I plop my baby in his highchair for a homemade blueberry muffin and a sippy cup of milk. An evening before, Daddy and the older three children drove a whole minute down the road to pick blueberries from the bog. It was supposed to be a whole family trip but my three-year old had a stubborn sliver in her big toe from those wooden stairs we climb quite frequently. Perhaps it wasn't the sliver that was so stubborn but the curly headed angel.
The bacon is frying, the coffee is dripping, the laundry is still drying from the day before in my living room but life is good. We have a full day of work ahead: cutting down a few trees in town at the C.E.F. office followed by some pizza and an appointment with a person interested in learning more about the work C.E.F. does. Followed by a trip to the fair office to get some of the kids' entries in. I had planned to get a fridge casserole done and another load of laundry in before I left an hour or so after the rest of the family. Funny how nothing ever goes as planned...
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| How I dry my laundry on a rainy day |
By 8:00 I had homemade blueberry oatmeal waffles cooking, a pile of bacon, and fried eggs waiting for my family. We had a great breakfast together. Off to wood cutting the older children went with Daddy.
I stayed behind to clean up the dishes from breakfast and from fixing the supper casserole with a three year old, take down old laundry, put up the new, restock the diaper bag, feed the guinea pig food because someone forgot and I heard the poor things just squeakin' for all they're worth, rescue the strangling dog from under the wooden outside porch, apply ice to a squalling babies forehead that had just met with the edge of a table....somewhere in all this I drank 2 cups of coffee and I'm pretty sure I had a waffle, maybe even a hot egg, I can't really remember .... that was so long ago, this morning maybe?
So, 10:00am rolls around and my husband calls and one of the first things out of his mouth was, "So did ya get a little rest?" I just laughed and nicely explained, well, perhaps not so nicely that my morning was just as busy and full of work as was his. I know he meant well, but it was all in the timing!
When 11:30 rolled around it was time to head to town and I had to take the dog because there was no place to chain him safely after the morning episode of near strangulation. After loading, kids, food, diaper bag, etc into van I tried to load the dog three times to no avail! Tried everything, even bribing. At one point the dog was pulling so violently on his own collar that I had to unsnap it so he could get some air and then off he dashed back into the house which I'd left open. Round and around the kitchen I went with the dog. Throwing Kleenex boxes doesn't work as a good disciplinary tool, by the way. Finally I decided there was no way I could leave because I couldn't take the dog and I couldn't leave the dog. So I was very hot towards this animal! I chained him back up, unpacked the kids and we played in the garden until it rained. All this before noon!
I'm probably getting boring at this point or maybe well before this point, but this is real life. It's not perfect. I don't even have a chair to sit on at this point, my computer battery is almost gone and I hauled my folding chair upstairs earlier in the day to spend a whole ten minutes mending a precious little girls dress, another little girls nightgown and a pair of cotton tights.
I had planned on sitting down for long hours to sew.... ha ha ha ha Upon arriving in my loft, bedroom, sewing room, office, library, blanket storage, you name it storage room, I realized that I couldn't even find my way through it all. So I spent over an hour organizing, and got a lot done while visiting with my girls, helping with their various projects which included a pair of scissors in my three year old's hands which went great, I am happy to report.
Where are the boys in all this? Outside measuring and figuring how to put an underground wire fencing system in for the dog. Hooray! I asked earlier in the day to please bring one home. We had each looked at them several times in the weeks previous and I decided we'd better get something up other than a chain and a whole lot of frustration with a dog running off all the time.
Meal time conversation turns into more talk in the living room and all of us sitting around listening to me read from Uncle Arthur's Bedtime Stories and then we get side tracked by telling funny stories and things we remember and before we know it, it's 9:30pm, way past bedtime but still broad daylight out.
I'm learning that life is not perfect. I should stop trying to make it that way. It would take so much less energy to just be, like, whatever, who cares, try again, maybe someday it will work, maybe it won't, no skin off my back, be what you'll be, I'll be what I can be and we'll make it through, one day at a time.
Some days are like this. I used to tell people that we have good days and bad days when they ask how I do it with homeschooling and five kids, and these living conditions and I'm thinking I should say, some moments are good, some are bad, and that's life. It will never change. The only thing I can change is my attitude towards those moments. I can remember with joy and laughter or I can remember in bitterness and remorse. I choose the joy and laughter moments. Life isn't long enough for bitterness and remorse. So long, Goodnight, tomorrow is a new day, Praise God! I'm too tired to proof read this post and I even got a nap this afternoon! Failed to mention that didn't I? Praise God for naps! I shall never spurn another nap!
And I remember how as a little girl you usually resisted naps successfully when you were young. It is a time of refreshment and renewal but we don't usually discover that until later!
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