My Monday

5:00am --  alarm goes off.  Already?  Snooze.  Just once.

5:09 -- alarm goes off again.  Already?  Okay. Fine.  La:mp is turned on.  Bible reading and prayer time in our quiet bedroom.

5:30 -- the fastest shower known to mankind.  Why did I hit snooze?

5:40 -- dressed, don my muck boots at the backdoor and head out to feed the goats and milk Razz.  What a glorious day!  I really should've put on a jacket.  Decide just to enjoy being cool outside.

5:55 -- back in the kitchen.  Pasteurize milk, start coffee, juice oranges, make breakfast for 4 (according to their orders placed the night before -- John makes his own breakfast.), put yogurt that was incubating overnight into the fridge, make lunch for Girl 2, and prep water bottles for both girls for school.

6:30 -- sit down to breakfast, all 5 of us.  Yes, we do that nearly everyday.  Yes, I know we're pretty lucky.

6:45-7:15 -- do girls' hair (they otherwise get themselves ready for school -- yes, it's very nice), have them gather dirty clothes from upstairs, Girl 1 strips her bed (Monday is the day she gets clean sheets), Girl 2 and Little Boy make their beds.

7:15-7:36 -- start laundry, clean up breakfast, mix up Black Bean Soup and start CrockPot, say goodbye to John as he leaves for work, and be sure I look presentable enough to walk to the bus stop while the kids watch a show on Netflix  ("Good Luck Charlie")

7:36 -- Alarm on my phone goes off signifying that it's time to walk to the end of the driveway and meet the bus.  Girls grab sweaters, lunchboxes, waterbottles, and soccer balls, and head out the door with me and Little Boy.  Dexter hears us in the front yard, shimmies under the backyard fence at the back of the yard, runs out into the pasture, shimmies under the pasture fence, runs around the house and into the front yard to meet us at the bus stop.  Yes, this has become a  part of the daily routine.  Everyone, including the other kids on the bus, seem to enjoy this.

7:40 -- Little Boy, Dexter, and I wave to the girls as they load the bus then head back to the house (Little Boy and I) and backyard (Dexter).

7:40-8:15 -- Little Boy wants to watch his Netflix show ("Dinosaur train"). (Our most recent policy has been that each child gets to pick one short show per day; although, now that school has started and the weather is so nice outside, they often forget to request a show) so I whip up some cornbread to go with tonight's soup, start a loaf of bread in the bread maker, and run dishwasher.  While cornbread bakes, I review next week's Home Church curriculum to see if there's anything for the craft time that I'll need to add to my shopping list (in lieu of AWANA this year, we are working through a great curriculum together as a family.  So far, we are loving it, and the kids are talking a lot about the lessons throughout the week, so I know they're really getting something out of it.)

8:15-9:30-- shuffle laundry, then Little Boy and I head outside to work.  Today, we dump the rabbit poo on the compost pile and clean out her cage, remove the poopy pine shavings from the chicken house, haul them to the compost pile, and replace them with fresh shavings.  Then, we empty the contents of the kitchen compost pail on the pile, feed the chickens the bread heels that no one else seems to want, water the garden, haul a 50 lb. bag of alfalfa pellets to the goat shed (oooohhh!  I'm still sore from Saturday's race!), and pour it into the empty bin.  We weed the flowerbeds in the front yard and backyard (ooooohhhhh!  still sore), haul some dead limbs that fell during the most recent storm from the front yard to the burn pile out back, so that John will be able to mow later this week. 

9:30-- Back inside, Little Boy has his fruit snack (always at 9:30).  Slim pickin's today means it's either strawberries or this lone freckly banana.  He opts for berries. 

9:35 -- (yes, he wolfed down the fruit) shuffle laundry, then begin Little Boy School.  This week is the letter D, and he thinks it's "super awesome" that we'll be reading and singing about dinosaurs all week.  For our gross motor activity, we crawl around the floor like various types of dinosaurs (oooohhhh.  still sore!)

10:15 -- Little Boy colors a picture while I go through the weekly sales papers and write down price comparisons so that I can take advantage of our grocery store's price matching policy tomorrow on shopping day (yes, I'm the annoying lady at the grocery store that you always seem to get in line behind who has 15 price-match items, 3 coupons, and brings my own green bags), plan the weekly menu, and compile the shopping list.

10:45-- I put the sheets back on Girl 1's bed and then vacuum entire house.  I HATE cleaning.  But, I've started following a program that has me doing small cleaning tasks each day so that it's never an all-day-long project.  Theoretically, it should keep the house perpetually clean.  Normally, on Mondays I would vacuum downstairs and mop.  But . . . last week I didn't get to vacuum upstairs because the kids had a week-long, 100-square-foot project going on up there that involved building a town and farm out of their train set, Legos, and Lincoln Logs, so upstairs really needed to be vacuumed  today (hauling the vacuum up the stairs-- oooohhhhh, I'm still sore!). . . and, I couldn't mop today because John broke my mop last week while using it to trap and kill the mouse he found in his closet.  (No, we do not have mice in our house all the time, but we do live in the country, so it happens.  Since we've lived here, I'd say we average a mouse per year.)

11:15 -- Bread is done!  It's huge! 



Here it is next to a mason jar, for perspective.  Apparently, the yeast likes the weather today, too.

11:20 --Empty dishwasher (I know this is weird, but this has got to be my least favorite household chore) then Little Boy and I have lunch on the backporch (I mentioned that it's a glorious day today, right?).  He has leftover mac-n-cheese, and I eat eggs and toast (we really need to get to the grocery store).

11:40 -- We check the chicken tractor for eggs (there are 4).  We figured there'd be a lot because we kept hearing them clucking about it as we ate lunch.

12:00 -- lunch is cleaned up, Little Boy goes down for a nap.  I head outside with the laptop to type a long, pointless blog post about my day thus far.

That pretty much brings us to the present.  Here's what I know for sure about how the rest of my day will go . . . at least 5 unexpected things will happen, hopefully none of them too catastrophic, and we'll just roll with it.

The plan, though, is this:

12:00-3:00 -- I will sit here, rest, blog, and read.  OR, I'll get up off my rear and clean out my closet (we'll see) while Little Boy naps, then plays quietly in his room.

3:17-- my phone alarm will sound, indicating that the bus will soon arrive, and Little Boy and I head to the end of the driveway to greet the girls/be sure they don't get run over as they cross the highway (I'm sure that the bus driver is capable of this second part on his own, but I help out gladly).

3:20-4:00 -- unload backpacks, look over graded papers, do homework, discuss days, unload lunchboxes, have a snack

4:00-5:00 --the kids and I will make S'mores cookies (a new recipe that we're all excited to try) and I will probably be the single audience member for an awesome dance show (if today's anything like the last several days)

5:15 -- John will come home, and we will sit down to big bowls of Black Bean Soup and cornbread. 

5:45 -- John will milk Razz while I clean up dinner

6:15--7:15  This is perhaps the best time of day.  That's because it's pretty much unscheduled on Mondays.  And, because Little Boy and I have busted it this morning, I'll be free to just enjoy whatever it is that we choose to do.  We may play a family game of soccer, or the kids may play outside while John and I work in the yard, or I may go for a run and take one or both girls with me (need to work out that soreness).  Tuesday through Thursday afternoons and evenings look a lot different because we've got scheduled extracurriculars, but Monday is calmer.

7:15-7:30 -- the kids will get ready for bed (mostly unassisted -- yes, we're to that stage, and it's wonderful!)

7:30 -- Little Boy will go to bed, lights off.  Girl 2 will go to bed, lamp on.

7:40-- Girl 1 will go to bed, lamp on (she gets 10 extra minutes to stay up because she's older.  She usually uses them by reading to me or John or searching for dance gear on Amazon).

8:00-- the alarm on my phone will go off and sound like crickets chirping.  This signals that it's time for lights to go off upstairs. 

8:00-9:00 -- another wonderful hour!  John and I will enjoy some time together.  We will probably share some ginger ale and try to fight the urge to munch on Veggie Straws.  We may watch a show on Netflix, or just sit and read or talk on the porch.

9:00pm -- I know it's insanely early (but so is 5:00, when the alarm will go off in the morning), but we go to bed.  Ahhhh. 

So, weird post, but, I say all this to say, I'm kind of enjoying getting back into a routine now that the girls are back in school.  Our days are full around here. . . . but in a good way.  Also, now that I've written this, let me say this:  if you ever feel like you're not being very productive, maybe try writing down everything you've done that day.  If it affects you like writing this has affected me, you'll feel very much like you've gotten a heck-uva-lot done.  In fact, maybe I will just sit here and read rather than clean out my closet right now.  I kinda feel like I've earned it.  :)