Coming Up For Air

I've been putting off Part Two of Forgotten Holidays because November is pretty huge and I know I need a lot of time to piece that one together. Until "a lot of time" comes my way, I wanted to drop by and say something at least.

Here's what my week typically looks like:

Everyday starts with a 5am workout with one of my bfs from the ward. I hate waking up that early, but it's the only place I could find room. I also started doing some data entry for my Broker a couple hours a day. I tack this onto the end of the day because spending more than a collective hour at the computer when my kids are around during the day makes me feel grumpy. I've stopped promoting my Etsy shop and decided, for the time being, to let things happen as they will with that. When I have more time I will become more active with it again since I really do love it. 

So that's all the random bits, here's the day-to-day play.

Monday: Cleaning and laundry day. 

I started a new semester of creative writing at Mesa Community College (MCC) and am loving it. The craziest of the crazies from my first semester is also in the class, but so is the only normal girl, so I guess it's an ok balance. I'm not kidding how crazy this one crazy girl is, though. Last semester I had to read her story about Nipple Mongers - I'm not even going to tell you what those were. I think I'll leave you hanging on that one. Since I go to class during FHE hours (7 to 10pm) on Monday nights we moved our FHE night to Tuesday.

Tuesday: London has preschool from 8:30 to 12:30 on Tuesday and Thursday. I try to be super productive during this time, but usually end up only being moderately productive. London is loving her school, and it's been so great for her.

When Porter gets home at 3:30 from school I help him hustle with his homework then at 5pm I take Porter to his kenpo (karate) lesson till 5:30. 

When we get home we eat dinner and then do our FHE lesson or game. Lately we've been polishing up our Farkle skills.

Wednesday: I babysit a friend's three and (almost) two year-old boys. My kids call them the "Wednesday kids". So from 9 to 5 I'm pretty much too busy for anything more than a couple minutes to browse Facebook or go to the bathroom. 

At 7pm, Olen goes off to Young Mens and I take Porter to piano lessons till 7:30. This makes bed time be a little late, but he's getting really good so it's all worth it. 

After a Wednesday has been successfully completed I usually reward myself with a homemade chocolate peanut butter shake. Sometimes two.

Thursday: This is my favorite day of the week. 

London is gone to preschool again from 8:30 to 12:30. 

The only "after school" thing I had on Thursdays was Cub Scouts. (Did you know I am the Wolf Den Leader? I don't talk about it much...) But my assistant leader and I have such opposite schedules of open time in the afternoon that we can't find a spare hour between the two of us to hold scouts. I often have to cancel scouts because of this, and I honestly feel terrible about it. Plus now my assistant, also a bf from my ward, just got called into the Relief Society presidency so I'm loosing her soon. (Wahaa!) So, long story short, we don't  have anything going on (typically) on Thursday afternoons making it the one day where I don't have to rush Porter with his homework. Hallelujah.

Friday: These days are usually filled catching up on the loose strings left over from Monday thru Thursday. I keep my evenings open for catering and if there aren't any events Olen and I will grab a Red Box and carne asada fries after the kids are in bed. Ahhh carne asada fries...

Saturday: I used to make this day my big cleaning day, but I changed that to Monday after loosing the best part of Olen's day off cleaning house. Now we keep Saturday open for whatever comes up. I love catching Goodwill's 50% off sales in the morning or braving Costco for a berry sundae with the fam. Saturday nights I might go cater or just stay up too late with Olen.

Sunday: Our church changed times to 10:50 this past month. It's interesting. We go to Sunday school, then Relief Society and then Sacrament Meeting. The kids are so done by the last block, and let's be real, so am I.  But we do it this way because we combine with the Liahona Spanish Branch in our Stake for the first two blocks so the Hispanic kids and our kids can do primary/YM and YW together. We have our own Relief Society and Priesthoods, though. It's a good thing for the community, but really throws off Daisy's nap schedule. After church we over eat an early dinner and lounge around the family room playing games. It's not a bad day.

Last month I was called as an assistant camp director. I'm in charge of the YCL (the 5th year girls) portion of camp. I am totally (totally) clueless. The original camp director was just called to Relief Society President (they're taking everyone from me!) and they haven't called a new director yet, so I don't know what to do. I do know there is a camp kick-off meeting in March (or maybe April?) and the YCLs have a big part in it. Actually, I think we're suppose to plan the whole kick-off. Oh my goodness. I don't know. But all of that will have to get squeezed in Monday thru Saturday somewhere. I bet I can find some room. Hopefully.

On Tuesdays when I (or often Olen) take Porter to kenpo, we take the girls to play at the park in the same neighborhood (Candlelight) for the half hour of Porter's lesson. Last week was so windy and cold but I happen to have my camera with me and took some pictures to help take my mind off the chill.

The first thing Olen and I noticed from London's 4D ultrasound was how long her tongue was. From inside the womb she was sticking it in and out of her mouth at us from the monitor.

The side view is even better.

Alright it's been fun and a therapeutic but enough sitting and typing.

Time to fancy up a bit because I'm showing houses to clients this afternoon. Did I mention I picked up real estate again? Or maybe real estate picked me up?

I'm so grateful for the people and things that fill my hours and days. I don't think I would know what to do with a spare moment if I knew what it looked like.