At the bottom of the pile of laundry, was more laundry...

I've been cleaning all day and the house is still a wreck. How?
Here is what I have already done...

*Two dishwasher loads of dishes
*Four loads of laundry (washed, dried, folded) - still in progress
*Cleaned bathroom (swept, mopped, toilet, counter)
*Cleaned laundry room floors (swept, mopped)
*Vacuumed both living rooms and dining room
*Shampooed out stains in front living room and dining room (the one in the dining room was a VERY large mysterious stain that I swear looked like something invisible had laid down and died on our carpet. Very strange)
*I am too scared to clean the children's rooms. Dylan's is not as bad as Elizabeth's, since I pick his room up every night. But, her room is a PIGSTY! Toys! Clothes! Shoes! Who knows!

I also already made breakfast (french toast) and lunch (mac and cheese) for the whole family, and cleaned that up. Dinner is in the crock pot (beef stroganoff, yummy) and I straightened up the kitchen counter/junk accumulation station so it's just ONE pile of various papers and things. Yay!

Needless to say, I'm exhausted now. My legs and feet HURT!
Baby is kicking like crazy.

I also devoted quite a large part of my day to fly eradication.
Somehow, we've become QUITE the spot to be if you're a fly in Northeastern Arizona.
There has to be 500 million flies outside my front door right now.
The eradication effort has been about a weeklong undertaking, but the pinnacle was definitely today.
They are gathering right where the garbage can was. So two days ago we moved the can. The flies stayed.
We hosed down the whole area around the garbage cans. Multiple times a day.
The flies stayed.
We moved a piece of wood that seemed to be attracting the flies. The flies STAYED!

I hung up oh-so-attractive sticky fly paper. No flies stuck on the paper, but the flies stayed.
I dumped bleach on the flies.
I dumped vinegar on the flies.
I sprayed the flies with FLY KILLING SPRAY.
The flies did not die.
I convinced Robert not to pour gasoline on the whole area and light it ablaze. Seriously, he was getting that desperate.

The only sure-fire way to kill them, we found, was to swat them with a flyswatter. Though as effective and satisfying that was, we discovered that when it was two against 500 million, it was not very EFFICIENT.

So today we moved on to homemade fly traps.
We have several working right now.

Molasses and cornmeal paste trap
Sugar water and vinegar in a bottle trap
Just sugar water in a bottle trap
Maple syrup in a bowl trap
Pickle jar of yeast and water trap

So far, no traps have actually trapped a fly. Not ONE. NOT ONE SINGLE FLY! These are all bonafide traps, not just crazy things we dreamed up. Internet inspired traps having (so far) failed to make a dent in the fly population....

....we moved on to deterrents.
We hung a gallon sized ziploc freezer bag half full of water over the infested area.
We hung a scarf with sequins all over it over the infested area.
We hung an old CD over the infested area.

All with the same purpose...to cast weird patterns of light and shadow that the flies are apparently convinced is a giant spiderweb or a giant mutated killer fly or something and they are scared and leave the area.

Results still pending...stay tuned.


In other news:
Bless her heart, my little girl is such a sweet doll baby.
In an attempt to reduce our power bill, however insignificantly, I have strung up two clotheslines in the back yard.
No HOAs here. I can do whatever I want! Ha!
Anyway...
I hung a load of wash out to dry this morning and just went out to take it in. Elizabeth begged to help me take the clothes down even though she a) can't reach the lines and b) always ends up dropping the clothes on the ground.
I said she could help. Then she disappeared into her room. Like I said before, the disaster area.
I finished folding the laundry pile I was already working on and then went outside and took down all the dry clothes.
As I'm bringing in the basket, Elizabeth comes running over from her room in hysterics!
I'm worried that she has hurt herself or seen a giant rat...that is how badly she is crying.
I drop the basket and she runs into my arms sobbing.

"Yooooooou went outsiiiiiiiiide without meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!!! Yooou said I could heeeeeeeeeeeeelp!! Waaaaaaaaaaaaah!!!!!!!!!!!"

Oh dear.

I had to promise to let her help me hang up and take in the next load of laundry AND give her a free pass to call my mom to "tell on me" AND let her have some Smarties candy to get her to stop crying hysterically.

Such a sweet little kid.