Slower Days

I left off last week on Friday, which was Daddy's birthday, and our plans for that day were very relaxed. We didn't do much of anything at all except for pizza for supper and banana cream pie for desert. We relaxed and hung out with each other while simply taking in the richness of our lives together.

Saturday we again spent the day relaxing. The wind was too strong to be messing with roofing materials as they would simply not cooperate by staying in place while working with them. Everyone slept in a bit and then woke up relatively relaxed. We all went down to the water front to see the art fair that was going on in town, lots of lovely things ... but way too many people for Peanut and Daddy to be comfortable with. The shot I'm sharing of Peanut is my favorite from this day when she saw the "big boat" coming by and wanted a picture with it. After our quick trip to the art fair we took the campers home and sent them in the house for lunch while we went up to the Little League park in town to see Daddy's boss selling some of her stuff and to help her take down her stand and get it back to the office for storage until the next day when she'd be going down to the art fair as well. Once Daddy and I got back the campers all went outside to play again, Daddy took an afternoon nap, and I devoured book three of The House of Night series (link from Amazon, no I am not an affiliate). Before starting supper I started the fourth book in the series. I had begun reading these out of order when gifted some by a friend from Learning Life with 3 Sons and became hooked. YCJ grabbed the first book in the series from the library a few weeks ago and after she read it I read it and now ECJ is reading it. I even made a special trip to the library last week just to pick up books 2 - 5 in the series. As soon as I finish those I'll go get the rest of the series and then I'll be writing a review of the whole series! These books are in the teen section of the library and it depends on the level of maturity of your teen on if you'd allow them to read them or not as starting mainly in book three there's some sexual content that gets just a little graphic (there's some in the first two books as well but not as much). YCJ has decided that the series is not for her and she's just 12.

Ok, completely went on a book tangent rabbit hole right there. LOL sorry about that. I made pork chops, rice, gravy, and corn for supper Saturday night. After everyone had eaten supper the campers ate several emoji "poop" shaped ice cycles that we'd bought the molds for at Walmart while we were with Noni last Tuesday. There were lots of giggles and outright laughter while eating them. All in good fun of course! Then it was medicine time and being that it was the weekend the campers all got out their electronics and played Animal Jam together through the WiFi. They were up until ten pm playing and then it was time for half an hour of quiet reading time and then bed. Daddy and I took our medicine around 11 PM as usual and then headed to bed ourselves. It was a wonderful relaxing day had by all.

Sunday we spent the morning at mass and then Daddy went to work for a few hours to do some things that needed done, let me be clear that Daddy gets a salary ... therefore it doesn't matter if he works 24 hours (what he's contracted to work) or 30+ hours, he still only gets paid for 24. This actually works really well for us. Daddy has a pretty good work ethic and therefore if he can't get a job done during his regular scheduled working hours he works over the weekend to help get the project finished on time. It also means that some weeks that he isn't busy at work he still gets paid for those 24 hours. After he came home and the campers had had lunch, Daddy, the girls, and I all went scrapping together. ECJ opted to stay home. After we got back from scrapping Daddy BBQ'ed hot dogs and we ate chili dogs for supper.

On Monday Daddy, ECJ, and I got up early and unloaded the scrap off of the truck. Then Daddy went to work, I sorted through the various metals, and ECJ began taking apart the scrap. Both girls woke up a bit after the rest of us and seemed so tired still that I called a day off of lessons (I'd scheduled for Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week) ... we'll get around to those lessons three days this week. Thankfully the weather is supposed to warm back up as it was only in the mid sixties at around noon. After Daddy got home from work we reloaded the truck with the scrap and then went to the scrap yard. We left the campers at home and went scrapping again down by Grandma and Papa's neighborhood with a quick stop at McDonald's for supper for everyone.

Tuesday Daddy again went into work early, but came home after about an hour to unload a few things from the truck for ECJ to take apart. YCJ woke up and watched some YouTube videos while waiting for Peanut to wake up ... she slept in really late this morning and wasn't feeling very well so lessons were called off for Tuesday as well. We'll see if we do school the rest of the week considering that she's not feeling well and it's summer so we can take several weeks off if we want to. Normally this week would be an off week anyway per our schedule but family is coming in from out of town next week and so we'll be taking that week off for sure. After Daddy was done with work, we reloaded the truck and he and I went to the scrap yard. It was a quick trip and then we went and bought a new to us used vehicle for longer trips where we don't need the truck. Like our trip to Indiana later this year and possibly Texas. A quick trip to a local pizza place with our gift certificate that Daddy got for his birthday last week took care of supper for the evening and then we relaxed. I even crocheted instead of read (I haven't crocheted much for two weeks I've been too busy reading!).


On Wednesday Daddy again had to go to work early but the rest of us slept in a bit. After breakfast and chores we began to walk to the library but Daddy showed up and offered us a ride there while he was on his break. It literally only took a few minutes at the library then we grabbed waters from the gas station next door and began to walk back. Only Daddy showed up again and gave us a ride home because he was done with work for the day. He and I took the new car up to the Secretary of State and got the title transferred and a plate put on it. We then came home and grabbed the truck for a quick look around town to see if there was any scrap, which we then ran to the scrap yard really quickly. After that it was back home to take the girls for a ride in the car (they were really looking forward to it) and get some ice cream. We finished up the evening by scrapping a bit but really didn't find much.

Thursday Daddy still had to work but didn't have to go in early, so I woke up to Daddy sipping coffee next to me in bed. He'd let me sleep in so that I was the last person in the house to wake up. After I'd drank my first cup of coffee he was off to work. I folded a load of laundry that had been sitting in the dryer for a couple of days (have I ever mentioned that I HATE folding laundry), started another load of laundry in the washer, and planned out at least two more loads of laundry to be done today. I took a few minutes while the washer was running to start a pot boiling on the stove for some pasta to make into a salad for supper and caught up on this post. Chicken was defrosted for the Sunbeam rotisery (can't ever spell that right and spell check isn't working today) so we'll be having roasted chicken and bacon/ranch pasta salad for supper. When Daddy got home from work I had a load of laundry in the dryer and in the washer and we relaxed until the dryer was done and I'd folded the contents before taking off in the truck to go to my appointment at 4 PM and then scrapping down by Grandma and Papa's house. We had a bit of money that we had to make up due to how much it cost to put plates on the new car on Wednesday. We eat late in the summer anyways and so when we didn't get home until late in the evening it was no sweat to put the chicken in the Sunbeam with some seasoning and wait about an hour for it to be done. I did some more laundry, the campers read the new books from the library, and Daddy relaxed. I capped the night off by reading a bit while Daddy took a friend to work around 10:30 PM. We didn't all get to sleep again until around midnight but that was fine. 

This week has been, by turns, chilly and rainy, so the campers didn't get as much time outside that they usually do. But, they didn't seem to mind because that meant more electronic time since we took the week off of lessons. Normally I cap electronic time each day but when the weather is icky and we don't have much more planned, as long as they get their reading in each day, I'm good with however they choose to spend their free time. So, for this week we only got 12.5 hours in outside but we managed to bring our year to date total for the 1000 Hours Outside Challenge to *drum roll* 748 hours! We have until the beginning of September to get to that 1000 hours bench mark and I just KNOW that we'll make it this year ... just 252 hours left to go!

So, this is where I'm leaving you this week. I have no idea what we're doing tomorrow (Friday) or over the weekend. I know that we have next week off of lessons because we have family coming in from Texas to visit and we'll be spending some time with them, especially for the fire works on the fourth of July (which also just happens to be my nephew's birthday which is awesome). So, until next week (I'll be back to blogging more than one post a week come August, but until then it's likely to just be once a week) ... have a great time and enjoy life!

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