Tuesday, November 11, 2008

Make your home a haven - CARED FOR (Day 3)

First, here is my quote for the day...

"You are willing to go anywhere, but are you willing to stay where you are?"

I plan on reflecting on this today with the idea of caring for myself will ultimately help me to care for my family and those around me and I tend to be the type of person who has to be moving, not exactly "ADD-like" but as if I am so important that if I am not doing 3 things at once I will be not working.

Today I woke up at 5:30 and was able to get myself ready and go choose clothes for the kids before anyone (including Riley) awoke. This was such a blessing and allowed me to be much more relaxed as I woke each of them up with a little song about what they were going to be doing today. This was (relatively) easy since they were all sleeping in my bed (had arrived at various times during the night).

The plan for today is very busy and so I am going to care for myself in that I am going to just try and take one thing at a time and remain calm.

1) Up and eat breakfast and get the boys ready for school and the girls ready for pre-school
2) Make and pack lunches for the boys (calzones I had made a couple days ago)
3) Today I allowed them to watch a video for "exactly" 5 minutes because we had made such good time getting ready. It worked to help Matthew out the door when the bus arrived...not so much with Riley who wanted to dawdle over putting on his sweatshirt (vs wearing a T-shirt in 30 degree weather)!
4) At work today, we are interviewing again and I will try and arrive early to meet with the applicants and mingle (something I am not good at) and then interview several of them later in the morning.
5) After the interviews, I will go home and pick up Nastia to bring her to the European Deli in town. She is missing (I think) Russian food and can pick up some of the supplies. I hope by caring for her, my kids will reap the benefits of her presence in our home This was successful though I got there a little late, we were both able to get some food shopping in and back to the house 15 minutes before the bus arrived. What good timing because I had just enough time to take the bread out of the refrigerator and set it on the counter to rise and to put the food away.
6) After this, I will be home for the boys to get off the bus. We have an appointment for the 4 kids to go get the flu shot today. (I have offered to pay for Nastia to get one too since I think it will make me less anxious if she doesn't get sick this winter either). It was nice to be home for the boys. They both ran and gave me a big hug. I think they miss their mom being there when they get home ...that ol' working guilt...but what choice do I have?...I am going to try and do this a couple times a month to try and keep in touch with them as they get home from very busy school days. After they dropped off their stuff in the house, we jetted to pick the girls up and drive to the pharmacy to get our flu shots. They were all really brave (but got the nasal flu mist so no real bravery was required)...and were great for the pharmacist.
7) After the flu shots we will try and do something fun... I haven't decided yet what but I will plan on being there with my kids in whatever we decide. So, across the street from the pharmacy is a Dollar Tree so I took them there to pick out a toy and I bought a package of "oreo's"...we had a nice little jaunt to climb on the nearby "chick fil a" climbing place and eat a package of french fries and go home...but wait...oh darn, Mamma forgot that we have Logan's 3 year post-placement visit from the social worker tomorrow at 9 am. So we made a detour to the local Walgreen's ...luckily I had my camera in my purse so I could print out 6 pictures to go with the report. We arrived home just in time to eat left-over spaghetti and meatballs and for me to put the garlic bread in the oven. The house smells so great right now I might just fall asleep.

8) Dinner will be left-0vers ...we have pizza, spaghetti and some chicken

Overall I think today was a successful day in our haven (home). I really did a good job of trying to block out the competing influences and spend an enjoyable time with my kids...this was made even easier since I left my cell phone/beeper at work trying to get out on time!

Good Luck to all who are making their homes haven's today.

1 comment:

Monica Wilkinson said...

Your list looks great - hope you've had a great day!