A Day in My Life: February 9th, 2022

Since I am 20 days smartphone free, I thought I would post "A Day in My Life."  I used to enjoy doing these over 15 years ago on my old livejournal, and every once in awhile I just get the itch to do one again! 

I thought it might be of benefit to post a day especially now, without a smartphone.  Most people can't even imagine living without their phones these days.  That flat, pocket-sized computer glued to our hands has become an indispensable tool absolutely required for daily life in our modern world (or so we think.)  I would love to show you that that's not always true!

Wednesday, February 9th, 2022.

5:15 - wake up.

I wake early.  I was not always an early riser; it's something that I've trained myself to do over the last two years.  Different phases and stages of life require different things of us and right now waking up early before the kids and starting my day in quiet is just right.

One of the first things I do in the morning is glance over my calendar.  It's a paper calendar that sits on my desk.  It's not fancy or expensive.  I simply jot down an agenda for the day and prioritize what the most important things are.  From this, I formulate a little to-do list, because if I don't write it down, I forget.  I write everything down.  Do school with Izzy.  Make photo copies for Oliver.  Help Anja with citations.  Start the buns for dinner by 4:00.  And so on and so forth.  

In the morning, I drink a big glass of hot water and take my vitamins.  If I don't do this first thing, I'll simply forget.  This morning I started a load of laundry.

6:00 - open time.

If I need to do something on the computer, I try do it now before the kids wake up (at 6:30).  This morning I responded to a few e-mails, printed off registration forms, looked up some information about county fair exhibition submissions, filled out a volunteer application form for Eli, and put a library book on hold.

If I don't need to do anything on the computer, then I spend this time reading or knitting.

7:00 - breakfast.

Now is a good time to grab a bite to eat. Right now, I find myself usually grabbing a quick bowl of granola with almond milk, otherwise I might toast a slice of homemade sourdough bread with a generous smothering of butter.  This morning, Abigail woke up just as I was headed downstairs, so I took her to the potty and then brought her down with me.  She ate a piece of toast while I ate my cereal. 

Very soon Theo woke up, so I changed his diaper (Abby is potty-training, Theo is not) and toasted some bread for him as well.  I snagged a moment to move the laundry from the washer to the dryer.  Abby helped. 

7:30 - waking Izzy and getting school ready.

I try to always wake Isabelle at 7:30, then head straight into the "little school room" to start situating everything for her school day while she is waking up and eating breakfast.

Once all three "littles" are awake and have had breakfast, then I brush and floss their teeth, brush their hair, and generally get them ready for the day.  I get ready, too.

21 weeks pregnant

8:00 - start school with Isabelle.

We always start with Math.

I'm using Saxon Math 1 with Isabelle for first grade.  It's interesting to me that most homeschoolers do not like Saxon in the early years (too repetitive and too much parent involvement) but love the Saxon books later on.  I'm the exact opposite.  I love Saxon in the early years, but then switch over to Teaching Textbooks as soon as I can.

Abby and Theo are playing with magnetic tiles nearby while Isabelle works on Math.  See the row of marshmallows along the side of the paper?  She gets 1 marshmallow for every row of problems she completes on her fact sheet.  I'm not against a little extrinsic motivation. :)

It took us about 50 minutes to get through the whole lesson.  I gave her a 10 minute break while I tidied up Math and set up Phonics/Handwriting.  

For Phonics today, Isabelle learned a new phonogram: /wh/.  She also practiced writing uppercase W in cursive.  It also took us almost an hour to complete all of English, which included playing a game and she read a book to me.

I sent her on her way to play and then spent a few minutes cleaning up the little school room.  It's always nice to tidy it up right away, so it's nice and clean for tomorrow.

10:00 - chores.

The bulk of Isabelle's school is done by 10:00 and I've developed a habit of heading downstairs to clean the kitchen at this time.  First, I pop in the loft and check on the big kids to see if they need help with anything.  (Look, here is the "school room" where the big kids do all their work -- I did not clean it up first or try to make it "pinterest worthy" or "instagram pretty."  This is real life.)

Then I head down to rinse dishes, wipe counters, sweep floors.  Cleaning is calming and therapeutic for me, so this is less of a chore and more of a little "down time" for me after two hours of school with Isabelle. 

While I was cleaning the kitchen, Isabelle was practicing piano and the twins were generally wreaking havoc (for Theo this meant running around using a toy shopping cart as a battering ram).

It doesn't take very long to tidy up the kitchen, so now I choose one or two things to tackle off my never-ending to-do list.  Today I cleaned the downstairs bathroom, re-shelved and organized some books in the reading room, and then watered the plants.  The twins really love to help with the plants.

12:00 - Lunch

By now, it's noon, and that's when the whole household pauses whatever they are doing and eats lunch.  The four oldest kids are capable of preparing their own lunch, so I usually just help the twins.  Lunch is simple.  In fact, most of the time we warm up leftovers.  But if there aren't any leftovers to warm up, then the kids will make sandwiches.  Today Isabelle made herself a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with an apple and a slice of cheddar cheese.

For my lunch, I warmed up leftover pizza from dinner last night.  I made this pizza and it's loaded with pesto, spinach, artichoke hearts, and Kalamata olives.  Those are garlic-parmesan Brussel sprouts on the side.

1:00 - Laundry

After lunch, I had about 45 minutes before we needed to leave for the girls' piano lessons, and I decided to use that time folding laundry.  Downstairs, Anja and Ollie were engaged in a game of chess, while Isabelle, Abigail, and Theo played with trains.  I think Eli was in the loft doing his math.

1:45 - Leave for Piano lessons

Now we head out for piano, which my girls have every Wednesday afternoon.  My girls are learning using the Suzuki method.  During the lessons, I sit close by with a notebook and jot down detailed notes.  That way I can assist the girls with their practicing during the week.  The lesson went well.

4:00 - Start buns for dinner.  Theo helped.

It was unusually sunny and warm today, so as soon as we got home I sent all the kids outside to play while I prepped the dough for dinner.  Theo stayed inside to help me; we made hamburger buns, which requires two rises.

Pretty soon, Abby came inside and joined us.  She was just in time to punch down the first rise of the dough and help form it into 16 balls.  Then the dough had to sit for its second rise.

6:00 - Dinner

After the buns baked we loaded them up with sloppy joe meat for dinner.

6:30 - Chess lesson

After dinner, Isabelle asked me to give her a chess lesson.  Her siblings have been playing a lot of chess recently and she wants to learn how to play, too.  I've been isolating the pieces and teaching her how they move.  Once she masters one piece's movement, then I add in another piece.  So far we have worked up to everything except the knight.

In the background, you can see Court grading school work.  Although I am around during the day to assist the kids as needed, Court actually does a bulk of the homeschooling for the older kids.  He goes over all of their work with them after dinner every evening.

7:00 - Knitting

After dinner, I go upstairs to my happy place.  I can usually get 2-3 good hours of knitting in before bedtime.  Sometimes I will also read a chapter or two from a book before bed, but tonight I only knit.  I'm casting on a new project: a pair of baby pants (newborn size.)

Here is how it looked around 7:15, after I had cast on and knit a couple of rounds:

And here's how it looked at 9:00 when I stopped for the night (a 2" waistband in 2x2 rib stitch):

9:00 - Lights out/bedtime

I helped the littles brush their teeth and get into pajamas, and then it was time for lights out and bedtime for everyone. :)