Ordinary Time

I think we may be ready by the time we need to leave early in the morning. I hope. We are doing carry-on only, and I have never packed so light in my life. It feels like quite an accomplishment. One of the things we did today was to finish up our tea time read aloud book before I left. There is nothing worse than leaving a book hanging for ten plus days while you wait to find out what happened. This book turned out to be very well done and very popular with the masses. Because we are in Scotland as our last country, I was looking for a chapter book that had to do with Scotland. I came across a prose retelling of Shakespeare's Macbeth called Enter Three Witches by Caroline B. Cooney. Now, the play of Macbeth is not a terribly jolly story (there's an understatement), and not one a person immediately thinks of to share with elementary and middle school aged children. But the reviews were good, so I took a chance. The story was still not jolly, but it was riveting. I wouldn...

And short little stories are all I can manage at this point. I'm feeling much better, but I'm afraid that J. now has what I had. I hope he can feel better by the time we leave on Sunday. I crossed two major items off my to do list today: shopping for the next two weeks and paying the bills. It was a lot a of groceries, but I did the math and really it was pretty average for what I spend each week. They will not starve, though M. and I did spirit away half the food to the extra refrigerators so it would still be there next week. At the most M. will need to get more milk and fruit.  I am having a slight book crisis. First, the Kindle I have that was my father's doesn't seem to hold a charge anymore, so it is out for taking with me. So I decided just to choose a long book that will keep me occupied for ten days plus two long plane rides. I read fast, so this wasn't an easy feat. I finally settled on Middlemarch. I had read it before years and years ago and had wan...

So last I wrote on Monday night, I was feeling under the weather and didn't get a lot done that day. Had I only known what was in store. Yesterday, I was laid low. From pretty much 2pm onward, I was in bed with fever, chills, and the most excruciating headache. I can tell you, Monday looked darn productive in comparison. It was misery. I had a better night last night and work up this morning feeling better. Better, but I had no energy today. I wold walk across the room and do one thing and think, "Hmm... I think I need to sit down for a while." Needless to say, this was not a terribly productive day, either. But am I panicking? No, not yet. Even in all the misery, some things did get accomplished. The biggest item on the list I managed to do this afternoon. Make a list of menus and a grocery list for the next two weeks. It's a long list. I'm a little afraid to see what the total is at the store tomorrow. But, once done, the people at home should be all set. M....

I bet with that title, you're here expecting me to tell you about the evils of keeping to do lists and why you shouldn't. Sorry. I can't do that because currently my to do list is a tyrannical ruler that I must continue to slave away for regardless of the fact that I have developed a raging head cold. I moved my riding lesson to later this week which tells exactly how not fantastic I feel. We leave in six days. That gives me five days to get everything done that needs to happen in order to leave seven under 18 year old children with three 21+ year old children. (The 21+ group are hardly children; they are all functioning adults. But they are my children so I couldn't come up with a better way to phrase that.) Plus there are the three dogs, four cats, 20 chickens, 11 ducks, 2 geese, and 1 horse to consider as well. Me., D., and J. packing and leaving is actually the easy part. I am slowly crossing things off my list. Animal supplies were collected today, menus are in...

The other day I saw a link to a post written by a fairly well-known blogger. She has a wide following, but I have just never jibed with her writing. (I freely admit to a small amount of sour grapes in the decision not to join the adoring throng. Hey, I'm far from perfect.) The title of this piece intrigued me and so I decided to go ahead and read it. The post was about what mothers really want for Mother's Day. I was curious. Once again, I was reminded that it is not solely sour grapes that I don't frequent her blog, because I just find the writing style slow going. But in general I agreed with the premise: mothers want to know that the small, every day tasks they do... laundry, changing diapers, fixing meals, reading stories, laundry, wiping noses, giving hugs, reminding children that feet really don't belong on the table, laundry, sweeping the floor, filling the dishwasher, laundry... really do have earth changing purpose. We all crave purpose, whether we are moth...

TM thought it was time for me to do an update on his dog, Aster. She is almost a year old now, and is a pretty good dog. That's allowing for the puppy-ness of sometimes eating food off the counter. She can also be an escape artist and both get out of her crate and move it around while she is inside of it. TM and J. did bolt it to the floor. She is very fluffy and very cute and adores TM with all of her being. Pretty much when he is not home she sits by the window and waits for him to return. And we are all in love with her radar ears. At the "Husky Huddle" at the local dog park. So there's my blog post for the day. It will save me from having to explain about leaving the library book out in the rain overnight. 

A reader asked a while back how I went about making the change from a mom who didn't do mess to being fairly okay with it. I haven't been ignoring the question, just thinking about it. This is mainly because I'm not entirely sure how the change came about; it just did. It's not as though I made an overt effort to change because I was okay not being a mess tolerant mom. Yet I did change, and I think it was due to a few different forces. 1. I had more children. It was somewhat easy to keep things neat and orderly and avoid mess with just two or three. This becomes somewhat more difficult the more children you add into the mix. In some ways, I had no choice but to relax a bit. A bit... ha! Some days I wonder if it wouldn't be better if we tightened up the ship just a little bit because things have become so loose. But then I get distracted by a dozen or so things and don't revisit that thought for a few more months. More children just equals more mess potenti...