Edited to add: This post seems a bit boring. Does that mean my ordinary life is boring? Or just hard to write about in an interesting way? Either way, I spiced it up with some pictures. Hope that’s enough to make you all stick around. 🙂
Because there are other things happening in my life besides sitting around thinking about wall decorations for the girls’ room…
I thought I’d just write about my very normal day.
This is how I looked when I got home at the end of my very normal day. I have no idea how my collar got that way. I have no idea how long it was like that. Classy.
I stayed up a little later than I should have last night because I wanted to finish up this post. My husband didn’t have to go to work today, so he wasn’t hurrying me off to sleep as he often does. And so it was just about midnight when I changed my 5:00 a.m. alarm to 5:45 a.m. I don’t actually get out of bed at 5:00 normally, I just pretend like I’m going to. I’m a snoozer. Pretty sure it’s in my genes. I think all of my siblings drive their spouses crazy in this same manner. So, last night I could actually admit that I wasn’t going to get up at 5 and I changed the alarm. I still snoozed a few times and got up around 6:10 a.m.
I think I’m going to be totally almost entirely honest in this post and talk about my day. When I get out of bed every morning, I use my phone to light the way out of my bedroom. Sometimes this is a safety requirement due to the amount of clothes, bags, shoes, laundry baskets, computer cords, etc. that might be in my path. This morning it was just convenient. I did manage to take care of all most of the laundry yesterday so the vast open plain of carpet was there to greet me at the foot of my bed this morning. I always go straight to the bathroom when I wake up and it feels really weird if I don’t. Nowadays, I take my phone with me. It’s a dangerous game I play each morning as I stumble eyes half-open, bright, environmental fluorescent lights shining in my face, into the bathroom where I flip the seat down (it is always up) with the hand that is also holding my phone. Pretty much every morning I think, “Maybe it’s not such a good idea to be holding my phone over the toilet when my motor skills are not quite awake yet.” But so far, so good. I check blogs, check email, check facebook. Yep, still in the bathroom. My iPhone has offered me such an opportunity to multitask. I take full advantage of it.
This morning, as on most mornings, I crawled back in bed for another 9 minute cuddle with Rob before I officially start the day. Today was a bit unique because I actually did get up when the alarm went off again. I got dressed, packed some leftover chicken and noodles for lunch, loaded up my bag and got in the car a little before 7:00. I also grabbed a fiber bar, a banana and some ice water for my in-the-car breakfast. My car didn’t start on the first time. Or the second. But the third! The third time’s a charm, right? No? Well this morning, the fourth time did wonders–I gave it a little gas while Rob gave it the evil eye. My low fuel light was on so I had to stop and get gas on the way to work. Not really my favorite thing to do, but I was glad I had time.
It was still mostly dark when I arrived at work. Thankfully someone else had already arrived and disarmed the building so I could park in the back. I nearly ran over a lawn guy. My lights are kinda dim and I’m sure he couldn’t hear me over the leaf blower he was using. But seriously, there seemed to be about 15 guys in the back of the building cutting grass and blowing leaves and wearing dark-colored clothing. Let’s get some reflective tape, ok? The lawn guys are there every Monday morning and it shouldn’t have surprised me to see them, but it did. I don’t really know the lawn guys. Lawn men might be the more accurate term. They seem nice enough. They do a good job and they always turn off their equipment when I am walking by or they wait until I have passed to mow next to the sidewalk. So I guess they are lawn gentlemen.
I have to be at work by 7:30 and most days I ride with Rob and/or bring Duncan with me. On the Duncan days, we don’t usually arrive much before 7:30. Today I drove by myself and got there with a few extra minutes. I have a million things to do at work, but not much that can be accomplished in a few minutes. Still, it’s nice to do a little settling in before the day starts.
Of course it would take forever to talk about all the details of my work day, but I want to share a few highlights. We start each morning with Flock at 7:30. It’s a time of sharing, devotion, teaching, prayers, worship, etc. This morning a staff member shared her testimony. It’s great to work at a place where everyone is a Christian. It’s even better to get to know people through the journeys they’ve been through and how God is working in their lives.
Kids arrive between 8:00 and 8:30. Today I had 8 students because one was out sick. We had a fun day together. We’ve been learning about Zacchaeus and focusing on how his life was changed when he decided to follow Jesus. Today we did a group activity where we pretended to be cleaning Zacchaeus’ house in preparation for a visit from Jesus. We crumpled paper (fine motor) and threw it into the trash can (gross motor). We counted the pieces of paper (cognitive) until it was all picked up. We took turns (social) with the toy vacuum. We sang a song and made the sound of a vacuum motor (speech) while we cleaned. We even practiced folding laundry (adaptive) and putting it away. Monday is our music day and today we had special guests. Mr. Bob played all sorts of instruments and Miss Kimberly helped us sing songs about animals, wiggles and being happy. It was a lot of fun! At 1:30 the kids go home and staff takes a lunch break.
I could have seriously taken a nap, but since a volunteer was cleaning my room for me that might have been a bit awkward. Besides, it’s nice to sit in the break room with staff and talk about our day. (It’s also nice to sneak a treat from the volunteer snack table! Shhh. I think the mom who baked the lemon bars read this blog!)
I took my husband’s laptop to work thinking I’d sit at a grown-up sized desk (rather than the child sized desktop) for a change. I have some paperwork that I need to get done and was planning on being very focused from 2:00-4:00 to see how much I could get accomplished. Until I remembered was reminded that I had a meeting at 2:00 regarding an upcoming conference that The Little Light House is hosting. It was a very fine meeting for what will be an amazing conference. (You should totally come!) However, it put a little damper on my spend all afternoon doing paperwork plans.
When I got off work at 4:00 left work at 4:30, I headed to Michael’s because Calvin needed some paint for a t-shirt he’s making to wear to school tomorrow. And seriously, Michael’s has some good sales. I got a good amount of loot for less than $7, and only two of my items were priced over $1.
Next I went to Sam’s, for a long overdue trip. I had a list. I mostly stuck to it. The realization that we have a nearly empty refrigerator/freezer in our unoccupied garage apartment gave me the boldness to buy 4 pounds of sausage, 4 loaves of bread, a frozen lasagna, and an additional very large bag of frozen broccoli. We’re also well stocked on toilet paper, laundry soap, trash bags and pasta. I started keeping a few notes in my phone regarding grocery prices. I like knowing where the best deals are. Trash bags, laundry soap, milk & eggs should come from Sam’s. Shampoo and deodorant should come from grocery stores that take coupons. String cheese and Fiber One bars are still in the research phase.
So…by this time it’s 6:00. I’m pretty tired and hungry enough to consider a Sam’s pizza slice or other fast food on the way home. Which is ridiculous because I just spent more than $130 at Sam’s and Rob bought non-Sam’s groceries yesterday. Tonight was supposed to be Riley’s last JV game, so frozen pizza was on the menu. The game was canceled, but I didn’t want to cook anything else we don’t like to deviate from the menu so fine dining a la Tony’s it is! Except that as I walked in the door, the boys were doing the math to figure how just how many pieces they could have–and I was the variable. So I opted to just have a couple of bites of pizza and make myself a grilled cheese sandwich.
Front right: grilled cheese and potato chips Center: Hershey kiss bag and loose orange covered kisses Center front: carmel candy dish to be used to hold orange candies at a later date Back right: Diet coke on monogrammed washcloth serving as coaster Front left: card on top of magazine on top of birthday box on top of bible on top of missal on top of Beth Moore book
I’ve been in the bedroom ever since: writing this blog, reading blogs, playing on facebook, checking email, talking with Rob, printing a superman Z logo, sorting out chocolate kisses wrapped in orange foil, listening to phone conversations, realizing I forgot to buy the stuff I need for our cooking activity in class tomorrow, eating non-orange wrapped kisses, drinking diet coke, and figuring out how to make this blog end in a not so boring manner.
worth the wait 
