So I've gotten into a routine of sorts. I do at least a load of laundry a day and fold it all on Thursday. Sometimes. Mondays I clean the bathrooms, Tuesdays I work on the budgets, the bills, and tidy up my computer desk. Sometimes I blog! Wednesdays I dust and wash windows and vacuum (so if you want to see my house at its cleanest, come Wednesday afternoon before I pick Miss Bubbly up from school!), Thursdays I clean the kitchen and mop.
The children earn their television by doing "room rescues"--tidying up the main living areas of the house--and their usual kitchen chores. I usually work for about half an hour outside every day, weeding and mucking about in the vegetable garden or taming some small section of the long-neglected landscaping.
But Fridays are the best days. That's why I get all the regular chores done on the first four days, because Fridays are my days to bake.
I love baking.
I generally make bread, breakfast goods (muffins and pancakes and the like), granola for cereal, oatmeal cookies, and sometimes a special treat if something on Pinterest has caught my fancy. Baking day generally takes 3-4 hours, so I knock it out in the morning, when I have the most energy, and I love to take pictures and share the results on Facebook.
Granted, it helps to have an awesome bread recipe that only takes about an hour from start to finish. It's a modified version of the Pantry Secrets recipe, or so the blogger from whom I got it said before she had to take it down. I don't feel guilty about using it as I have for these past months, but I do respect the idea of intellectual property, so I don't share the recipe. But enough people have asked about my baking day and my recipes that I'm giving serious thought to becoming a Pantry Secrets instructor. Much like Pampered Chef or Scentsy, there's a starter kit to buy and then you're official! You can sell the products you love to the world!
But unlike Pampered Chef and Scentsy, there aren't new recipes to sell every season. There's just the one with its endless modifications. I've used it to make cinnamon rolls and pizza dough, much to my little family's delight. And I write sentences like that and say to myself, "If you love it so much you're promoting the idea of it to your family and friends, maybe you should find a legal way to share this magical recipe." See? I'm convincing myself all the time. But time is the problem--with four kids under 9 and a house to care for and school at home to conduct and visiting teaching to do and so on...well, I've said before when people have asked me to help with something I didn't have time for, and I'll say it here: My time is not my own. When in the world would I be able to run a class on making bread, even if it takes just over an hour and the starter kit comes with a cute little apron?
Though Monday is The Eldest's lightest lesson load and The Baby naps reliably between 12 and 2....
Tuesday, September 25
Tuesday, September 11
Doing the Same Stuff
I want to post something scintillating, I really do. But we're just living life! We did have our friends, the F---s, over last week to play games and eat dinner and in general support the idea of relaxation that comes with Labor Day. Their girls are 11 and 7, ours are 8 and 7, their boys are 16 and 14, our boy is...2. But we get along and that's what matters.
What seems silly is the fact that it's taken us THREE YEARS of living in the same ward, of N--- being my visiting teacher, for us all to realize how well we get along. I'll blame that on the fact that the other three are introverts, while I'm an ambivert. A very distracted by four children and a house to maintain ambivert who suddenly woke up and realized that she really, REALLY wanted to socialize WITH OTHER ADULTS more. But since the others are introverts, we can only get together about twice a month without feeling smothered. (It makes me laugh a little--who knew friendship could be *work*--for me?) But I'm glad we get to hang out and have fun. It makes me a little giddy, like finding my new best friend in elementary school. In fact, this about sums it up.
What seems silly is the fact that it's taken us THREE YEARS of living in the same ward, of N--- being my visiting teacher, for us all to realize how well we get along. I'll blame that on the fact that the other three are introverts, while I'm an ambivert. A very distracted by four children and a house to maintain ambivert who suddenly woke up and realized that she really, REALLY wanted to socialize WITH OTHER ADULTS more. But since the others are introverts, we can only get together about twice a month without feeling smothered. (It makes me laugh a little--who knew friendship could be *work*--for me?) But I'm glad we get to hang out and have fun. It makes me a little giddy, like finding my new best friend in elementary school. In fact, this about sums it up.
Tuesday, September 4
Changes!
First, a heads-up: I've noticed we have a new follower. Welcome, Follower! I don't know you, but I'm glad you stopped by.
In light of the not-knowing, however, I've been going back and changing how I use names in the blog. You know my kids or you've been reading the blog long enough, so you'll know to whom I'm referring. And there will be the occasional labeled picture. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I'm lazy and slow. What can I say? I'm not done yet (because I've been keeping this blog for about five years. FIVE YEARS. That's a long time), but I hope to be soon.
And now on to other things, such as school! THE GIRLS HAVE STARTED SCHOOL. It's been a week now and I still haven't wrapped my head around it. OH WAIT. I know why. It's because I'm not done homeschooling. I sure thought I was, but with The Eldest's online school, I'm still the teacher. I just don't have to do any grading and I don't pick the curriculum. And it takes HOURS upon HOURS, and in the little bits of time I have to myself, I'm changing diapers or doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen or making lunch or putting children down for their naps. (Nap. Singular. I only have one child who naps any more, so I really ought to quit writing so wishfully.) I have not been so exhausted in a long, long time. But we're getting the hang of things and hopefully as the weeks wear on, The Eldest will get a little quicker at filling out all her worksheets and doing all that writing and arithmetic. The first day only took four hours and I was worried about fulfilling the 25-hours per week of school time. I AM WORRIED NO LONGER.
Thankfully, Miss Bubbly is in a carpool, so I don't have to stress about getting ALL of us out the door in the morning. She adores school, has made friends with another Type 1 in her grade who picks her up so they can go test their blood before lunch, and has envied another classmate's egg roll/broccoli lunch, which led to playing together at recess. My sociable girl is in heaven!
I would have pictures, but honestly, that's the last thing on my mind first thing in the morning. If you're lucky, I'll take one this week. Good at this history-keeping, family record thing I am not. (I'm also starting to feel a little bit like Yoda.)
The Baby also decided that she was done nursing last Sunday. It was a rather abrupt decision on her part, especially since we'd been nursing 3-4 times a day/night. Oh yikes. But ibuprofen saved the day and my body has accepted the change. It's strange to think that this little creature, who can walk and point and sign "please" and "want" and burbles constantly in a language of her own making, was a tiny baby a year ago. And now she's no longer dependent on my body's ability to feed her, which is freeing and a little sad all at the same time.
In another sense, however, this entire family is dependent on my ability to feed them! To that end, I'm going to try for a fall garden. My spring garden was almost an utter failure. I got about 12 strawberries, 7 beans, and 1 squash for my efforts, and 0 tomatoes. My rosemary is still alive, however! It's my one success and now lives happily in a pot in the much sunnier front yard. The fall garden preparations have been underway for weeks now, as I took the advice of a professional gardener in our ward (LDS church congregation) and started burying my compostables in a small pit in my future garden area. The pit is the size of a #10 can or thereabouts and once it's filled, I shovel the dirt back in and dig a new pit. I've done that about 10 times this summer, so hopefully the soil in my garden area is much more nutrient-rich than it used to be. I've also laid out paving stones so that I don't have to get my shoes muddy when I weed, and I've used a few stakes to lay out my soaker hose in a more orderly fashion. Tomorrow the seeds go in, and the labels. I'm just going to try for a blend of lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas--a simple green salad. If that's successful, then maybe, just maybe, I'll try for a bigger spring garden. It might be just green beans, since we love them and they freeze easily! I don't necessarily love gardening--there are definitely NO flowers in my yard unless they spring up on their own--but I like the experiment of making the land work for me. What can I say? I'm a control freak.
In light of the not-knowing, however, I've been going back and changing how I use names in the blog. You know my kids or you've been reading the blog long enough, so you'll know to whom I'm referring. And there will be the occasional labeled picture. I've been meaning to do this for a long time, but I'm lazy and slow. What can I say? I'm not done yet (because I've been keeping this blog for about five years. FIVE YEARS. That's a long time), but I hope to be soon.
And now on to other things, such as school! THE GIRLS HAVE STARTED SCHOOL. It's been a week now and I still haven't wrapped my head around it. OH WAIT. I know why. It's because I'm not done homeschooling. I sure thought I was, but with The Eldest's online school, I'm still the teacher. I just don't have to do any grading and I don't pick the curriculum. And it takes HOURS upon HOURS, and in the little bits of time I have to myself, I'm changing diapers or doing laundry or cleaning the kitchen or making lunch or putting children down for their naps. (Nap. Singular. I only have one child who naps any more, so I really ought to quit writing so wishfully.) I have not been so exhausted in a long, long time. But we're getting the hang of things and hopefully as the weeks wear on, The Eldest will get a little quicker at filling out all her worksheets and doing all that writing and arithmetic. The first day only took four hours and I was worried about fulfilling the 25-hours per week of school time. I AM WORRIED NO LONGER.
Thankfully, Miss Bubbly is in a carpool, so I don't have to stress about getting ALL of us out the door in the morning. She adores school, has made friends with another Type 1 in her grade who picks her up so they can go test their blood before lunch, and has envied another classmate's egg roll/broccoli lunch, which led to playing together at recess. My sociable girl is in heaven!
I would have pictures, but honestly, that's the last thing on my mind first thing in the morning. If you're lucky, I'll take one this week. Good at this history-keeping, family record thing I am not. (I'm also starting to feel a little bit like Yoda.)
The Baby also decided that she was done nursing last Sunday. It was a rather abrupt decision on her part, especially since we'd been nursing 3-4 times a day/night. Oh yikes. But ibuprofen saved the day and my body has accepted the change. It's strange to think that this little creature, who can walk and point and sign "please" and "want" and burbles constantly in a language of her own making, was a tiny baby a year ago. And now she's no longer dependent on my body's ability to feed her, which is freeing and a little sad all at the same time.
In another sense, however, this entire family is dependent on my ability to feed them! To that end, I'm going to try for a fall garden. My spring garden was almost an utter failure. I got about 12 strawberries, 7 beans, and 1 squash for my efforts, and 0 tomatoes. My rosemary is still alive, however! It's my one success and now lives happily in a pot in the much sunnier front yard. The fall garden preparations have been underway for weeks now, as I took the advice of a professional gardener in our ward (LDS church congregation) and started burying my compostables in a small pit in my future garden area. The pit is the size of a #10 can or thereabouts and once it's filled, I shovel the dirt back in and dig a new pit. I've done that about 10 times this summer, so hopefully the soil in my garden area is much more nutrient-rich than it used to be. I've also laid out paving stones so that I don't have to get my shoes muddy when I weed, and I've used a few stakes to lay out my soaker hose in a more orderly fashion. Tomorrow the seeds go in, and the labels. I'm just going to try for a blend of lettuce, spinach, cucumbers, and sugar snap peas--a simple green salad. If that's successful, then maybe, just maybe, I'll try for a bigger spring garden. It might be just green beans, since we love them and they freeze easily! I don't necessarily love gardening--there are definitely NO flowers in my yard unless they spring up on their own--but I like the experiment of making the land work for me. What can I say? I'm a control freak.
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