It's been a while since I've gotten a chance to post here. I really do want to post here more often. Maybe this is going to be the start of consistent posting again, and maybe it's not. My life seems to be very variable, at least on a day-to-day basis. Anyways. I thought I'd share with you guys a bit of what a normal week looks like for me.
Monday
As you guys may (or may not) know, I homeschool (for a variety of reasons, but let's just simplify things and say I had significant differences of opinion with the local schools as to what qualified as a quality education). You may also know that I am not a morning person. This means my average day gets started around 9:00-10:00. We spend the rest of the morning and a large chunk of the afternoon doing schoolwork--I won't go into the details there; as excited as I get about different curriculum and school stuff like that, I'm sure that would bore most of my readers here to tears. XD By the time late afternoon roles around, I can usually manage to get a little bit of housework--mostly maintenance stuff like laundry and dishes--taken care of. Yeah, my house is pretty far from picture-perfect. There's usually lots of clutter and dustbunnies in all the corners--maybe I'll bother keeping those at bay once the kids are grown and gone, but now, it's just not a priority.
Now most Mondays, after dinner, we head off to scouts. My two oldest are in boy scouts (#2 just bridged out of cub scouts). My youngest boy is a Tiger cub, and in a year or so, Sophie will join the Frontier Girls group attached to our troop--not that I have anything against Girl Scouts, but I appreciate the convenience of having Sophie in a group that meets at the same time and at the same location as the scout troop my boys are part of. =P Besides, not having access to large quantities of Girl Scout cookies is a major plus in favor of my health and my wallet. I have a real weakness for both Samoas and Thin Mints. XD But anyways, back on topic. Scouts ends 9:30ish. We come home, and most Mondays, it's bedtime for everyone. You'll notice that most Mondays there also isn't much time to pick up any art projects or even post to the blog here. =(
Tuesday
Tuesdays start much like Mondays, and in fact, it's just like Monday (minus the generally grumpy attitude that comes with Monday because no one wants to get back to work after the weekend) until late afternoon. Tuesdays, in theory, should be a much better day for tackling projects since it's the day my husband works late (he teaches a nigh class Tuesday nights and doesn't get home till after 9:00). Some weeks Tuesday is a great day to get projects done; other days, for a variety of reasons--usually just standard distractions that come with living with 4 kids and 4 cats or just plain exhaustion--nothing creative happens. XD
Wednesday
Wednesdays are fun. I cut the school day short just after lunch, and I spend my afternoons volunteering at the local Pregnancy Resource Center. Right now, I am training to be a client advocate. I really love my work here. For me, this is just a natural extension of my work as a doula. With my doula work, I provide for support for women and help help make informed decisions regarding their pregnancy, labor & delivery, and postpartum periods. At the PRC, I'm doing the same thing for women in crisis pregnancy situations--I help them slow down, look at
all their options so they can make an educated decision regarding what direction is best for them, and if they choose to carry, I get to stand by their side and provide the similar support I would as a doula--it's actually close to the same except with a crisis pregnancy situation I spend a lot more time working with the mom-to-be (and dad-to-be's too if they're there). FYI, part of my training is to make sure I'm not exhibiting any personal bias as to what decision I might think is best. Anyways... I could talk about this subject for a very long time, so I'm going to cut it short here. =P So, after my volunteer time, we go to Wednesday evening church, and after church, my husband and I have a "date night." We don't generally go anywhere, but the kids are given clear directions as to what they can do that evening and when they need to be in bed, and Shaun and I spend the evening by ourselves--sometimes watching a movie, sometimes just chatting. It's a fun time to just stay connected with him; I can attest to the importance of this after being married for more than 14 years now. Wednesdays disappear pretty quickly.
Thursdays and Fridays
Thursdays and Fridays are pretty similar. We have our usual school time, and generally we have nothing planned those days--or at least we're not supposed to have anything planned those days. Considering we haven't been home on a Thursday or Friday in weeks, it would be totally legitimate to question that. These are the two days during the week where I do get most of my art project progress done. That means, so far, that I have Thursdays, Fridays, and the occasional Tuesday to work on artsy craftsy things that I'm supposed to be blogging about here. =P
Saturdays
Saturdays should also be one of those great days to for getting stuff done, and by stuff, I mean art stuff since there's no school or anything like that. I do get stuff done; it's just not usually art stuff. Saturday is spent running errands and preparing school stuff for the next week. Saturdays are also days where we plan game days and visits with friends and other things like that, so it's our social day as well. Sometimes art happens, but usually no.
Sundays
Sunday mornings are spent at church. Sunday is also our grocery day for the week, and Sunday evenings we spend being social with our small group from church. The afternoon time in between is spent relaxing and attempting to rest up in preparation for another busy week. No art (or housework or school) ever happens on Sundays; it's something we decided to do very early in our marriage--Sunday would be the one day we allow each week to be spent reading, playing video games, watching movies, or whatever else we want to do to relax. Most weeks this is the only day we get to do these things because the rest of the week tends to be very busy with life stuff.
So anyways. That's what most of my weeks look like. Some weeks are better for art than others. I guarantee I have a lot of awesome projects in progress--some are pretty much done but I haven't had a chance to photograph or scan them, and others need more work. Stuff
is happening and you should see some of it being finished over the next several months.
