Productivity

Monday was not a good start to my vacation.  I was full of woe is me and self pity.  I hate it when I get like that, but I can't seem to help it.  I tend to worrry about things, and be overly critical.  The good news is that it didn't last all day.  The evening actually turned out quite nice.

Waiting to Begin

 Isabelle had found the egg dye in the cupboard and was anxious to use it.  Sunday we cooked eggs, but we didn't quite get to the coloring part.  We promised here we could do it on Monday when her daddy got home from work.  She has a very good memory and doesn't let things go.  As soon as he got home, she wanted to color eggs.   We got the dye ready, and then we colored eggs.  Thomas is really good at this (and anything else that has an artistic edge to it.)  He actually uses his drummel to engrave designs into the eggs.  They are really quite fancy.

Drummeling the Eggs

Working Together

I don't care about the eggs. Could you read me a story?

In the mail we got a flyer for Toys R Us.  They were having buy one get one half off on Legos.  I was supper excited.  That is a great deal.  We ran over to the Toy store.  Unfortunately our local store has terrible selection.  I had also looked online.  They were out of stock on three of the four sets I was interested in.  Not mush of a sale if you ask me.  We ran over to Target while we were out and found one of the Dino sets on sale.  I think it is sad that both Target and Walmart have better Lego selection than Toys R Us does.  I am very excited for Easter.  I do still need to get a couple of things, but it should be fun.




Tuesday was one of those days that I wish could happen all of the time.  I was productive, and I got stuff done.  I got things done I had been putting off for weeks.  It is spring break, and originally we were going to go on a little trip down to Dinosaur National Monument.  It didn't quite happen because the arrangements didn't  all get made, but we will probably still go sometime soon, and it probably was best that we were home.  I got up, well not early, but at least on time.  I decided to run the car over to get inspected.  It was actually due in January, but so were the rest of the cars, and mine ended up with a broken exhaust manifold.  So we waited.  Since it wasn't registered we didn't drive it.  A couple of weeks ago when I tried to take it it, it wouldn't start.  Apparently a battery can go dead from just sitting.  Anyway so I went to the store, and I got there just before the guy who opened the store.  I was going to read while I waited, but then I thought it would be a great time to grade papers, so I did.  I got most of the 9th grade worksheets done.  When I got home we made breakfast and got everyone dressed.  Then I worked on my resume.  (I really do want to do something different, I just don't know what.  Which is a problem.) Also, while I was working on that I called the a car place about the seat belt  that broke in my car about a month ago.  I still drive to daycare, but I haven't been able to go anywhere further than that.  I had a (hopefully) great idea.  We made several inquiries about the part, but the only one that responded is in Virginia.  It was going to cost about $10-15 for shipping.  The store is actually very close to where my brother-in-law is living.  I asked if he could just pick it up and bring it back on the plane with him this weekend.  I am still a little worried they won't want it in his carry on for some reason, but otherwise it worked out really well.

 By about noon we were ready to go.  We dropped the kids off at my moms for my younger sister to watch, and we headed over to LDS employment.  I have been trying to get Thomas to go for quite a while.  I am not sure the trip was as productive as I had hoped, but at least we both now have accounts and know how to look up jobs.  Our next stop was the tile store.  We picked the darker redish tile, which also was the cheapest.  It is now ready to install, except this weekend being Easter.  I could really use a Saturday as well as the Easter weekend.  We have three egg hunts all on Saturday.  While we were out, we also stopped at Walmart and got some Easter things.  We then headed home.

I had told my sister to feed the kids peanut butter sandwiches, but that didn't sound tasty to her.  Instead she served homemade Macaroni and Cheese.  It is one her favorites. There were leftovers and she very kindly shared them with us.  (Speaking of my sister, she has a job interview at Lagoon today, so we are praying for here and keeping our fingers crossed.  She really needs a job.) 


On our way into the house the children were distracted by their bikes and strollers.  They thought they needed to be used., so of course we ended up going on a walk.  It was nice, except that Isabelle kept panicking about going too fast, so we ended up going at a snails pace.  When we got home our productivity lagged a little.  I think I played a round of Tetris while Thomas took a nap.  I then decided to join him.  Who says that napping isn't productive?  Unfortunately I tried to get the children to nap with us, but it ended up waking Thomas up.  He got up and I finished the nap.  I woke up a little while later to someone head butting me until I moved.  Toddlers can be so sweet.

 

The last thing on my list for the day was yard work.  We actually made some good progress.  We got several more of the flower beads cleaned out and some of the wood chips spread around.  (I might add more pictures later.  My camera ran out of batteries after I took the one of the wood pile.)  We then went in and I made potatoes and chicken gravy.  It was very tasty.  We wanted to watch something.  I had borrowed several family films from my Mother-in-law, so we decided to watch one of those.  We picked Mary Poppins.  Both of the children were enthralled.  I was surprised how entertained they both were.  even on the slower parts. It is long and kind of episodic, so we only watched to the end of their first outing.  The next night we watched through the outing to Uncle Albert's.  I think the next bit is when they go to the bank.  I am not sure where the chimney sweeps come in.

Like I said, it felt like a very productive day.