I’ve spent the last two days at home. Yesterday was a planned day off due to Laps for Little Ones fundraiser on Saturday. I pretended I was a stay at home mom yesterday. Or maybe I was just pretending I was a stay at home wife. Either way, I did things that get neglected because I am usually away from my house from 7am until 430pm M-F. I woke up before everyone else and started breakfast. I woke up the two boys that attend school outside of our home in time for them to get ready for school and eat breakfast before they left. Let me be honest here…I could cook breakfast for them every morning and still make it to work on time. I just hardly ever do it. Maybe never is more accurate. Rob cooks for the two of us (plus the kid that attends school at our home) a lot of the time. The other two sometimes eat breakfast at school, or (according to a recent review of a checking account) stop for fast food on the way, and sometimes they don’t eat anything at all. If Rob doesn’t cook for me I might eat some oatmeal & fruit during flock. I might eat a granola bar, turkey sandwich or oreos on the way to school. Or I might survive until snack or lunch time with the kids and munch on goldfish crackers, cheese balls or some other preschool delicacy.
{Um. How did this post become a confession of the Zerbes poor eating habits?}
So, I made a tasty breakfast for the two early boys, drove one of them to school so the other would have a few extra minutes to shave his face get ready for school. It was school picture day, after all. The day in which his yearbook senior picture would be taken. And if I’m going to buy the cheapest best picture package for our needs without seeing a proof, I’m going to at least request a hairless face few extra minutes in front of the mirror. The real senior pictures will be taken at a later date. By a real photographer that allows you to see proofs before you shell out hundreds of dollars.
{Um. How did this post turn into a rant about school photographers?}
So, yes, I drove Riley to school came home in time to say goodbye to Calvin and chatted with the still-in-bed-boy for a few minutes about what time he usually leaves the house for guitar lessons. At the appropriate time (that crucial time where you get the most amount of sleep and have exactly the right amount of time to get ready with no sitting around time that could have been used for sleeping), I woke Duncan and he showered while I cooked his breakfast. After breakfast, his mom picked him up for guitar lessons and I started the dishwasher and the washing machine..and then drifted off to enjoy a quick nap while marveling at the wonder of machines that take care of my chores. Throughout the day I managed to get nearly all of our (our=Rob and Kate) laundry washed, dried, folded and put away left neatly on the couch. I tried to talk Rob into finishing my half-done chores when he got home from his full workday, but he just wouldn’t do it. Have I told you about my clothesline? I have a clothesline and I really enjoy it. As in, I get pretty jazzed when I wash a load of laundry and then put the entire load on the line to dry. I have 5 pair of pants that are plenty long for my 5’10” body. I’m afraid they would no longer fall into the “plenty long” category if I dried them in the dryer.
{Um. Is it really dried and dryer? Why not dryed and drier? Right? That’s weird.}
I was drying these {that one I get, you can’t be driing anything, of course} pants, plus a few work shirts and a dress or two, draped across the kitchen table, chairs, benches, etc. under a fast moving ceiling fan overnight on an almost weekly basis. Then I got this crazy idea that maybe I should ask Rob so string a clothesline between the already set clothesline poles (posts? why am I stuck on these word choices?) in our back yard. Save a little electricity, free up the table for more table-like activities, and pretend I live in China.
{Most people in China don’t have dryers.}
Because I was doing lots of laundry yesterday and because I had the whole day to get it (almost) done, I went all crazy and even hung some of my other clothes on the line. Oh yeah. I hung out all of Rob’s white t-shirts and a few of mine, too. I hung some of my t-shirts and tank tops. And all of those pants that are used to being hung out to dry. It made laundry day a little more exciting. I crunched a few leaves beneath my sandaled feet. I didn’t rush to empty a dryer for fear of wrinkled clothes. I chatted with the neighbors while I hung and gathered. I didn’t use dryer sheets. Ok, so we’ve been out of dryer sheets for weeks. BUT, you don’t need dryer sheets when you hang your clothes out on a line.
And that’s what I did yesterday on my planned day off. Breakfast, dropped Riley off at school, laundry, dishes, checked a few of Duncan’s algebra assignments, bought some groceries, wrote a couple of blogs, read a million blogs and cooked dinner.
Today was an unplanned day off. That seems like fun–like a surprise extra day at home. Only the surprise came in the form of an upset tummy early this morning. I got up, showered and then crawled back in bed. Eventually I changed out of my bathrobe and into my pajamas. I mustered up an appetite and ate a toasted bagel around 1pm. I got dressed and ate some potatoes for dinner. I had communicated with my supervisor and my associate teacher via text messaging throughout the morning. It’s weird for me to miss work. It hardly ever happens. Like usually once or twice a year. So this is it…no more sick days. I’ll be back 100% tomorrow. Or at least whatever percentage is functional. At least 80%–I’m sure of it!
And that, my friends, is how I spent my days.
worth the wait 
