A snapshot of life (02/16/2011)

Recently a few blogs that I read have shared snapshots of their days, and how they generally proceed/put their days together, etc. I've enjoyed reading them so much, I thought I'd do the same here. I wasn't 100% sold on the idea until I thought about the fact that I would love to look back at this post in 5 years, and remember these days and all they contain.

My days usually start with pulling on one of my favorite pairs of socks--my Smartwools. Then I head out to the kitchen for my coffee. During the week, I always set up the coffeemaker to go off for when Frank gets up, then he resets the timer so it will still be warm for me before he leaves for work. My current allotment of coffee is two cups... I've worked myself back from four. When I realized that my morning routine time management was directly proportional to the amount of coffee I was drinking, I had to cut back a bit. I love coffee.

I usually curl up on my couch with my coffee, my breakfast, my blankie, my blackberry and a stack of books. My Bible first, my current reading choice (currently Kathleen Norris, Acedia & Me), and a magazine of some choice. Right now it's House Beautiful, but my subscriptions also include Sunset Magazine, and The Old Schoolhouse--usually I'm working my way through one of those a few pages at a time.

First cup of Coffee and Breakfast are for my Bible. Currently I'm working my way through Job. My goal for this year is to read/absorb some of the books that I haven't truly studied before... only looked at and read in reference to other passages. About the time I'm done with that, Debris gets up, and it's snuggle time, get whacked in the chin time, get up 342 times to start breakfast, Kiki gets up, clean up spills, blow noses, serve breakfast, wipe up breakfast, mediate fights and conversations, so on and so forth, so it's really not as idyllic as it sounds to sit down with three different types of reading materials. More, it's simply a matter of how much I have to get up and down, and if I can manage to get a chapter of a book in, or if all I've got time for between getting up and down is a page of a magazine. I usually have this same stack of books with me at lunchtime too, so the same routine follows there. After all that, the girls head off to get their morning playtime in, and I straighten up the house and get my chores for the day started. One load of laundry, clean up the kitchen from breakfast, make beds, straighten up bathrooms, generally just sort set things to rights as needed.

While I'm doing that, I look around and figure out what I want to get done in this day. Monday is for cleaning... the rest of the week is sort of take it as it comes, and fit in my overall goals for the week. This is my scheduling planner that I use every day now. It is working SO well for me. It's helped me to get big things done, to get little chunks of things done, and to plan ahead for things like dinner prep, etc. Also, it's helped me to realize HOW MUCH I actually DO get done around here, because I can look back over my days, and see what I've accomplished. At the beginning of each week, I keep a master grocery/other shopping list and a master menu list, so I always have a good idea of what I can do for dinner/lunches.

So, part of my morning routine for today was to get my lentils started. We had a clean out the pantry type of meal on this day, so basically this was the first bag/container of many that I emptied into this pot.

The girls morning play included setting up a battlefield in their bedroom of GI Joe's vs. plastic dinosaurs vs. plastic farm animals vs. Hello Kitty dolls vs. plastic princess dolls. Also, they blasted all the Patty Loveless tunes on my iPod and sang danced around the kitchen to them, and then went outside for a few minutes to play who knows what--all I know is that it consisted of running madly back and forth accross the backyard approximately 30 times before they came in again. It's amazing the amount of stuff they can fit into an hour's play, I tell you what.

This is my girls singing, "You've got a thing or two to learn about me baby..."

I try to start school by 10:30 every day. This week in school just a few things we are covering:

Bible Studies: Memorizing the books of the Bible. They've been working on this for a few months, and have it down pretty much. Also, I'm trying to teach them about all the different sections of the Bible, what books they include and the main purpose God had in giving those books to us. So far we're up to the Major/Minor prophets in this overview so this week I've been quizzing them every day on what books are included in the Major and Minor prophets, why they are called Major and Minor (because the actual books are big and small, not because of their importance.) and covering the general gist of each book in a short simple "overview" sentence, example: The purpose of Isaiah was to convince the people of Israel that salvation was possible through the belief in the coming Messiah, and repentance of their sins. This has been hard, because it feels like I should be expounding in great detail on each of these books, haha! But, I really want them to have an understanding of the individual parts, how they all work together, and a knowledge of where to start looking for something if they need it. We're also working our way through Proverbs--since this is a lot for their little minds, I'm trying to just focus on individual verses and concepts one at a time, and we act them out or change them into a format the girls will easily understand. For example one we've done this week is: Proverbs 17:1 Better is a dry morsel with quietness than a house full of feasting and strife--that became: A bowl of plain croutons and a happy, talking, hugging, loving Daddy and momma and Kiki and Debris would be WAY BETTER than fighting, arguing, yelling, punching, arm-barring angry Daddy and Momma and Kiki and Debris who were eating pepperoni pizza and lasagna and spaghetti and meatballs and french bread. Just to put the wisdom and concepts of Proverbs on their heart in simple memorable ways.

Reading: This week the girls are working on the letter combinations ir, ur, and er, pronounced as in bird. This has opened the field for comparison words, ie., big, biggER, biggEST type words, so they've been having fun with that.

Language Arts: On this day, we read and discussed the poem entitled "Against Lying" by Isaac Watts. This led to reading and discussing the story of Ananias and Sapphira in Acts 5. We simplified it, and acted it out so we could discuss it more easily... Kiki was Ananias and Sapphira, and Debris was Peter. The 'land' they sold was the Math teacher's book, and 59 cents I had on my counter served as the money. I served as the director, narrator, and main question-asker.

Math: This week we are learning about even and odd, and counting by two's. Also, adding one's place numbers to numbers in the 50's. Oddly enough, Kiki totally gets which numbers are odd numbers by memorization, and Debris totally gets even numbers by memorization. They are having a little trouble with the vice versa though. (today we had a bit of break through when I managed to use markers and show that each even number has a friend, while odd numbers always leave an "odd man out".)

After school's over, it's lunch time. I try to make our lunches always be leftovers from dinner the night before. Dinner the night before? Bratwurst, Sauerkraut, Mashed Potatoes, and my first try at homemade Spaetzle. My little monkeys are NOT fans of Sauerkraut and Spaetzle. I like to tell them it's a good thing I was there when they were born, otherwise I'm afraid I wouldn't think they were mine, because it ain't right that my kids don't like these food items. They also like BBQ sauce on their bratwurst, which is unconscionable.On this day, we had to run errands. I did not intend for that to be the case, but two weeks ago, I decided that this was the random day I was going to record for this blog post, and so I had to record the happenings of it, NO MATTER WHAT. Otherwise, it would be me editing my life to suit what I wanted my blog post to look like, and that's not ok. So, normally I go out of my way to run as few errands as possible... I hate driving willy-nilly for one thing at one place all over town. However, I'd put them all off long enough, that on this day we HAD to. First stop, Gas. Why yes, it's always painful. I'll spare you endless photos of the Department of Licensing, the Library, the Accountant, etc, and just share a few pics that I snapped.

Worthen St. in Wenatchee is oddly enough, one of my favorites. Train Tracks, Old fruit warehouses, the river on one side... sort of a rough and beat up street. I didn't take a lot of pics, but I felt compelled to get one cool fruit warehouse picture for editing fun... Haven't been taking a lot of major photoshop editing worthy photos lately, more life snapshots, so this was my one treat to myself...

When it's overcast and afternoonish, the light over the Cascade range gets really bright, while Wenatchee gets really dark. Makes for fun pictures, and great reflections on the river.

My one quick bit project right now... cutting the rag quilt on my bed. I'm doing one row at a time, until it's done. I'm about halfway. It's been almost a year since I made the dumb thing, and it needs to be cut. If I'd done this at the beginning it would have been done in a month, so I'm gonna say lesson learned, and just get it done now. It hasn't been damaged due to my laziness, so that's a good thing, but I really need to wash it again, and I don't want to wash it one more time until it's been completely cut.

Finish up my load of laundry for the day... and have the girls put it away. Yay.

Get dinner wrapped up and ready to go... straighten up, clean up, set the house in order. Have the girls clean up all their toys from the day of play.

I call this slop or mush. Delicious, but not really photo worthy. Leftover lentil mix, leftover ham, empty random frozen veggie bags from freezer, and biscuits because they are indeed delicious, and the whole family loves them. I always end up seasoning these pots differently, this time it was with fennel I mashed up in my mortar and pestle, and parsley. I'd never done that combo before, and it was really good. Dinner time is family time... we all look forward to it very much.

After dinner it's off to swim lessons for my beautiful swimmers. Debris is learning breaststroke, sidestroke and backstroke right now. Her confidence has bloomed in the last few sessions, and she is a beautiful swimmer. She also insists upon wearing her goggles upside down. I keep telling her that her head is upside down. Kiki usually plays with one of her friends while Debris swims.

After Debris' lesson, it's Kiki's turn. Debris usually plays with her friends during this time, but her friend was sick and she wanted to listen in on Kiki's lesson in the diving pool, so she didn't this time.

Kiki is currently getting guidance on making her dives better, they are working on treading water effectively, and perfecting her breaststroke technique and her crawl stroke technique and breathing and doing the prep work for learning flip turns.

After swimming, it's home for snack and bedtime. This is the girl's favorite snack... apples and cheese and milk, for healthy muscles and bone rebuilding after swimming, placed on the plate as if it were a bee.

Tonight we (meaning they) had a contest to see who could get the best milk moustache. Except for they got their vocabulary screwed up, and for a bit there were calling them milk mustangs. This led to a conversation about mustaches versus goatees, and mustangs the car, vs. mustangs the pony.

And, one last time I straighten up the kitchen, set up the coffeemaker for the next day, and start the next day's laundry loaded into the washer, and ready to go again in the morning!

Then it's the bedtime snuggle, brush teeth, floss, mouthwash, fluoride routine, pray and hit the hay for another day. And, I crash on the couch with Frank...

Well, if I haven't lost you yet, that is just one day in The Happy Sanitarium. I'm tired just recapping it! Thanks for joining us!