Baking Day

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....