Week in the Life - Monday

I've decided to participate in a special project this week called "Week in the Life". I will be documenting the daily details of our lives with pictures and words and reflecting a bit on the parts that I'm especially grateful for. This project is inspired by scrapbooker/blogger/artist Ali Edwards, who does this one week each year and encourages others to participate.

As it happens, this week will be a week chock full of activity, family, and special moments. Both our boys celebrate their birthdays! For that reason this project seemed especially appropriate this year. I really hope I can be faithful in my picture taking and journaling (historically two things I struggle with). I will be posting my pictures and some of my journaling here on my blog over the course of the week but then I will assemble it all into a set of scrapbook pages after it's done.  Thanks for sharing the week with me!

The Day

6:30am - Our Monday morning started pretty typically for our weekdays. Dave and I sleep past the time when we should get up - laying in bed half-conscious listening to NPR on the radio. So then when we finally get up we race around to get ourselves and the kids ready in time. (Just keeping it real, here, folks.) I get in the shower and start getting ready while he irons and gets the kids up and dressed.

For some reason David was moving even slower than usual this morning. (I have found that children's urgency is inversely proportional to the urgency of their parents.) The kids sat down to eat a quick breakfast together in the playroom before we headed out the door for daycare and work. Lately I've been eating breakfast in the car on the way to work - usually coffee and a bagel.

9:00am - Quick morning meeting, then I finalized a presentation I had to send out for an important meeting on Wednesday. The rest of the day should be pretty quiet, which will hopefully give me a chance to get some real work done on my to-do list.

12:00pm - I ate lunch at my desk today. Sadly, the cuisine was not exactly five star (weird pasta from the cafe at the office), but it was better than starving.  :-)

3:30pm - I finally managed to finish a report that had needed to get done for a while now. Whew! It feels good to have that just about wrapped up. Sent it out for review before I publish it. How much longer 'til 5:00?

5:30pm - Pick up the kids at daycare. David had a good day, behavior-wise, so I let them get snacks from the vending machine (always a big treat!)

6:00pm - Arrive home to meet hubby, who had a stressful day at work and was kicked back on the sofa relaxing. (Got to love him, though, as stressed out as he was he had unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher before I arrived!) I made a quick pizza for dinner and the kids and I ate together at the table while Dave puttered around in the kitchen (he had pizza for lunch, so he was eating other stuff). As usual, Carter stuffed his face while little David left his entire pizza on his plate uneaten. He declared that he "doesn't like cheese" and then proceeded to ask me for a cheese stick. He has been very picky lately.

7:00pm - Dave went out to the garage to work on his woodworking project - a cedar chest he designed. I went out to the garden to prep the beds for the cold weather we're expecting tonight. It's another unseasonably cool day here again today - the spring weather we should have had in March instead of the 80 degree weather we actually had. These late cold snaps have really put a kink in my garden plans this spring. I discovered that my first strawberry had ripened - and to my dismay also learned that some little critter had found it first! I covered the beds with blankets and prayed that my beans would survive the night. The cabbage is still looking good, and we have more strawberries yet to ripen, so I may get one yet!

7:30pm - Bath time followed by pajamas and a brief TV show before books and bed.

8:45pm - I finally sit down to go through my pictures and update the blog post. Hooray! Ready to be linked up tomorrow.

9:15pm - Ugh. I remember that the kids have to bring bagged lunches to school tomorrow. I head downstairs to make the lunches, get coffee set up for tomorrow morning, and grab a bedtime snack.

9:45pm - Finally sitting in bed in my PJs with my laptop and my snack. Ahhhhhhhh. Time to relax.

Observations
We really need to get up earlier. I hate starting the day out rushed, panicked, and grouchy. It's not fair to the kids and it doesn't set a good tone for the day.

Today I'm thankful for...

• two kids to feed and dress - they won't always need us like they do now
• a job to come to every day

Favorite Moment

Sitting in bed with my laptop and a bedtime snack at the end of a long day...just relaxing. (I have to admit, that's my favorite part of most weekdays!)