This morning I awoke at 8 AM and opened the blinds in the bedroom. My husband grumbled because I had the self-discipline to get up and begin my productivity. I tidied up the bedroom and put away clothes. At about 9 AM I mowed the lawn. Now, typically I consider the lawn the man's responsibility, but I gladly take on the chore because it gives me some exercise and gets me outside where the only noise I can hear is the sound of the motor and the occasional mulching of a small tree branch which is a nice relief from a week of the kids shouting , bossing, tattling and whining. At 10:30 AM our family began our 1 hour Saturday speed cleaning. Every Saturday the family divides into two teams and thoroughly cleans one room/zone of the house. Today I had the playroom with my team of Emily, Sarah, and Jason. Of course I didn't accomplish all I had hoped, but managed to clear the clutter from one section of the room. At 1 PM we ate lunch, tuna fish and crackers. Jason took a nap and at 2 PM I took Wendy with me to the dreaded Walmart to get some groceries. Every week, I take a different kid to go with me. The past few weeks I have treated my child companion to a McDonald's ice cream cone. Today the ice cream machine was in "clean" mode when we got there. The cashier told me that it takes about 5 hours and would be finished at 6 PM. What?! Why on earth would you set the machine to clean at 1 o'clock in the afternoon on a 95 degree day in June? Use your brain, folks. Anyway, thankfully Wendy is only 2 years old and happily settled for a $0.33 bag of Cheetos Puffs. We did our shopping, arrived home at about 4:30 PM and immediately got ready for a beach party. It took about 45 minutes to get on bathing suits, lather up with lotion and pack the bags. It was quite insane and we finally made it to the beach at about 6 PM. We had a great time. It was both Rachel and Jason's first beach excursion. Rachel slept the whole time and Jason loved the water. We ate hot dogs, cake and marshmallows. Can you tell which skewer is our family's?
I think Jason is going to associate the beach with sandy hot dogs.
As we were leaving the beach at around 8:30 PM we noticed one of Emily's shoes was missing from the stroller. Also, one of Wendy's shoes was missing ... and one of Sarah's shoes was missing. Oh yeah, and both of Bradley's shoes were missing. We hunted for them with no such luck. We thought for sure they were swept off with the tide or a dog decided to play fetch with them. As we walked along the beach back to the van calculating the cost of our beach trip after the purchase of new shoes, my husband said, "What's that?" I looked and sure enough it was 5 little miracles washed up on shore. It was as if the shoes were divinely placed for us at the edge of the surf to find and save $50. There's really no way they should've been there because they must have fallen off the stroller about 100 yards from where we set up our beach camp and when we arrived the tide was way low as we walked along the water. So we said a prayer of thanks and continued the treacherous trek back to the van as David carried the double stroller over the soft sand and I carried a 30 lb. child on each hip. Who needs a gym when you have six kids?
We got home at about 9:15 PM and bathed the kids. I sped cleaned the kitchen and my husband and I sat down to watch the rest of So You Think You Can Dance from Thursday night. That was my Saturday. I both loved and hated it, I didn't like the hard work of cleaning, mowing, shopping at Walmart and packing for the beach, but mostly loved it because it ended with a good evening at the beach, miraclously found shoes and TV.
you are so productive, I love it!! My saturday consisted of me taking apart a desk, rearranging toys, and blogging. I really need to hide my computer so I'll be more productive!!
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