Here's your sign!

  There are several times in a mother life of raising children that you feel as though you are literally a 

Broken Record!  

From the time our kids were old enough to read, I would occasionally put signs around the house to remind them to do, or not to do something.  They were not difficult, time consuming things, just your average ordinary, common sense things that every human ought to know how to do.  Or things that pertained to life at the time.  Things like...put your dirty clothes in the hamper.  Or, clean up after yourself.  Or, don't spear toothpaste all over the counter or sink. 
Or, this is a trashcan, use it!  Or don't watch junk on TV.  
Stay out of the bottled water (this one is because the kids seem to think that the bottled water is for them to use whenever they want to, as well as offer it to all of the neighborhood kids, which I wouldn't mind IF they would actually drink the whole bottle!!

See, not horrible things, just self maintaining, logical things.  In addition to putting these signs around the house, I would also put "nice" signs around them too.  Things like, I love you, 
You are loved, 
Have a good day, Remember who you are, etc.

This was my way of not having to repeat myself, over and over and over again.  I'm sure they got sick of hearing me say the same things and I found that I got sick of hearing myself say them too.

This is referring to our furnace room/food room.  That room is vented to the outside so it is always cold.  If the door stays open, it makes the whole basement cold.

Now, the question is, did these signs help?  Yes, for a while.  This was never meant to be a long term fix, just a little something different to shake up the routine a bit.  The long term fix comes when they move out and I no longer have to tell them the same bless-ed stuff over and over again!  Just ask Sarah!  Amanda is waiting, ever so "patiently" to be the next one that I stop nagging.  But until then, I get to nag, nag, nag whether with signs or verbally, and they'll thank me one day.  Okay, that day will most likely be when they are nagging their kids and putting signs all over their homes.