I Would Happily Pay Someone $4 to Clean Up After Us

Remember the old Family Circle comics where Billy meandered all around the place, leaving a path of destruction behind him everywhere he went? He couldn't just walk straight from the bus stop to the house. No, he had run in circles around the fire hydrant, cross the street to pet the dog, stop on the other side of the street to play basketball, and so on. What could have been a short and straight-forward existence was instead very ... Billy.

I've never related to a cartoon quite like I do that one, but not because I don't take the direct path but rather because Mila.

Oh, Mila.

She travels that meandering path everywhere she goes. It is most evident when she's home and has free time on her hands because she goes from one room to another, leaving a mess in her wake. First the LEGO blocks are fun, but then there's television to watch, wait it's time to chase a dog, and there are snacks to be had. After the snacks, it's off to play Nintendo before reading a book and undressing approximately 400 dolls, which must then be strewn across the entire house because who doesn't enjoy finding naked dolls in every single room?

Basically, she's a slob. I assume she'll grow out of it, or grow out of my house so I don't have to care. In the meantime, I constantly have to remind her to clean up after herself. CONSTANTLY. I would like to not remind her, but I don't enjoy stepping on naked dolls and I'm certainly not cleaning them up. So.

Mila needs to clean up after herself. It's a thing.

For the most part, she's relatively cooperative. It probably has a little to do with that standing threat that I will throw away any toys left on the floor. I will do it, Mila is aware that it isn't an empty threat, and therefore there is generally peace. (A reminder: this rule has existed forever. Alexis once exploited it for evil.)

But her bedroom.

For reasons beyond my comprehension, Mila will not clean her room without being hounded 500,000 times. FWIW, part of my "clean up rules" include "you have space that is your own that you can trash," which means Alexis is free to leave her bedroom as awful as she would like. It also means Mila can clean up her damn bedroom because she had slob bedroom privileges revoked after sneaking food up there and leaving wrappers under piles of clothes.

I don't do bugs in my house. Leaving food wrappers lying around is basically begging for an army of ants to come on in and do the cha-cha. So. Privileges revoked until I determine they can be reinstated. It will likely be in about 15 years.

ANYWAY.

This weekend was one of those weekends when I had to yell and be annoying. Mila was very not amused and felt the need to inform me that she REALLY doesn't like cleaning so no thanks. She genuinely thought that saying she didn't like cleaning up her own filth was a good enough reason to leave said filth there.

Yeah ... no. That's not how it worked out for her.

But on the way to doing exactly what I told her to do, Mila came up with one very excellent way of solving the whole problem. "Mom, I have $4. How about I give you that $4 and YOU clean my room?"

Mila is going to make an amazing boss someday.

Blackberry Lemon Cake

Two things happened in the past few weeks:

1. Blackberries were on sale at Fresh Thyme for like $0.99 per package, which meant I had to buy ALL of them.

2. Alexis was somehow stunned that I know how to make a good lemon cake.

Those two things came together and resulted in me documenting this recipe. For what it's worth, Alexis, raspberries would also work or skip the berries all together. This is just a solid lemon cake recipe.

Blackberry Lemon Cake

1 pint blackberries
1 1/1 cups all-purpose flour
1 1/2 teaspoons baking powder
Lemon zest from two lemons
1/2 teaspoon salt
1/2 cup butter, room temperature
1 cup sugar
2 large eggs
1 teaspoon pure vanilla extract
Lemon juice from 1 1/2 lemons
1/2 cup buttermilk

Glaze
1 cup powdered sugar
Lemon juice from 1/2 lemon
1 tablespoon milk

1. Preheat the oven to 350° F. Coat a 8x8" pan with butter.

2. In a medium mixing bowl, whisk together the flour, baking powder, lemon zest, and salt.

3. In a separate large mixing bowl, mix together the sugar and butter until creamy. Slowly add the eggs and mix some more and then add the vanilla extract and lemon while mixing some more.

4. Keep mixing the moist (... and I still hate that word) ingredients while slowly adding the dry ingredients. Once all of that is happy and smooth, add the buttermilk and mix just a bit more.

5. Toss the blackberries in the bottom of your buttered pan. Pour the cake mix over top.

6. Bake for 35-40 minutes at 350­° or until a toothpick comes out clean.

7. Allow the cake together to cool completely.

8. Mix the glaze ingredients together with a fork. Invert the cake onto a plate and slowly pour the glaze over top. If you're like me and consistently make the glaze too runny no matter how carefully you measure all of the things, just add a little more powdered sugar.

Crossing Bridges