the "highlights" or whatever. It's just too much stuff, is my opinion. :)
I have to throw stuff away behind their backs because if I discuss it with them all civilized like...then they want to keep everything.
Now here's a dilemma for you...do I throw away Ana's attempts at copying icons?
I may look for one of those posterboard portfolio deals...homesechooling stuff I do the same thing with. Our house is small so I can't really keep everything. Although at some point I an see the homeschooling stuff needing its own file cabinet.
My kids just pull up the covers on their beds. Anything else is overkill, in my opinion.
That's a good question...kind of in the same vein as what do we do with the weekly church bulletins we get that have icons on them? (We try to recycle.) So to answer your question, I'd say recycle. Some of them might be fun to save for the future to compare how her talent has developed. Even when recycling, or throwing away stuff like that, I say a prayer for mercy at not knowing what to do, and for my callous heart and all my wastefulness and such. I'd be interested to hear anyone else's thoughts on this!
I thought that burning was the status quo. Although, I seriously doubt that anyone at our parish is burning the bulletins with icons on the front. Which is why I won't touch the things! :) If we do bring them home, I've been burning them.
Wellllll, I found out one week (when I tried to take a bunch home to recycle) that Dr. Pat saves the discarded bulletins and keeps the icons in a file for Sunday School projects. (Yes, the file is alphabetized. That woman is amazing!) I know what you mean; I do feel guilty every time I throw one in the recycling bin. I was thinking about this last night after Vespers as I gathered up the choir bulletins, which we use once for about 45 minutes -- and laid out the Matins bulletins, which we use for about half an hour longer -- and collected various other pieces of paper from the choir / chanter areas. It is wasteful. Blame the culture -- emphasis on temporary, instant, discardable.
When we made the Holy Icons books for the kids at church, I thought, "What a great idea! We should make some smaller ones to give to parents whenever they have a new baby." I went so far as to save a big pile and meticulously cut them out -- and there they sit at the bottom of my box of unfinished art projects. Lord, have mercy!
Like Jim, I try to avoid bringing home bulletins. (That's partly why I like getting it by e-mail, so I can print out the prayer requests section and delete the rest in good conscience.) When I do bring one home, or I get something with icons on it, I try to remember to save them in a file. Since I don't have many icons around the house anyway, I figure they might come in handy for something. You might ask an iconographer what they do with their practice runs, mistakes, etc. They must have well-defined policies.
As for the other stuff, if you have a scanner, one option would be to scan everything your kids make. If you archive to a CD periodically, you don't have to worry about consuming space on your hard drive or around the house.
Rabit trail alert:
Hmm... well this raises an interesting question. If one deletes an icon from their computer, is that the same as 'destroying' the image?
Honestly, if we're sinning by casually throwing bulletins with holy images on them (and I'm of the opinion that we're are), what about holy images made of pixels instead of paint? How far does one take this?
Well, the e-mailed bulletin doesn't have the cover art, so no problem there. I think at some point we have to draw a line before insanity sets in. Isn't a lot of the issue with icons and other holy items what might happen to them after they're thrown away? When you delete an electronic file, it's gone. If there's any digital equivalent to burning them, what else would it be? And seriously, who's going to be able to keep track of every electronic icon? If you view it on a Web site, your browser typically stores it in a cache. Eventually, that cache deletes itself. So you'd have to back up your cache or disable it altogether. But that raises another issue. Just backing up a file doesn't solve anything, because the original copy still gets destroyed.
This is reminiscent of the Orthodox Jewish debate over writing the name of God digitally. Orthodox Jews tend to avoid writing the name of God, because once you do, you can't destroy the text it's written in. (This, BTW, is how we know as much as we do about early Jewish literature--some significant finds involving the recovery of receptacles where old texts were laid to rest.) So you'll see them write things like "G-d" to avoid the hassle. I came across a Web site one time with this big explanation about how they followed the view that it's OK to write it digitally, but they warned against printing it out, since the rules change once it's on paper. I hope we don't have to get into that kind of hair-splitting!
agreed: I hope we don't go there either. But if anyone has gone there, I'd bet its our ROCOR friends! ;) Perhaps I'll dig around the web a bit and see what's out there...
Dr. Pat does have a huuuge pile of those things for projects. I have 2 boxes of unused bulletin covers sitting in basement. I keep them in case I need them for bulletins. We could have a regular bonfire with them!
Ana and I did go through some of her artwork yesterday and managed to cull some of it. We kept her "first picture of Jesus" though. I may talk to Carolyn the next time I see her in case her desire to copy icons continues. Obviously, Ana's not following the protocol for icon painting so I'm not sure how that effects the disposal of her attempts.
Re: Ana's icon copying and the bulletin. I discussed this with my priest. He said that since the bulletins are not blessed it is okay to throw them out in the garbage. ONLY when something has been blessed must they be burned. Thus I would suspect one can apply the same instructions to ana's icon copying.
Re: Kid's art work. My firm policy was and still is, the art work hung on the fridge for a week. Then it was taken down and discarded. Of course, I kept only the really really special ones. But I was ruthless. It sounds like your children produce more than a refrigerator worth of art in a week. I'd hang only the very best and and toss the rest.
But then again, I grew up with a pack rat Mother. Consequently, I toss/recycle/donate if it hasn't been used/worn/whatever in 2 years.
Thats generous! We go about 6 months. Or rather, if it's been in the back of the basement (storage) for more than six months, then we obviously don't need it; so out it goes.
I disagree with your priest. A holy image is a holy image, is it not? For example, someone paints an icon on a narthex wall. The blessing of the icon is on Sunday. But on Saturday some rogue youths spray paint the icon with nasty words. So, because they spray painted it before it was blessed they've done nothing sacrilegious? That seems odd. But what do I know... :)
I seem to recall encountering a difference of views on this issue. I suppose the best thing is to go with whatever one's priest says. Personally, I have several icons that have never been blessed, at least not since I owned them. (And they were all bought new, so that decreases the odds that anything was done before I got them.) I treat them just the same as the one that has.
But we seem to be dealing with at least four categories here. One is an icon that was made intentionally and blessed by a priest. Another is an icon that was made intentionally, with all the appropriate prayers by the iconographer, but not blessed by a priest. A third is an icon that was mass-reproduced, probably copied from an original that was made intentionally, if not also blessed by a priest, but the mass reproduction was done unceremoniously. A fourth is a child's attempt to copy an icon, mostly as an exercise. (This last category probably fits together with any practice exercises used by a professional iconographer.) I guess my personal inclination is to treat any of them with appropriate respect, but probably allow that the first two are somehow different from the others. Or, more simply, go with whatever one's priest says :-)
A great discussion. I think we have to be careful not to become legalistic while we affirm principles. (In my mind that SEEMS to be the Orthodox way) I think it was St. John of Damascus, in defending iconophilism, said somethign to the effect that he venerates two stick of wood that come together as a cross, but if they break and come apart, he then throws them away.....
We believe in holy things, and should do what we can to respect them. But this is only pointing to the fact that ALL matter is made by God and is sacred.
Also there is an earlier tradition of the Church, that the icons are holy because of who they depict....not because of the priest's blessing. This is a latter tradition brought in from the RC. Not saying it is wrong, but it needs to be kept in perspective.