I just read this lovely post and since she said things so nice and sweet I feel no need to add more.

I just got the phone bill. A two month phone bill, and a 'last notice at that. Apparently I lost the last two bills on my desk. I am really glad I finally did something about this desk. There is more to do, but at least I got the bills paid.

Clutter always costs me, in energy, time, and money.

The bad news is I have been spending the week doing a fancy balletic type dance around the obstacle course of rearranged misplaced piles of stuff. Slowly shrinking piles, bu still it hasn't been fun.

It is times like this that make me want to throw up my hands and demand a larger house. 3 bedroom 1100 sq ft house for 7 of us is really hard.

But plenty have it worse.

I just watched a comercial on youtube for contacts.

some kid with glasses in a school hall, then I ignored it to watch the video (Tim Hawkins on homeschooling halarious)

then glanced back and it says "I see him in the halls every day"

then she morphs to not having glasses, and flips to "Someday I will have the guts to say HI"

now I missed something in between, but....

really a commercial that says you can only talk to folk with contacts?

I wear glasses, and I do recall not liking them as a teen. I wore contacts for a few years, during which time my eyes went from kinda bad to horrible.

I have no objection to letting my kids try contacts if desired. I object to straight up saying contacts are required for popularity or whatever.

Movies that show girls and geeks getting makeovers that always require contacts are more than enough thanks.

After spending a good deal of time at the park and wondering why we don't have time to do it more, I started noticing I might not be managing my time quite as well as I would like.

Some time use is unavoidable, I can't shrink my sleep any less than about 8 or 9 hours (interrupted by a baby) Call it 8.5 for ease of math.

I can't shrink the time I spend with potty business (diapers helping kids, and of course my own) which is actually about an hour a day. More on a bad day.

Total 9.5

And meals are already pretty short, between prep, eating and clean up about an hour each, two for dinner.

Total 13.5

Then there is putting kids to bed/nap, considering I am just 'directing' for most of it, why does it take so long? At least an hour a night, plus naptime reading. Call it an hour and half. (snack, teeth, face, changing clothes, story, prayer, and tucking them in one at a time)

Total 15 hours

So that leaves 9 hours a day for education cleaning and computer 'work' (bills co-op, scouts) and non work (FB, email, surfing)

Am I really using those 9 hours well? I dunno. I mean the kids are certainly educated, the house could be worse, and the bills paid.


Oops forgot to add up how much time I spend feeding the baby.

I might have to work on my time management. Or maybe I just need to not have a baby to feed all the time...and a bit less FBing.

Husband is still not home from his morning interview. I have mixed feelings. On the one hand I want to be a responsible adult and of course taking govt money doesn't qualify. ON the other hand I like having my husband around.

this is why unemployment is a bad idea. If money were an issue of course I would be wholeheartedly behind him getting a real full time job...for the money.

But as it is.. I can so see the lure of letting the govt take care of it all, even if it isn't the optimum for long term goals.

Not that we will do anything to jeopardize this job opportunity, even if it does mean travel away from family.

Husband sent his resume out to several folk who requested it as jobs opened up at their workplace.

Plus he has been writing again. A couple small articles got him back in the mood and he is working on a children's book.

I dunno if it will pan out, but I am glad he has this chance to try. So long as he actually works on writing not more FB games....

Money is pretty much on autopilot, though my desires are spiking lately. Weddings and trips, and of course not being quite as exhausted (pregnancy is way harder than nursing), leaves me with time to get the gimmies.

I recently thwarted a severe case of the gimmies by asking my MIL for a bunch of paper case boxes. She can get one or two a week from work. I used them to organize the kids out of season out of size clothes. So now my daughters' closet is all nice and neatly stacked with boxes labeled roughly by size.

I had wanted new shelving or some nify container store baskets, or something fun. The boxes do the trick for free. Only I need more to do my sons closet. (with 5 kids and some clothes bigger than the oldests, I have a lot of clothes even though I tend to only save 3 or 5 outfits each size)

Though all those clothes is one reason why our clothing budget is almost nill. We buy warm stocking for girls in winter (err for the oldest girl, the younger gets the hand-me-downs) and underwear, occasionally socks (though if your socks are full of holes from sticking a pencil in them, buy your own!)