Week in review

Most weekend mornings, Sydney wakes up at 7:00 (and I get up with her so I can help keep her quiet enough so her sister can sleep). Then when Sarah wakes they play until about 9:30 when DH wakes up and we get everyone dressed and laundry gathered so when he fininshes breakfast he can start the laundry. Between 7 - 9:30, I usually drink my coffee, read blogs and other assorted things and do nothing.

Yesterday morning, DH commented that it seemed that nothing was done until he woke up. Yep!! It's true. After all, why should I work if he gets to sleep in.

I usually have Tuesday and Fridays to get things done, but this week didn't go as planned. Tuesday I accomplished almost nothing and on Wed our manager for one of my jobs said that we needed to turn our annual report (which we usually print as a plain white (with photos) into a glossy magazine. So, I rearranged things and moved some stuff, designed a cover and back page and moved some of the words about our financial accomplishments into graphs for the inside back cover. It took me Wed (working an extra 1.5 hours) and Thursday to finish and I took it to the printer Friday morning (on my day off). Unfortunately, I didn't realize that we were two pages under for the layout we had. I had to either add two pages, or remove two pages. I also had to modify the glossy cover. That took me from 8:30 - 2:30. So, I worked almost a full day on my day off! (so now I won't feel too guilty when I have to be off 1/2 day Wed.).

The best part was our boss was in Paris, so we didn't have to clear every decision with him. So, the process went much smoother. We know that his response will be "well, it's not what I would have done, but it'll be ok, it's too late to do anything else now." But, there are things I would have done differently too - had we designed it this way from the start. But, it's nice and I'm proud of it.

Tuesday, I went to tap lessons for the first time since my ankle operation. I was thrilled that my ankle held up the way it did! I was able to keep up with the class and decided to see if I could do a 'pull back' and managed to do one or two correctly!

Wednesday, when I thought my day was going to be normal, I put my Christmas cards and a package in the car to drop at the post office. It took me until Friday to get there. But, the package was mailed and today (Sunday) I finished putting stamps on the cards. They will be dropped in the mail on our way to church.

Friday night, Sarah and I went to the first meeting for a mother/daughter book group. We have a wide range of ages, so there will be some months the older girls will read a different books and some months we will all read the same one. Our current plan is to meet Friday nights and everyone bring some finger food for a pot luck dinner. We've promised Sydney that we will read the book as a family so she can be part of it even if she's too young to come to the group meeting. But, I think it will be nice as Sydney and DH can have date night once a month.

Yesterday, I started cleaning my room. I found myself vaccuming all the dust under and around furniture, cleaning out the bottom of the closet, and dusting the room. It's so pretty!! Then, I cleaned out the fridge. I still have a few more containers to wash, but it's so much better. Then, I made pasta from scratch using the pasta attachment for my kitchen aid that my parents bought me for Christmas. I just need to figure out how to get the leftover pasta to separate while it dries (but I'll probaly just make a 1/2 recipe in the future.) The girls seemed to like it and Syd announced that now we can "keep the pasta in the drawer for emergencies."

The other thing I managed to do was to wash down most of the windows. Our house was built in 1948 - so our windows aren't as tight as we need. As a result, in the winter the condensation can turn to a bit of mold. Monthy, I wash the windows down with some bleach water to kill all the germs before they can develop into anything. Yesterday I got about 1/2 the windows done. It dawned on me this fall that if I took out the screens from the windows, the water could evaporate better and I've seen an improvement this year. I'll finish the rest today and maybe this week I can work on sewing projects on my days off rather than cleaning!