#hellofriday everything is all sunshine and blue skies today which is perfect for a Friday
#documentyourdays #lovewhereilive (caption from Instagram)
Fridays are one of my favorite days of the week, always. No matter what I have on the agenda my mood gets a little lift and I go through most of the day more optimistic than normal. As I come to the last few days of my current Week in the Life photo project (documenting the little things in daily life, a concept I first ran across on Ali Edwards blog) I have found myself taking more photos than at the beginning of the week which is the opposite of what usually happens during this project. The kids are also more willing to hop in front of the camera or just continue doing whatever they are doing when the camera comes out instead of complaining or trying to hide from it. Love that.
This Friday was a long and busy one, as you will see:
This was probably the 3rd morning I attempted to take a “first thing in the morning” photo. Still not great but it will work. This photo documents all that space I have in that big bed while the husband is deployed and the computer on (his) nightstand because I’ve found I go to sleep a lot more quickly if I watch something (currently Project Runway on Hulu most nights) until my eyelids droop.
Caught by my own April Fool’s joke. I thought we had switched all the boxes back but I guess I missed one. Usually breakfast is oatmeal or yogurt but sometimes I go for one of the kids’ cereals. I’m not a fan of Lucky Charms, especially when I was hoping for Crunch Berries so I put it back in the box and had some Instant Breakfast instead. Kaitlyn was watching and thought it was funny. Tyler got caught the same way Saturday morning.
Quick selfie with my girl as she looked over my shoulder while I was playing a computer game and waiting for the clock to tick along until it was time to wake up the Tyler and send Kate off to school.
Just the past couple of days he has started stripping down to his boxers to sleep – our solution to the earlier problem this week of him being “too hot” and seeking places to sleep other than his own bed. It has the added benefit of forcing him to get dressed as soon as he’s up for the morning.
I find that sitting there while Tyler gets himself breakfast and packs his own lunch frustrates me because he moves so slowly so usually I make a point of staying downstairs for at least 15 minutes before I go up to check on his progress. This morning I found him wearing his sister’s shoes and eating a donut from my brother, who occasionally picks up a few for us from the Chevron (they make awesome donuts – always have) on his way home from the gym. Of course being the health nut that he is, Wyatt never eats any himself, just tests my own will power (which lasted until after the kids were home from school then I gave in and had a donut myself)
Fridays are garbage pick up and if my Dad hasn’t already taken the cans out to the road, then I do it. It was so nice out this morning I stayed outside with Tyler to wait for the bus. He bounced rocks and chatted away to me, mostly about the solar oven they were going to make at school and how much safer that would be for kids than campfires and “then if your mom kicks you outside and you only have cheese you can melt it over a hamburger…” (no, he still hasn’t actually tried hamburgers yet)
And there goes Wyatt off on a camping trip for the weekend – his first camping adventure since we were kids. Mom also headed out of town for the weekend, to my cousin’s high school graduation in Colorado. I am happy for them, and happy about being able to keep the kitchen cleaned up more easily while they’re gone.
I took a few shots of the kitchen sink throughout the day and intend to put them into the album something like this. 7:30 AM – dishes done for the day, 11:00 AM – oh look still clean, 1:00 PM – dang that one is from me!
8:30 AM
9:00AM Phone calls and bills, updating and checking the calendar.
9:30AM Dad asked if I would let the horses into the upper field for an hour. They know this is the routine and spotted me coming. I don’t know why the grass on this side of the fence is more exciting than the grass on the other side but they all rush to be the first through the gate.
10:00AM since I was out and about I decided to run down to the shop to look for the box of the kids’ summer clothes and pull some barn wood out of the trash pile. I have an idea for something for the wall in the bathroom so I found a few good pieces, hosed them down and left them in the driveway to dry. (I will spray them for bugs later) While I was down there I snapped a few photos.
10:30AM time to put the horses back in the lower field. They move much more slowly when headed in that direction but didn’t give me any trouble.
That’s Apollo – he’s my brother’s dog, but usually gets left here all day for “company.” He’s not supposed to be on the couch but if you’re not in the room…
Curly hair today – not the crazy natural curls but toned them down with the curling iron
Lunch was soup from a can. These are my favorite mugs/soup bowls right now. They have special lids so you can put them in the microwave or store in the fridge, etc. Plus, this one has red polka dots – very “me.” After Mom and I ran across a couple and brought them home we fell in love and went back the next week to buy out half their stock 😉 I now have 8 of them packed away in a box so I will have some at my house – whenever it is we get the new house built.
1:15 PM Big event of the day – meeting with one of the planners at the County building. It’s actually a really cool old building but I didn’t take the time to stage any shots other than this one quickly on the way out. Dad and I had a fairly good meeting with the planner, though actual progress on getting our building lot separated from the rest of the farm is still nil. Lots of rules and regulations to find out and hoops to jump through. We also stopped by the Engineering office so Dad could see if they had followed through on a different concern. Gave them another push there.
By the time all was said and done we had spent a good 90 minutes at the county building and both kids were home from school when we got back. I always forget that Fridays are early out. Kaitlyn had “interrupted” our meeting with a phone call to tell me she was home and find out where I was – our standard procedure if I’m not home when one of the kids gets off the bus.
And that’s where things starting hitting me one after the other. I said hello to the kids and rushed to help Dad download and edit photos and get them emailed to the Engineering guy (someone tell me I’m not going to be as tech-challenged when I’m 60), happily accepted a last-minute invitation for Kaitlyn and myself to join friends at a play that night, made arrangements for Tyler to hang out with Dad for the rest of the night, and bundled Kaitlyn and myself into the car for her first swim practice with our “sister” team. Kaitlyn’s swim team lost its coach and they don’t have a replacement yet and Kaitlyn really doesn’t want to quit swimming. Plus we already signed her up for a couple of meets this summer. Our solution is to practice with the team in Heber a couple of times a week for May then see how she does practicing with the PreComp team here for June and July then see where we stand (fingers crossed a new coach is found and things are back on track at that point). Anyway, Kaitlyn was a bit reluctant to practice with the other team initially but so happy to be back in the pool. She said “diving off the block again felt SO good.”
So, while she was at practice I stopped at Subway to grab our dinner, growled at traffic, spent a little time trying on clothes in a couple of stores (and didn’t buy anything), then decided I just wanted to sit in the parking lot and read but my friend called to finalize arrangements for the play. We decided I would bring both girls from swim practice directly to the theater and she would get there earlier to grab seats. I stopped by her house to grab a sandwich for her daughter but forgot to grab our tickets while I was there. Did a quick stop for gas, then gobbled my own sandwich in the pool parking lot before going in to the locker room to prod the girls to get dressed more quickly. The girls did eventually hustle out to the car without shoes on (we realized near the theater that the friend had left her shoes in a locker at the pool, luckily another friend we were meeting had an extra pair in the car) and ate their sandwiches on the drive to the theater. Once the rush was over we were all able to happily enjoy the play, which was a fun little comedy. It ran a little long and I was yawning all the way home, but we were glad we went.
Why are there 4 ticket stubsin the photo? Actually there were 10 of us at the play but I ended up with more than just the two tickets for myself and Kaitlyn when my friend’s 4-year-old handed me a couple saying, “you should put these in your purse. I don’t trust myself.” 😉
All in all a very full, busy, happy Friday.
The day in numbers:
-total photos taken: 99 with my phone and 12 with the DSLR
-9653 steps taken (I realized I was so close to my 10000 goal when we got home at 11:00 but I was too tired to finish it off. Oh well)
-_____ miles driven
If you’ve missed any of my earlier Week in the Life posts feel free to check them out or follow me on Instagram as I’ve been posting photos as I go along this week.
-2016 – Monday’s Words and Photos
-2016 – Tuesday’s Words and Photos
-2016 – Wednesday’s Words and Photos
-2016 – Thursday’s Words and Photos
-2015 – Main Post with links to Words and Photos for each day
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