A Week in the Life - Monday (Rachelle)

I was totally on board with Jared when he shared his week-in-the-life idea with me. He seemed to think I wouldn't be interested in doing it or especially in recording it. Probably something to do with how little I've contributed to the family journal this year.

Not only did I record my week, I recorded my week in detail. When I read through Jared's post, I was impressed with how well he gets his points across with few words and still paints a visual picture in my mind. I, on the other hand, have no clue how to be brief and succinct. I love details. For me, the meaning of my life is in the details. It doesn't mean anything to me that I wash dishes and do laundry and prepare meals unless I look at the details of those things. So while it may be hard for anyone to get through, this is my record and to be true to myself, I share the details. I've decided to split each of my days up into separate posts so it will be somewhat less painful to read.

I also realized as I went along that I changed tense quite a bit as I was writing. I tried to fix it, but decided to just let it go. Sometimes I was typing in the minute of life I was recording, sometimes I typed way after the fact. Sometimes I even write incomplete sentences and my grammar is bad. It's just the way I do it. All these things were just too much work for a lazy editor like me to go back and correct. With those disclaimers out of the way, it's time to roll...

MONDAY
October 21, 2013
5:20am – alarm went off. Snooze for 10 then got ready for the gym. Intense boot camp this morning. The hardest exercises were the plate pushes (four rounds of pushing 50 pound weights along the floor for 40 seconds is harder than it seems) and the “finisher” which was a quarter mile run around the building at the END of our workout when my legs had already turned to jelly.

7:15am – home from gym only to see that no lights were on which meant Brita slept through her alarm. After waking up Brita, I crawled under a blanket on top of my bed for a little rest before Leah and Meg had to get up. Jared gave me a quick kiss then hobbled out into the family room. He said he is going to get an x-ray on his foot today. I hope he will be able to run in our Ragnar Relay Race in three weeks. He’s running faster and better than he’s ever run and we will both be disappointed if he has to find someone to take his place. Jared is very matter of fact about the situation. I love how he doesn’t let disappointment discourage him. Regardless of how well he’s taking it, I’m emotional enough about it for both of us.

I listened to Jared and Brita scurry around and run out the door. Brita doesn’t feel the need to tell me goodbye. She’s independent that way. I love that she’s independent, but a hug and kiss goodbye would be awesome.

7:45am – Meg came into my room looking all cute with her messy hair and summer pj’s in the 35 degree morning weather. I haven’t bothered to get anyone warmer pj’s yet. It will become a priority when someone starts to complain. She pretended to sleep while she “read” one of her books to me from memory. After a few protests, she finally gave in and put her jumper on.

Once Meg was dressed we engaged in our daily back-and-forth conversation about what she was going to have for “breakfrast.” I love that extra “r” she puts in there. I’m holding onto all the cuteness of mispronounced words because I know we’re coming to and end of those in our house. I get mad if one of the older girls corrects her.

Meg wanted to know her options. Me: “Same as every day. You can have toast with nutella, a gogurt, cereal, or Rice Krispies.” She insists that I always say cereal before specifying the kind of cereals we have. Holding onto that cuteness too. Then she says, “But you didn’t give me any choices from the fridge.” So she opened the fridge and pulled out grapes and a golden delicious apple. I suspected that she just wanted the apple for the seeds.

We only had one apple, so I asked Leah if she wanted half of it and Meg piped in with, “But the apple parts belong to me!” Yes, they do. I sliced off all the cores so she could break them in half and dig out the seeds, just like Johnny Appleseed would do.

If I were to leave the seeds out on the counter all day, which I won’t, Meg would come home from school and plant them in our backyard. If all the seeds grow that she has planted over the past month, we are going to have quite the apple orchard surrounding our back patio someday.

8:15am - We finished packing lunches and I hurried to write on Meg's napkin (a requirement I must fulfill every day).

Leah and Meg are really good about preparing their own lunches every night after dinner. Lately they have liked taking soup in a thermos, so all we had to do this morning was warm up their soup. Leah wanted to know if she could split her leftover clam chowder into breakfast and lunch. She’s a funny breakfast eater. Not much sounds good to that girl in the mornings so I always let her eat anything she wants for breakfast. I really crack up when I see her pull out chips and salsa in the mornings.

While the soup was warming up, I tried to get a head start on the dishes everyone was too lazy to do last night. I have a very low tolerance for dishes on the counter and in the sink.

Except I’m always okay with a water glass on each side of the faucet. Mine is on the right and Jared’s is on the left. We leave them there all day and then wash them at night.

9am – survived the school drop off this morning and I even had Leah and Meg there one full minute before school started. I came home and finished up the dishes. I always leave them out on the counter to dry. I don’t mind seeing them on the counter if they are clean and stacked nicely.

I may not stress too much over air-drying dishes, but I am very particular about the way the dishrag is folded in thirds and laid evenly across the center of the sink. It's actually a reminder to me of my mom every single day. I hate pulling a cold, wet, mildewy rag out of the bottom of the sink and so did LuDene. She trained me hard on fast on proper dishrag technique when I was a kid. I actually think about my mom almost every single time I perfectly fold and strategically place my dish rag.

I also love to see the little flowers Meg picked from our flower garden. She is always getting pleasure out of flowers and things in nature and my heart sings when she brings her goodies inside to enjoy and share with the family. Now with a semi-clean kitchen, I can actually begin to have a semi-productive day.

10:15am – I am realizing this week-in-the-life thing is going to have some holes in it because it takes time to write about all this stuff. I am also realizing that I frequently start off my day with distractions. It was 9:30am when I finally finished writing about my morning to the 9am point, and just as I was getting ready to jump in the shower, Jared called to let me know the x-ray didn’t show a stress facture. But his buddy said it might just not show up yet so he’s still not out of the woods.

After talking to Jared I figured I would run downstairs and say hey to my parents who just moved in with us permanently on Thursday. I really love having them here. I meandered through our basement...

It is cluttered with a bunch of mom and dad's stuff while they are moving in. When I got into the apartment, I noticed that mom had a bunch of office files and papers strewn out on her bed. The poor lady was looking for a specific document, which can sometimes be hard to find in the most organized of circumstances. I pulled some boxes in from the family room and left her to search those, then dad tried to sell me a bunch of ace bandages before I came back upstairs.

I decided to grab some breakfast before showering so I don’t pass out in there. I grabbed my standard cup of cottage cheese. I really like the Western Family Small Curd Cottage Cheese that I can get at Macey’s. And I get a thrill out of spooning my cottage cheese into these happy bowls I got from Ikea when we lived in Texas about five years ago.

Even though I hate Ikea, I love these bowls. Now I’m doing my typical sit-at-the-computer-while-I-eat-breakfast thing. It’s a horrible habit, but it’s a habit I love.

12:30pm – For the past two hours I’ve been getting ready for the day. Another quick chat with mom and dad, meat and hamburger buns thawing from the freezer, and I was finally ready to jump in the shower. I can’t even articulate how much I love taking hot showers. The kind of hot that turns my skin red.

I had just gotten out of the shower when Carrie called and we talked for about thirty minutes. She wanted to know my opinion of Sarah’s boyfriend and she told me that she and Chandler had chatted a little bit this morning because they were both online and sending their emails at the same time today. His bike doesn’t have a seat and the front wheel falls off every few minutes when he’s riding it. But he’s having a hard time justifying getting it fixed because right now they get a car for two weeks in a row, then share it with another companionship for a week which is when he rides his so-called “bike.” Gotta love that missionary mentality. I swear I swell with pride whenever I hear a new report on him. I know he’s not my son, but I can’t believe how much I love him and I feel like a proud and grateful parent when I hear about the changes and growth that are happening in his life.

Once I was off the phone, I could finally clean my face. I use all my skincare stuff at night when I wash my face, and I leave it out to use it again in the morning. I adore skincare products and makeup. I definitely have favorite products that I have used for years (like that Clinique Clarifying lotion…I happen to use #2), but I also get a huge thrill out of trying new stuff. I recently splurged on that little tube of Strivectin. I have loved it. I’m forty four years old, and that cream will be worth every pretty penny if it keeps me from developing a full-on chicken neck before I’m fifty. I’ve got six years to see if it's a rip off or not.

After I put all my skincare stuff away, I get out all of my makeup and brushes. I put my powdery things on top of my washcloth so they don’t spill all over my counter and then I get busy “getting pretty” as Meg would say. My favorite makeup products right now are my Bare Minerals foundation and Mally mascara. Those things are my absolute must-haves.

Now that I was finally "pretty" I figured I’d better get busy washing Leah’s sheets. This is how she left her bed this morning before going to school and I couldn’t have been happier.

I get a lot of satisfaction in seeing my kids take the initiative to do hygienic things. We’ve got a pretty low bar around here.

I sort of wish her impulse to stop sleeping in stinky sheets had come on a day when the washer and dryer didn’t spit out all the clothes onto the floor and all over the laundry room, however.

Even though all that other stuff was screaming for attention, Leah's sheets went into the washer as my first laundry priority of the day…because if I don’t support her in this effort, she may never wash her sheets again. She may never wash them again anyway, but it won’t be because I didn’t do my part.

I hurried into the kitchen because I didn’t want to miss lunch, but no one had prepared a lunch for me so I slapped some creamy peanut butter on a piece of bread and once again, sat down in front of the computer to eat it. Hey, I never said my habits are pretty. I only promised Jared I would record them. So I’m eating my Jif and loving it of course, mostly because it’s easy AND because peanut butter happens to be one of my favorite foods in the whole universe (I actually have lots of favorite foods in the whole universe). I used to be a Jif Crunchy girl, but when the kids were little and I made peanut butter sandwiches for their lunches every single day (no lie), I didn’t dare give them the crunchy stuff because I didn't want them to choke on the nuts. I always thought I’d go back to the peanuts, but it never happened.

And I’ve given up wheat bread again for a while because the girls prefer Grandma Sycamore’s white bread and I’m fighting with them on other, more important things right now. So I’m calling it a no-guilt white bread frenzy until I don’t have anything important to fight with the girls about anymore. Then we can go back to fighting over bread because I think parents should always be in a fight with their kids over something.

1:45pm - Finally got out of the house so I could take care of a few errands. I went to Macey’s and found myself in shock when I saw a guy on his way out of the store totally check out a girl walking into the store. He meant to be obvious about it and as she passed him he whistled at her! She whipped around so fast, and I'm pretty sure our disgusted expressions matched each other. Then the guy saw me looking at him all appalled and he had the nerve to check ME out. Standing right there in front of my face, his dirty eyes scanned my body. He left out the whistle though. It might be something about the extra thirty I pack around just for fun, but I can’t be sure. Anyway, I filled my synthroid prescription while I shopped for some basics – bread, milk, eggs, and grasshopper cookies cuz they were 2 for $5 and the girls ate our last package during their Friday night movie.

I made a quick stop at Allred Orchard’s fruitstand and bought a small sack of Jonagold and Golden Delicious apples for $6. Our whole family loves this time of year because the apples from this farm are crunchy, juicy, and scrumptious. And Meg likes them because it means more seeds she can plant for our family orchard.

 As I was driving to the mall for some of that makeup I love so much and don’t want to run out of, Brita called me from school to ask if she could go to a friend’s house. After I said yes, she replied with, “Oh, and can you come pick all of us up and take us to Meghan’s house?” Sure. Because what else would a mother have to do? I sit around all day long hoping opportunities to carpool kids will crop up. I totally lucked out today. Twenty minutes later, with some moisturizer in a little bag under the seat of my car, four pre-teens piled into the minivan and I dropped them at Meghan’s house. I love Brita’s friends. They are all great girls and she has found a place where she belongs with them. I'm actually happy to drive them where ever they want to go.

3pm - I immediately drove to the other school to pick up Leah and Meg after dropping off Brita and her friends. The girls were excited to see the apples in the car and Leah couldn’t wait to bite into one. Apparently I’m not the only one who breaks the rule of no eating at the computer. Stuff like this irritates the awesome hubby to no end.

See, I'm totally keeping this week-in-the-life thing real. I'm going so far as to post photos that will incriminate me...proof that I'm letting the kids get away with stuff Jared would never tolerate. It kills me to acknowledge that I sometimes undermine the hubs.

After Meg finished her chicken noodle soup leftover from lunch, I convinced her to sit down at the piano to practice. Because she can’t read and isn’t totally self-directed at the age of five, I get to participate in her practicing too.

It’s one of the simple joys in my life to sit next to her at the piano as she whines and repeatedly tells me her fingers hurt and can she have a hug. It’s either that or yelling. So after her warning, she went into her room for a bit, then we both sat down to read the note she wrote to me asking for another chance. More of the same ensued and after the next warning we were done for the moment. Meg was devastated because she couldn’t watch TV, play with toys, eat any snacks, or basically do anything fun until practicing happened. She perked up when I told her we could try again after dinner. That blessed hour can’t come soon enough for this already exhausted mother.

3:45 is when the circus with Meg and her practicing finally came to a halt and that’s when I had to kick it into high gear to start preparing dinner. I sliced onions, mushrooms, and tomatoes, then got a phone call from Lisa Thomas, the Young Women’s Adviser who works with me over the 14 and 15-year old Mia Maids. We had to solidify our plans for our Wednesday night activity and because she was recently called, she had some questions I had to answer. Leah pulled her sheets out of the dryer and realized she’s going to need some help. Yet one more thing I get to do after dinner. This is the time of day where I feel like I’m gonna crash so one extra thing sounds really exciting. Yeah, riiiight.

4:50 – Dinner still isn’t ready even though I started preparing for it over an hour ago. Distractions are so distracting. So relieved I could call Jared on his cell phone and ask him to stop at Meghan’s to get Brita. Meg is currently setting the table and taking breaks to “play” the recorder granny just gave her. I don’t have a headache yet at all. I'm telling mom to take that thing away and if she doesn't, the only place Meg will be allowed to play it is in granny's apartment.

6:30pm – The past two hours have been spent preparing, eating, and cleaning up dinner. I’m never sure why it takes so long, especially because we are lucky if we even get to spend a full fifteen minutes with all of us sitting together at the table eating. At least I had some help getting everything on the table. Leah prepared the salad; Brita and Meg set the table; Jared roasted and sliced some chile peppers he brought in from our garden; and I sliced apples and an avocado, sautéed onions and mushrooms, and grilled the hamburgers. Then of course my friend Rachel Edwards called and we had to discuss some Ragnar details because I really was hoping for another distraction to get me off task. But I took her call anyway, because later wouldn't have been any easier and I welcomed a conversation with a friend, even if we did have to talk about running.

Planning and preparing dinner typically takes up a big chunk of my day, and the payoff isn’t always evident from day to day, but Jared and I both feel like it’s worth the effort and sacrifice to sit down and eat together at the end of everyone’s day. We always do happy’s and sad’s so everyone gets a chance to think about their day and share something. I love it when people say they are happy because we are eating a good dinner. And dinner tonight was good. A juicy burger always hits in the spot, especially when we've got all the yummy fixin's.

During dinner someone decided to get cranky and no one, including the cranky person herself, is sure why. I’m bracing myself for Family Home Evening and hoping she can fit in a shower before FHE. Sometimes that can settle her mood. I try to be patient and understanding with moodiness around here because I was an intensely moody child myself and even still, sometimes I give in to “moods”. Especially when I feel pressure from lots of different angles and sources. Growing up, my parents were always loving with me and I always knew my home was a safe place for me. I want my girls to have that same blessing in their lives.

7:15 – Finally got Meg to sit down at the piano for a super painful half hour of practicing. At least she wasn’t disrespectful this time and we got through a few of her songs.

7:45 – Went through some of my e-mails and replied to some of them regarding Ragnar stuff. We’re trying to decide if we should request a start time earlier than the 10:30am start time we were originally assigned. Our team consists of 12 people with different opinions, different agendas, and different schedules so coming to a consensus isn’t the easiest thing in the world. At least everyone on the team is reasonable and willing to be flexible.

I also sent an e-mail to Lisa with some Young Women’s information. I fit that stuff in whenever I can. Now I’m wondering if we’re really going to do Family Home Evening, especially since I hear Carrie and her family downstairs. Meg will be disappointed if we don’t have it, but she and I both will pay the price for a late bedtime if we do go ahead with it. Leah and Jared just finished practicing guitar so I’ll consult with Jared.

9pm - We finally finished putting the clean sheets on Leah’s bed. Holy cow. Some days changing sheets is an all-day affair I guess. Who knew?

9:30pm – We decided to forego FHE tonight. Typically we are consistent with FHE, but tonight we decided to skip it so we could help with some moving-in stuff downstairs. Sometimes making exceptions is the right thing to do. Carrie and Adam came to help rearrange some of the furniture in mom’s room and we put bed skirts on the beds. Moving is so hard and mom and dad are feeling the stress of moving in their 70’s. I can see it in every step and movement. I want to help them every chance I get because I want them settled and enjoying life again.

9:30pm and the girls are in bed. Looks like Meg and I will be paying the price of a late bedtime even without FHE.

11pm – Lights out