once upon a saturday

today i woke to busy my hands with cinnamon rolls and scrambled eggs...i've been sick this week and have spent every productive moment available looking for a new place for us to land february 1st (our current wonderful rental situation sadly expires then).  so rhett and i have been pouring over craigslist and the penny savers looking for a new nest so our current nest has gotten pretty...umm...we'll just say unkempt.  everyone around these parts knows you have to have a clean house to have fun (duh) so our weekend looked to be full of chores...

 lucky for my lil family i grew up with 3 very fun, very wonderful sisters.  what did we do when we had to do chores on a saturday morning???  well, whine.  but after that we all got to work (except for savannah) and we MADE IT FUN.  i think, if there are people and music ANYTHING can be fun.  

so this morning (just like my sisters and i) my family started out whining...but coming from a long line of funmakers i decided to turn this thing around.  and soooo we had a chore draft.  

what is a chore draft?   well ours looked something like this.

i trust that you will make yours much more attractive than my purple marker on scrap paper BUT this worked this morning for us.  here's what we did:

*first we wrote all the chores that needed to be done on the list

*then we played rock paper scissors for who had the first pick of the draft

*the first person selected their first pick...then the second...then the third...then the fourth...

*this part gets tricky now...then the fourth person goes again...that's right they get two picks in a row...then the 3rd then the 2nd then the first...then the first again.  my fantasy football loving husband tells me that this is called a snake draft and it helps things feel a bit more fair.
*we just circled the chore we chose and wrote our name next to it to remember which were ours.

*don't forget to declare the rules of the race--for those rule followers like my husband it helps keep things simple and argument free.  our rules were just that we'd each check over each other's chores...not to be picky but just to make sure they were done. oh and that trades were okay if both parties agreed.

*then we declared that the winner of S.M.D.C.C. (saturday morning dickens chore championship) would be queen or king for the rest of the day! 
*lastly we turned the music up way too loud and we started the RACE!

i should probably add a lil note for moms here.  at this time please take your expectations for how the house should look when you are done and lower it--juuuuuust a bit.  do your best to remember this:

good enough + fun = wonderful 

but...

good enough + a nit picky mom = TERRIBLE!

and THAT is our chore draft...aka how to save your saturday.

now i should clarify that my daughter is a very helpful 10 year old and she drafted from the chore list just like my hubby and i.  things that actually needed done.  but 4 year old wonderboy had a list of his own.  it had things like, clean the bathtubs (with a sponge and squirtbottle of water), wipe off the washer and dryer (because who cares if that is done well) and clean out his toy box (to find toys he no longer likes and plays with).  so just amend the list as needed to fit your family and keep things fun and productive.

we had SUCH a fun time drafting and talking over our strategies.  we were done in about 45 minutes and off to do fun saturday things with a perfectly clean house.  LOVED IT.  try making your chore filled saturday fun.  lemme know what you come up with so i have something different to do next saturday;)