A Day in the Life ~ The Day After Chaos

Yesterday was a day that was just hard! Everything was difficult; the kids were rowdy; I felt a bit under the weather and multiple things went wrong. The day ended on a high note of chaos with one child flooding the bathroom, which leaked into the basement, and another child flooding the dishwasher, which also flooded the basement and loosened ceiling tiles. Can you say, "MOMMY NOT HAPPY"?! The dishwasher incident was because Goldilocks thought she would make the dishes extra clean by putting in two dishwasher detergent blocks and 90% of a bottle of the dish cleaning soap. There were bubbles across the kitchen and dining room! To say the least, we started today with no clean towels, soaking wet throw rugs, a sink full of dishes in different states of cleanliness, a dismantled dishwasher, and furniture moved because of flooding. Then there is the reality that most of our light fixtures are going in today (which will be noisy, messy and add its own brand of chaos to our lives). I am very excited about having lights throughout the house -- the candlelight dinners were sweet, but it was getting a little old.

My goals for today are to do some light schooling, be on hand to answer questions of the work men, keep line of sight of my girl who needs structure so very much, get Tim to and from his volunteer job, get the kids to dance class and do many, many loads of laundry.

7:00 am ~ The look of my kitchen does not cheer me. It will take strength to get through today.

8:00 am ~ The work men arrive. I am reminded that I did not buy a ceiling fan for the kitchen and they need it by lunch time. Within a few hours almost every room has ladders, displaced furniture, sawdust and fancy tools strewn about. I am not complaining, though. We knew it would take a lot of work to pull this home up to snuff. Buying a foreclosure is not for the faint of heart. I am delighted to have lights again ... now, if I could just pick a paint color and paint all the cabinet doors and get them back up in the kitchen.

9:00 am ~ We drop Timothy off  at his volunteer job and return home. Since everyone is still stressed out from the day before and tension is still high, I decide to take the kids and dogs on a long walk. 

10:00 am ~ We return home and settle down to some light schooling. We are studying the artist Henri Matisse this week. The kids did a picture study and filled in their art workbooks with a new picture study worksheet (art). Next, they took turns reading with me, doing language art workbook pages or playing multiplication games on the computer (the three R's). We finish off school for today with group time. We learn three new vocabulary words from the book, In a Word, practiced our new telephone number and worked on the next lesson in our special needs social skills book, Social Stories.

12:00 pm ~ We head out to buy the ceiling fan. Since the kitchen has only improved a little bit since 7:00 am and there are now tarps all over the counters, I decide to feed everyone out on the road. Due to our son's food allergies, we have limited places where we can eat out. I decide on Zoe's and enjoy a healthy lunch.

1:30 pm ~ We return home and everyone works on hanging the laundry out to dry. It's been about a year that we've been without a dryer. It is such a blessing that the day is warm and I hang three loads out.

2:00 pm ~ We pick up Tim and return home to finish the laundry. The kids play outside. After an hour of play, we get ready to go to dance class. 

4:00 pm ~ Tom Sawyer and Little Red Riding Hood are in ballet class while Goldilocks waits through the first hour for her class, modern dance,

 

6:00 pm ~ We pick up our FREE kid's meals at the local health food supermarket and return home for a picnic in the dark. (You see, the kids had made a fort during play time and want to eat by candlelight outside.) Maybe tomorrow I will get to eat by electric light inside the house! LOL!!

The evening is spent playing a quick board game with the kids and cleaning up the kitchen.  I am happy to have it back to manageable levels.

8:00 pm ~ Oh, oh! I don't believe it -- yet ANOTHER flood! Little Red Riding Hood spills a dishpan of water in the bathroom, and water is leaking down all over the tools and my dh's dress shirts in the basement! Tomorrow we will have to seriously look at caulking the bathrooms!

 Blessings, Dawn