Week in My Life Recap

After having the camera pretty much attached to my hand for a whole week, I have to admit so far this week I have been walking around feeling like something is missing. The main thing I wanted to accomplish was to be aware and appreciate my everyday life for what it is. I think I accomplished that goal. Since Sunday I walk around more aware of every thing I do, how I relate with my family, what brings me joy, what creates stress. Definitely more alert of the dynamics around me.

In total, I took 284 pictures last week. This was surprisingly less than I expected since I have been know to take more than 200 at just one family function. I had hoped to work on the album yesterday since I was off work, but the day did not turn out as I had expected and just did not have the time to do it. I hope to be able to work on it by the end of the week and I will post some of the pages.

A few lessons learned from this experience:

1. I hate seeing pictures of myself. The ones that I posted I had to force myself to do it. I erased at least four out of five in which I was in.

2. I spend a lot of energy just trying to calm myself down enough to avoid passing my stress on to the girls. This, on the negative side, is very draining and leaves me exhausted because I am at a continuous war with myself. On the positive side, I can see how much I have progressed in not letting my mood just take over I have develop much more will power than I give myself credit for. Still a long way from the ideal, but I can see the progress.

3. I need to tweak things at home so I have time to take better care of myself. With the exception of the weekend, during the week I do not sit down to have breakfast or dinner, I prepare it for the girls and while they eat, I keep on doing things that need to get done around the house, etc. The few times I take time down to read a magazine or even take a nap, I feel like I’m wasting my time and not focusing on the things that are “important” or need taken care of.

Of course, there is a number of other issues that came to light in the documenting that I hope to be now better equipped to handle.

Did you notice any other patterns? Feel free to leave me constructive comments on things that jumped at you, from following my life for a week. Hope you enjoyed the experience along with me. I certainly did!

Week in My Life - Saturday

Happy Sabbath! I have to explain that this is a very non-typical Saturday for us. On a normal Saturday, we wake up and our morning activities revolve around last minute preparations for programs at church and getting ready to go to church. Both Joel and I are very involved in the girls’ Sabbath School and other church activities. So today is definitely not a typical day in my life.

We had planned on going away camping this weekend, but things just didn’t work out on that. However, we decided to just take the day to relax at home and do an informal worship with the girls. This afternoon we will be driving to Indianapolis were we have tickets to see the Sound of Music Musical at the Beef and Boards Dinner Theater in Indianapolis. This plan just came about yesterday, it is kind of crazy driving that long for it, but we think it will be a fun thing for the girls to experience.

Last night I did not sleep well at all. I woke up around 3:30 AM and could not go back to sleep. I feel like I am going to be getting a cold or something. My body aches all over. I went downstairs, read for a while, and went back to bed around 5:30AM.

7:04 – Natalie comes into our room announcing is DAYTIME. I say it is still dark outside and to go back to bed. She is not fooled but goes back to her room and I hear her playing.

8:40 – Joel goes downstairs with her and I hear them talking somewhat loud. I will myself out of bed to go take a picture of whatever it is they are doing. I find them at the computer looking at the Johnny West dolls on E-bay again. Natalie is apparently now obsessed with them. They are looking at the horses that came with the dolls.

9:15 – I hear that Kaitlin is also downstairs with them so I go down to see what they are doing. They are preparing breakfast. I talk to them for a while but then go back to bed. I’m just not feeling well. I have a headache and find the girls overly excited this morning. I guess is strange for them to not go to church and we still have not told them what we are doing later today.

10:00 – I go back to bed, Joel comes in to talk to me for a while, the girls are just coming in and out being loud and playful. Natalie and Kaitlin have a game of chase all over the house. I try to keep my cool. My head is exploding. We announce to them what we have planned for this evening and they are very excited indeed.

11:00 – Kaitlin starts playing the hymns she is learning in the piano, and some Christmas songs. It’s actually kind of relaxing to listen to. So much better than when she was playing violin!! She seems to be enjoying learning piano. Joel goes down to take a bath in the Jacuzzi. I need to get out of bed myself. We are going to do worship as soon as everyone has taken baths and gotten dressed and then we are starting the drive to Indianapolis.

I will post the afternoon and evening recap tomorrow. Hope you are having a happy and restful Sabbath!

Saturday Recap:

3:00 PM - We left for Indianapolis. Kaitlin and I had a big argument right before leaving about what she was going to wear. I have to admit I got a little more upset than necessary. Thankfully the trip to Indianapolis is long enough we were able to get over it before we got to the theater.

6:30 PM - We arrive at the theater for dinner. Both girls were very excited! It took a while for our turn at the buffet, but it was interesting to just watch the people. There were people dressed very fancy to people in jeans and T-shirts. Dinner was pretty good. Nothing too wonderful, but the girls were able to eat some of the things they had. The waiter came around with the dessert tray, and we all order dessert and ask them to bring it out during intermission. The girls entertained themselves watching how they take out the buffet and set the stage. Joel and I are reading the program and all of the sudden we notice that the dessert is not included in the dinner price. We assumed it was! We start panicking, because neither of us have any cash on us, and we have no idea how much the dessert was going to be. We talk about going out and finding a cash machine, and then Kaitlin remembers that her backpack was still in the car's trunk and she had her money there. We run out to the car and get the money. That sure saved us the embarrassment of having to cancel our dessert and then not even having money for tip. Oh the life of the poor!

8:00 PM - The show starts and both girls love it! Natalie gets really into it. Laughing outloud at the jokes. She keeps asking when they are going to bring her chocolate cake. As soon as the lights go out right before intermission, she says very loud WHERE IS MY CAKE? Thankfully, the people around thought that was pretty funny. The show ended at 10:30 PM and we started the three hour ride back home.

In general the show was very good, and the girls really enjoyed the experience. However, if we ever decide to do it again, we will probably do it as part of a weekend trip rather than a day trip. It's just too much driving to do it in just one day.

1:30 AM - We arrived home and went to bed.

A Week in My Life - Friday

10.24.08

I cannot believe it is Friday already! At least I cannot say this week has been a blur, since I have been faithfully tracking our activities. I definitely recommend that everyone do this at least once. It really makes you live in the present and conscious of every little thing you are doing. Of course, it also blaringly highlights the not so perfect moments in your life.

4:29 AM – The smoke alarm starts beeping. It goes off after about 30 seconds but it wakes Kaitlin up and gives me quite the scare. We have experienced this problem recently, especially if it is windy or storming outside. I need to figure out what the problem is. I go all over the house, checking all the rooms to make sure nothing is wrong. My body is still jolted from the waking up so suddenly. I tell Kaitlin everything is fine, and she goes back to bed, but is still restless. I lay down with her for a while but cannot fall back asleep. I move to my bed so I do not keep bothering her with my tossing and turning. I lay there and rest but just cannot fall asleep. Around 5:30AM I start feeling sleep coming back, but by then is too late. I am afraid of falling asleep and waking up late.

6:15 AM – I get up and decide to take a hot bath, to calm my body down. I stay in the tub for half an hour.

6:45 AM - Kaitlin gets up just as I am coming out of the bathroom. She starts getting dressed and I run downstairs to prepare breakfast. It feels good to walk into a clean and organized kitchen. I start cooking an egg for Natalie. She gets up around 5 minutes later. She slept 13 hours straight! I do the run up and down the stairs about three times, while monitoring her bath and cooking her breakfast. I want to make sure she eats a big breakfast since she had no dinner last night

7:00 AM – I am dressed and start getting Natalie dressed. She has loads of energy and keeps jumping from one place to another. I on the other hand have no energy, but do my best to keep a playful attitude. I get her dressed, do her hair, and take her down to eat her breakfast. She offers a very long prayer, praying for each family member individually and a few other friends in the family, but does not pray for the food. She realizes this and prays again for her food. She finds it hilarious that she forgot!

I leave Natalie with her breakfast and go upstairs to do some more picking up around the house. The laundry closet is bulging, and I am still not done putting the clean one away.

7:35 AM – We make an attempt to leave the house, but Kaitlin starts getting frantic trying to find her spelling words cards.

7:39 AM – We leave the house. It is very dark and pouring rain. On the way to school, Kaitlin is in a frazzled mood. I tell her to put the DS away and practice her spelling words one more time. She is not a happy camper but complies. Natalie asks her why she is in such a bad mood. She hates spelling and thinks she is terrible at it. I point out she has an A- so far. I go on talking about the importance of spelling and she starts getting upset so I drop the subject (no pun intended). Natalie starts spelling "down" D O N. She and Kaitlin argue about the word having a W or not. She asks me and gets upset when I say that yes it does have a W.

7:55 AM – Drop the girls off at school.

8:26 AM – Arrive at my desk. It is pouring outside and still pretty dark.

I left the camera with Joel today so he can take some pictures of what they do this afternoon. I honestly feel like a limb is missing or something. I have had that camera attached to my hand all week long.

I am excited about putting this project together next week. It should be fun!

Friday Afternoon


I have another not so great day at work. I guess is to be expected after being awake since 4:30 in the morning. I keep getting calls from Kaitlin; she is having a hard time getting along with her dad. They have been experiencing some issues, that I will not go into details now, but it is getting me frustrated. Joel took Natalie to Chuck E Cheeses today after school, but Kaitlin refused to go.

5:00 PM – I leave work. It is still sprinkling outside.

5:40 PM – I arrive home. I guess my arrival has been greatly anticipated. My first question to Joel is if he took any pictures of the afternoon activities. No, he did not :(. Joel announces my arrival and Natalie comes down running very excited to see me. She immediately asks me if we can make play dough this evening. Kaitlin comes down a couple of seconds later, excited but tense. Almost immediately, she starts an argument with her dad. The plan was that Joel and Kaitlin were going to go out for some quality time together as soon as I got home. Kaitlin protests that she does not want to go, but we finally convince (read force) her to go.

Natalie shows me all the stuff she has been playing with. She set up an “Indian village” with my bed pillows in her room. Joel has these dolls from when he was a little boy of Johnny & Jane West that he has been thinking of maybe selling on E-bay (Lilly we might need your help with this [smile]). He brought them out along with his GI Joe from the 60s and now Natalie loves playing with them.

6:00 PM – Natalie and I come down to the kitchen and start making dinner. She helps make me a hot chocolate, and we start working on the play dough. She wants it colored purple, so we try some food coloring but we cannot get it to look purple. Thankfully, this does not upset Natalie too much. We have dinner and Natalie goes back to play in her room while I clean the kitchen. I go upstairs and try to pick a little bit more around the house, take a picture of the empty laundry hamper and closet. Joel took all the laundry to the laundry mat this morning. Isn’t he just the greatest? I hang out in Natalie’s room while she plays. She informs me that her dad also says the word down has a W, but she still does not believe it. I tell her to get me a book and I will show her the word so she can see for herself. We look at a couple books until I find the word. She looks at it and it is settled, it does have a W. She goes back to play.

7:30 PM – Joel and Kailin come back. They seem happier than when they left. That is a good sign. Kaitlin goes up to take a bath and Natalie wants Joel to show me the other Johnny West dolls and accessories on E-bay. We do that for a little bit and I am getting restless. I am tired and ready for the girls to go to bed.

8:30 PM Joel gives Natalie a bath and I start rounding them up for bed. They are a little more rowdy than normal; I give them time to settle down, while trying to decide what outfits they are going to wear tomorrow. I notice that Natalie’s lips are very chapped so I put some chap stick and it stings her lips. She starts screaming and running around trying to take it off, I start running behind her with a piece of paper trying to air her lips so they will not sting and she won’t rub it off. The whole thing turns into a big game for her with her running back and forth from Kaitlin’s room to hers with me following her with the piece of paper. I finally stop and tell her she has to go to bed. She asks for a little fan so she can fan her lips during the night. We pray and both girls go to bed.

9:00 PM I take a bath and come down to upload the pictures and write this post.

A Week in my Life - Thursday

10.23.08

Thursday Morning

4:30 AM Natalie comes into my room to use the bathroom and then comes to bed with me. My alarm goes off at 5AM but there is no way I can get up. I go back to sleep.

6:45 AM Get up and go downstairs to make breakfast and lunches. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of tiredness. The dishes from dinner are still in the sink. I focus on preparing breakfast for the girls and pack their lunches. Not feeling very creative this morning as far as their lunches.

7:00 AM Kaitlin comes down in her PJs to eat breakfast. I ask her if she is tired, she says no. She looks in good spirits. I make a mental note to keep my grouchiness to a minimum to not mess up her mood.

7:10 AM we both go upstairs to get dressed. I iron their clothes and help Kaitlin with her hair. She wants me to take a picture of me doing her hair.

7:20 AM I start waking Natalie up. She is sound asleep, but gets up in a good mood. She wants to keep her blinders on because the light bothers her. I get her dressed and take her to the bathroom to do her hair. She is in a very playful mood, and keeps acting as if she is blind, walking around bumping into things. I swallow hard to keep my irritability at a minimum and finish doing her hair.

7:30 AM we go downstairs, I serve her breakfast, and I run upstairs to finish getting dressed. I hear Kaitlin starts practicing some piano.

7:45 AM I’m finally done, Natalie is still eating (she likes to take her time), I feel agitated but try not to show it, encourage her to finish quickly while we take the backpacks, etc. out to the car. The kitchen is left a total mess [sigh].

7:48 AM we pull out of the garage and Kaitlin freaks out because the school bus just passed and that means we are running late. Normally the bus passes around 7:55AM; it was running a little early this morning. I remember we did not feed the cats (this is normally Natalie’s job) so I run and do that and we leave. We listen to Natalie’s choir songs on the way to school. She wants to know what “Vida Antigua” (Old Life) means. I explain it means we leave behind our old life of doing things wrong and not following the things Jesus wants us to. She states, “Oh, you mean Satan’s life”. Yes, Natalie, I guess you could also put it that way.

8:05 AM – Drop girls off at school.

8:26 AM – Arrive at my desk.

Wednesday Afternoon
Disclaimer: I am very tired and don't have the energy to revise this too much. Please don't hold it against me if it is a little confusing or has grammar errors.



I was not a very productive person at work today. Had a couple meetings and in between I struggled to keep motivated. I got some things done at work, but don’t feel like the Employee of the Day. I forgot to eat lunch and by 2:30 PM I was starving so had to grab a snack from the vending machine.

3:30 PM – I leave work and drive to Target to buy the girls Christmas presents. Joel and I have known for a while what we wanted to get them and decided it to just go ahead and get it now before the holidays shopping rush begins. I am so excited about it, but can not say what it is at this point.

4:20 PM – Arrive to school to pick up the girls. Natalie is always so happy to see me. We go to pick up Kaitlin in her classroom. She stayed working on a project she has coming up. She also informs me she is sick of my picture taking this week. Natalie stops in the hall to show me her art work hanging on the wall. We stop by Lina’s (Natalie’s former care giver) to pick up Natie’s arepas. Mrs. Lina normally makes them for Natalie on Wednesday and we stop by after choir rehearsal to pick them up, but we weren’t able to do that yesterday. We visit with Lina for a while.

5:00 PM – We leave for home. Natalie falls asleep in the ride home. I bring her in and lay her on the couch. Poor thing has been tired all week long. Kaitlin and I eat and we work for a while on her spelling words for tomorrow’s test. She starts getting a little bit annoyed with me because I keep joking around acting like in her Christmas Musical she is rehearsing for in choir. The Musical is titled the Christmas County Spelling Bee. I finally drop it before things escalate. She hates spelling, so I was trying to make things lighter, but I guess I was doing it the wrong way.

5:30 PM – Kaitlin goes down to watch some TV and I rest on the couch reading a magazine.

6:30 PM – Kaitlin comes up and starts working on a Power Point she needs to take to school tomorrow. I start trying to wake Natalie up to eat something, but she is just passed out. Kaitlin and I talk while she works on her Power Point. I keep trying to “help” her with it, but she keeps insisting she knows everything she needs to do. I do end up teaching her a few tricks.

7:00 PM – Kaitlin goes down again to watch Food Network. I clean the kitchen and mop the floor. Natalie is still asleep. I decide to let her sleep until tomorrow. I carry her up to her bed.

7:30 PM – Kaitlin goes to take a bath while I am still picking up a little around the house.

8:25 PM – I go upstairs thinking she is still in the bathtub, but she is already in bed reading a book. We pray together and say good night. I come downstairs to write this post. Now I am worried Natalie is going to get up in the middle of the night and not want to go back to bed. I hope that won’t be the case.

9:30 PM – Go change the sheets in the basement bedroom. Joel won't be home today until after midnight. I’m going to bed. Have a good night!

A Week in My Life - Wednesday

10.22.08

Due to a mistake on my part, this morning was a complete turn around from yesterday.
I thought I had a dentist appointment at 7AM in Granger and had arranged with Joel to take the girls to school this morning.

5:45AM get up and take a hot bath. My body is so sore and I have a lot of joint pain. I guess I am getting old. My mouth also hurts; I burned the roof of my mouth last night while eating pizza. As I am lying in the tub the feeling hits me that I got the dates mixed up and that my appointment is not until the 29th. I get dressed and ready to leave, but decide to call the office just in case, and yes, the appointment is on the 29th instead.

6:30 AM, I am standing in the middle of the kitchen all dressed up with no place to go. The lunches are made and the girls’ clothes are lay out for them. I do a tired happy dance and go upstairs to start putting some of the laundry away and make my bed.

6:40 AM Kaitlin comes into my bedroom and I inform her of my goof. She gets dressed and goes down to have breakfast. Joel goes down and has worship with Kaitlin and they talk for a bit while she plays her DS and he logs into Webkinz World. LOL! Joel loves Webkinz World. We talk for a little bit while I prepare Natalie’s breakfast “to go”.

7:20 AM I go up to get Natalie up. She is past out and keeps asking that I let her sleep some more. I get her dressed and let her sleep until 7:30 then drag her to my bathroom again, do her hair and brush her teeth. I tell her daddy is still here so that perks her up a little bit. We go down and she talks with Joel for a little bit.

7:36 AM we leave the house. Joel will be staying at his office tonight also. It is in the 30s and still pretty dark outside. Natalie is mad that we have to be up when everybody else seems to be sleeping. I get a little twinge of guilt.

7:56 AM drop girls off at school.

8:20 AM arrive to my desk to prepare for a 9AM meeting.

10 AM decide to write down the notes from the morning before I forget the details.

Now back to the grind! Will post some pictures this evening.

Updated: Wednesday Afternoon


3:06 PM Leave work

3:33 PM Arrive school and pick up girls. Kaitlin has already started on her math homework and we wait for her to finish the problem she is working on.

4:03 PM we arrive home. Kaitlin continues doing her homework. Natalie wants me to work on my “homework”. She prepared this since Monday, but our week has been so busy I had never had a chance work on it. I do not feel like it, but tell her yes, I am finally ready. Very excited she sits me at the table and gives me the instructions of what I need to do. We do this for about 5 minutes and I am finally able to show her my completed work. She thinks I did a great job and puts a sticker on my work. I am glad to check that one off my to-do list :)

4:20 PM I start making dinner. Natalie wants to make herself a peanut butter sandwich to eat with her dinner. Kaitlin asks for a break from homework and goes down to watch some TV; she asks to have her dinner downstairs. When Natalie hears TV, she also wants to go downstairs with Kaitlin.

4:35 PM I take the girls’ dinner down to the basement. The menu is Rice, Lentils & Vegetarian Hot Dog. Not a balanced dinner at all but I am exhausted. I take the food to the girls, and Natalie totally freaks out about having to eat lentils. I have to count to ten, to not freak out myself and just tell her, she does not have to eat it, but that is all I have for dinner. She wants to just eat her sandwich, I say no and just take the food back upstairs. I am exhausted and starting to feel irritable and the thought of going back to choir rehearsal is not a pleasant one. I lie down on the couch and apparently fall asleep.

5:33 PM Kaitlin comes upstairs waking me up. She was supposed to be in church at 5:30 for rehearsal. I offer Natalie the food again to eat in the car, but she refuses. She is very upset and covers her eyes saying she does not want to see anybody. I of course snap a picture, which makes her angrier. Before we even get to the stop sign on our street, she is asleep.

5:50 PM we arrive to church. I drop Kaitlin off and go put gas in the car. Natalie is still asleep. I go back to church, lean my seat back, and take a nap with her in the car.

6:30 PM is time for Natalie’s choir rehearsal, she is still asleep. I try waking her up, but she doesn’t so I just carry her in and hold her while the choir practices. She wakes up for the last 15 minutes of practice.

7:10 PM We leave for home. The girls take a bath as soon as we get home and Kaitlin studies for her history test. Natalie wants me to read to her from her Disney princess book. We read two pages of Pocahontas and I tell her she needs to go to sleep.

8:30 PM I tuck both of them in bed and turn off the lights. I am totally pooped, completely exhausted, lots of back pain. I take the laptop to bed and start uploading the day’s pictures. Natalie comes in 10 minutes later with her bear wondering why I am in bed. I tell her because I am tired. She says, "but you always go do something after we go to bed", I say yes, but tonight I am tired. She goes back to bed while talking to her bear.

9:00 PM I post the morning pictures on the blog. However, just do not have the energy to write the afternoon post. Decide to just go to bed and do it tomorrow.

A Week in My Life - Tuesday

10.21.08

Morning Activities
This morning was hectic; I will not be able to do a neat list like yesterday, so bear with me.

Kaitlin’s alarm went off at 5:30AM. Have to make sure I reset it to 6:30AM tonight. Mine goes off about a minute later and I turn it off. Kaitlin comes into my room around 6:10AM, asking to lay down with me for just “10 more minutes”. At 6:35, I finally will myself out of bed. It is still very dark outside. Went downstairs to start the lunches and breakfast and was greeted by the two pumpkins the girls had worked on the night before. Had a quick conversation with myself about my feelings about Halloween and painting pumpkins, etc. but did not have the energy to think too deep. As I’m getting ready to start the lunches I’m bothered by the sink full of dirty dishes. Decide to unload the dishwasher and clear out the sink. My body is really sore and I’m not moving very fast. At 7:01AM, I finally start on breakfast and lunches. Kaitlin comes down at 7:10 and has her breakfast. She points out that she noticed I’m recording this week’s activities.

At 7:30AM, I go upstairs to get ready while Kaitlin checks her e-mail. The pile of laundry in the laundry closet starts getting me in a bad mood. I separate two loads of laundry to do later in the afternoon. It is hard not having a washing machine at home, right now.

I get dressed and start doing my hair without paying attention to the clock. At 7:45 I start panicking! Natalie is still sleeping. I start looking for pants for her to wear, most are dirty. I find a pair that needs ironing, I quickly iron them, get her dressed still asleep, carry her to my bathroom to do her hair. I call Kaitlin to come and take a quick picture. She is upset we are running late, but complies, then takes another one of me going down the stairs with Natalie.

Here things start turning ugly. Kaitlin starts yelling at Natalie to hurry up because we are going to be late. She starts a mad dash to take things out to the car. She shows a streak of bi-polarism, by still posing for me to take pictures…LOL! She is upset but at the same time wants to take pictures of what is going on. She says some hurtful things to Natalie, and I start getting worked up. Have to utilize a huge amount of will power to come down and keep things into perspective. We leave the house at 7:56AM.

I speed all the way to school, all the while trying hard to keep positive thoughts so I will not make the mood worse. Every time I look into the rear view mirror, I see Kaitlin’s upset face. Natalie keeps babbling oblivious to any stress while eating her breakfast. I try harder to focus on something positive. The sky looks very pretty with shades of red and clouds and then I notice a rainbow. I point this out to Natalie and she wants to see it, but keeps looking the wrong way, which further upsets Kaitlin. Natalie finally spots the rainbow and is very excited about it! We make it to school at 8:13AM, I tell Natalie to let Kaitlin come out first so she can run to her class and make it on time. Natalie is a happy camper, no signs of any stress affecting her. She hops down grabs her backpack and yells back at me while running inside school “I love you a lot Mom!”

I arrive to my desk at 8:35AM. I am already exhausted and this is our busy weekday. Joel calls around 9AM asking how things went this morning and last night and I am short (read rude) with him. Call him back 10 minutes later and apologize. Decide to jot these notes down before I forget the details. Now is back to work.

Hope your morning is going a little bit better!

Afternoon and Evening Activities
Very busy day at work.
1. 3:30 PM Leave to pick up girls. Feeling in a much better mood but dreading the long evening ahead.
2. 4:00 PM Arrive at school. Natalie is her happy self, Kaitlin on the other hand is still feeling frazzled to the point of tears. Although you wouldn’t know it from the picture I took. Routine is very important to her and anything that breaks it takes her a long time to get over it. She is in a very foul mood on the way home.
3. 4:20 PM Arrive home, feed cats that were left hungry this morning, prepare a snack for the girls, put three loads of dirty clothes in the car and leave for swimming lessons. Natalie is very nervous about the lesson. Last week the teacher was rougher than normal and all the kids ended up crying.
4. 5:00 PM Natalie has her lesson. She is much more fearful and cautious but gets through it. Kaitlin’s mood is starting to lift. She plays DS while waiting for Natalie.
5. 6:00 PM Drop Kaitlin off at piano lessons and run to the laundry mat to get the laundry started. Stop by McDonald’s and get Natalie some fries.
6. 6:30 PM Pick Kaitlin up from piano, the teacher complements her on her progress. Run back to the laundry mat move the clothes from the washing machine to the dryer. Run to Walmart to buy some groceries.
7. 7:30 PM Back to the laundry mat, some clothes are still damp, run another dryer cycle.
8. 7:40 PM Leave laundry mat and stop at Massimo’s for pizza since the girls have not eaten dinner. They mess up Natalie’s plain spaghetti order and we end up waiting about 30 extra minutes for it. Talk about leaving without it, but Natalie is set on having spaghetti. Decide not to fight this battle. We play Clue while waiting.
9. 8:30 PM We arrive home. Girls change into PJ’s and brush teeth. Tuck in and pray with each girl. Kaitlin says she is feeling much better.
10. 8:45 PM Lights out. Come down and upload today pictures and type afternoon notes. I still need to prepare tomorrow’s lunches and iron the girls clothes. Plan to go to bed by 10:30PM.

This project is hard work, it is hard to keep taking pictures and remember all the details. I only took 32 pictures today. Kept wishing I had chosen another week for it. So far, it does not look like our “typical” week, but then again it is true our family has many “exceptions” in our routine.

Looking forward to a less hectic tomorrow!

A Week in My Life - Monday

10.20.08

Morning Routine

5:30 AM Alarm goes off and hit snooze for an hour and a half

6:45 AM Finally make it out of be. My body is so sore. Take quick bath, get dressed and go down to make breakfast and prepare lunches.

7:10 AM Kaitlin comes down and has breakfast.

7:30 AM Start waking up Natalie. Get her dressed and do her hair with her half asleep.

7:50 AM Say good-bye to Joel, he'll be staying at his office tonight.

7:52 AM Finally leave house, Kaitlin is upset we are running late, Natalie eats breakfast in the car.

8:08 AM Drop girls off at school.

While at Work

8:30 AM Arrive at the office.

9:38 AM Can't resist the urge to check Facebook. Do a quick check and go back to work.

1:00 PM Have lunch at work area. Take some pictures of work area.

3:06 PM Leave work to pick up girls.

After School Routine

3:32 PM Pick up girls and Jacqui.

4:00 PM Drop off Jacqui. Kaitlin prints homework at my dad's house. Natalie begs to play longer with Elena. Manage to leave without a big scene.

4:10 PM Finally arrive home. Kaitlin finishes homework and Natalie's works on decorating her pumpkin.

4:20 PM Start cooking dinner. Natalie is busy preparing homework for me to do and Kaitlin watches some T.V.

4:45 PM Dinner is ready and we eat. Girls decide to prepare some fancy sundaes for dessert. We all have some dessert and by this time I am pooped, Natalie looks at her American Girl catalog while I'm laying on the couch trying not to fall asleep.

Evening Routine

6:00 PM Kaitlin practices piano.

7:00 PM My dad arrives with my aunt Nidia. While we talk I upload some pictures to send to Walmart to print for my aunt.

7:30 PM I send girls to take a bath. Natalie is mad I have not yet done the homework she created for me to do. She goes to take a bath mad.

8:00 PM Ivette arrives with boys to say good-bye to my aunt. I leave for Walmart to pick up prints.

9:20 PM My aunt leaves with my dad. It was so sad to say good-bye it'll be several years before we see her again. Ivette and the boys leave.

9:30 PM I do a quick worship with the girls and turn out the lights.

9:35 PM I consider forgetting this project and just going to bed but will myself downstairs to upload the pictures and write this post.

In total I took 48 pictures today and most of them I had to force myself to do it. I spent the day feeling tired, and wishing I had chosen another week for this project. But I'll keep going. I'm sure at the end of the week I'll look back and be glad I stuck with it.

Look for another post tomorrow!

A Week in My Life - Sunday

This week starting on Sunday to Saturday, I will be documenting a week in my life. This idea came from Ali Edward's blog. She did this a few weeks ago and I planned to play along with her, however, that week turned out to be one of those weeks that’s is better to just put behind and start over. From arguments at home, to fights with extended family, to my backing my car into a light post and making a huge dent, it just turned out to be a nightmare.

However, I still think it could be a fun project so I decided to give it another chance. My plan is to take some pictures everyday, and write down the days events. At the end of the week, I will gather everything into some type of digital scrapbook. I am excited about it! Let us see how it goes. Most days I am running around so fast I don’t even know what I do. I’m interested in seeing how this week turns out. My fear is that every day will be kind of the same boring thing over and over or that there will be too many negative things, but I guess it doesn’t matter, the point is to be conscious about what your life looks right now.

So here goes the summary of Sunday.

10/19/08
- Natalie comes wandering into our room around 9AM. Everybody slept-in this morning.
- Prepared breakfast for everybody. Natalie helped making a fruit salad and some biscuits.
- Kaitlin gets up around 10am and has breakfast.
- Joel starts working in the yard picking up leaves.
- I clean the kitchen and mop the floor.
- Richard comes by and brings Leo to play with the girls and ends up staying and helping us with the yard.
- I go outside and trim around the bushes and around the driveway.
- Everybody comes in and gets ready to go to Thistleberry Farms
- We leave for Thistleberry Farms around 1PM
- We spent around two hours in the farm. It was a beautiful day! The kids have fun doing the pedal cars and riding the cow train.
- The highlight of the trip was doing a corn maze. The adults could not keep up with the kids who were dashing madly through the maze. All the adults got lost inside the maze and kept going in circles for about half an hour. When we finally found the exit, we found that the kids had gotten restless from waiting half an hour and had decided to go back into the maze to find us. Only Kaitlin had stayed at the exit waiting for us. She was a little worked up about it, but once she realized we had not done it on purpose, she was fine.
- We went on a hay ride and then took some pictures of the kids with the pumpkins.
- Everybody got together at my dad’s house for dinner.
- The kids played football with Joel and Richard for a while and then came inside to watch a video.
- We came home around 8:30 and the girls took a bath and went to bed around 9PM.
- I sit down to write this blog and realize I only took pictures of the farm visit.
- Ran upstairs to at least take a picture of the girls sleeping.

My aunt Nidia has been visiting us from Cuba this week. I'm glad she got to go with us and join in the fun.

I LOVE these kids!

Let’s see what tomorrow brings.