Well, technically it IS Monday

...and therefore time for another round of introspection. :) (plus it's the middle of the night and I can't sleep anyway, so I might as well pretend to be productive, right?)

FOR TODAY, Monday July 7, 2008...

Outside My Window... it was actually quite lovely today (...er, yesterday). It was overcast, and not too warm, so we spent the afternoon gardening and washing the car. With all the rain we've been having lately my "garden" is trying to take over the world -- some weeds I neglected to pull before our vacation were taller than Miriam when we came back! I decided today that I really ought to spend more time outside with the girls, gardening. I've never had luck making things grow, mostly because when I was babysitting I didn't have the time to dedicate to it. But now I've no excuse (well, except this new laptop to play on...). :) Doing a little bit of planting at a time, starting in the fall (it's too hot now to expect anything to really take off), I hope someday to be able to have a garden to be proud of.

I am thinking... how tired I am of wearing maternity clothes. I still have 15 lbs. of baby weight to lose, which all seems to be located in my hips. I want to lose the weight sooner rather than later, but since I've never actively tried to lose weight, I'm a little intimidated by the prospect. I know what it involves -- cutting back on calories and exercising. The first is relatively easy -- since I do the shopping I can control what things come in the house. The exercising part is what stumps me. I would love to be able to do three things: brisk walking, riding my bike, and taking some kind of ballet or yoga or stretching class. But trying to figure out how to schedule these kinds of things in my day is the poser. The girls walk too slow for me to get any exercise with them, but they don't have the patience to sit in the double stroller for 30 minutes. Bike riding is out unless Mr. Pickles is home to watch the kids. And classes are expensive. Maybe I should just vacuum the whole house every day -- that would be a good 45 mins of cardio.

I am thankful for... my baby boy. All my children, really. They come up to me unprompted and give me lovings even when I'm feeling fat and ugly, because they don't really care how I look.

From the kitchen... I actually started cooking again this week! Granted, it was only 2 or 3 meals, and most were planned at about 4:58 pm, but at least I was responsible for inventing, preparing, and serving actual food to my family! My moment of triumph this past week was our Fourth of July dinner -- shish kebobs with chicken, mushrooms, green peppers, and red onions marinated in Italian dressing. They were supposed to be grilled, but due to the rain (*sniff*) we had to broil them in the oven. Not quite as good, but still indescribably delicious. Of course, Mr. Pickles did most of the work. I shopped though! That should count for something!

I am wearing... yet another maternity night shirt.

I am creating... a beautiful home for my family to live and play and work in. Tomorrow (...er, today) is cleaning day, and this house will be sparkling by the time the sun sets, by gum!

I am going... to schedule lots of playdates with friends this summer -- Miriam needs time to develop her friendships, and Katie needs to get out of her shell more often. I realized on our vacation that Katie's independence isn't necessarily 100% a good thing. I took advantage of it during periods in our life recently when I felt like I couldn't stay on top of everything, so I would tend to leave her to herself. But I don't want her to grow detached from people. During the weddings and family reunion, she tended to withdraw into herself and shy away from people -- from loving family members that she wouldn't even look at. Now, a certain amount of reservedness is fine, but I want my children to have good manners, which includes being kind to people, no matter how we feel.

I am reading... well, I'm currently in the middle of both The Reed of God and The Last Child in the Woods, both excellent books, but I haven't picked up either of them in several days. Sometimes I just get tired of looking at letters on paper and want to get up and DO something.

I am hoping... to be able to go to sleep soon! I do not function well on little sleep, and I've got a busy day planned for tomorrow.

I am hearing... the blissful sounds of total silence in the house. I only wish it could be like this more often during the day. Afternoon Quiet Time has degenerated into Mommy Telling Children Repeatedly To Go Back To Their Rooms Already All Throughout Quiet Time.

Around the house... I wish I had a better talent for organization. We have a couple hot spots around the house that tend to collect clutter, mostly because I don't have a system of organization yet for them. One recent success was conquering the kitchen paper pile -- I got a wall-mounted 3-bin rack for organizing our mail and to-do papers, which keeps everything highly visible and, more importantly, off the horizontal surfaces. Plus it can't hold too much weight or else it will pull the brackets out of the plaster, so we have an incentive to keep the stacks to a minimum. You know, it's tricky organizing a household when you have two people with two very different approaches to organizing living together. Mr. Pickles keeps track of all of our finances and other important things, and I just pray that nothing ever happens to him because I'd never be able to find anything important!

One of my favorite things... Joseph's sleepy head-bobble when we pick him after he's just woken up and he's trying to figure out what he's supposed to do next -- oh yeah, that's right, eat of course -- now, where is it? (bobble bobble bobble)

What made me laugh today... the sheer ridiculousness of trying to go out to restaurant as a family. We ate out tonight (coupon night! yey!), and for the most part it went as well as could be expected. It's a very kid-friendly restaurant, by which I mean they have kid menus that you can color on BOTH sides. Katie wanted to spend the whole time coloring, but managed to sneak in a few fries here and there. She wouldn't eat her chicken because of the black flecks (and all the fries and lemonade she had consumed while waiting for the 475 degree chicken to cool off). Miriam wanted me to "help" her solve her kid-sized Sudoku puzzle (only nos. 1-6 -- it was perfect!) by which I mean she wanted me to tell her where all the numbers went. Joseph was tired and cranky b/c his last couple naps hadn't been long enough, so Daddy had to walk with him to get him to sleep. Then while Mr. Pickles was off walking Joseph, Katie said she had to go potty RIGHT NOW so I had to leave Miriam alone at the table, but when we got to the little girls' room Katie changed her mind, grrrrrrrrrr. But then finally Joseph fell asleep, so we did actually get to sit and eat together as a family, even though there was little to no actual adult conversation involved. Thank goodness Joseph didn't choose to have a diaper blowout while we were there. And now we've got some great leftovers for lunch!

A Few Plans For The Rest Of The Week: shopping for some fabric, celebrating a Very Important Extra-Special Birthday, and finally restocking our Mother Hubbard cupboards. Oh, and getting some gerbils!

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

Go Bruins!

(for those 2 readers who aren't members of the family, Nativity was our parochial school before we started homeschooling)

Daybook idea from The Simple Woman