Seven Quick Takes vol. 110

Joining Kelly a little late, but I thought I'd just check in!

{one}

Well, we eased back into normal life this week and the reentry was pretty tough. I have no idea what happened to the laundry situation around here but it was as if we all went on a three week vacation far, far, away from any washing machines and wore everything we all owned. But in actuality we didn't really go anywhere, I still did what felt like the same normal gargantuan amount of laundry over the holidays, and yet it took me three days to even get close to catching up. Because I never really catch up do I? It's a vicious circle, my friends...

{two}

The easing back into school went much better however! I think I'll try to actually devout a whole post to homeschooling sometime soon, but I was very pleased that everyone still could recall letter sounds. I had very low expectations after our two and a half week break, but surprisingly they surpassed them! We're also reading some good books, hope to read a little more "history" this semester, and we're making tangible progress in math which has felt so long in coming. Yay positivity!

{three}

I'm still finding Christmas stuff that should have been packed away when I was packing all the Christmas things away this week. Little reminders that make me feel completely unorganized. I thought I had got it all away and could feel a bit of January freshness, but the decorations haunt me in every room! And Max keeps finding different pieces of the kid nativity scenes everywhere.

{four}

We loved talking to Kelly on the podcast this week. Did you get a chance to listen yet? It was great talking about planning and...life!

 I would love to say that I am getting much better at podcasting, but just last week I made a huge technical gaffe and Haley and I had to scrap a whole episode. I think what's challenging in learning new skills at this time in my life is that I simply don't have good chunks of time to "practice". I'm constantly having to relearn things in ten minute bites! A New Year's resolution is to keep trying to get better at these things, but then again it took me a while to learn this blogging stuff...

{five}

I love Kelly's planner. I love that it leaves lots of room to write whatever you need to, and I'm adding all sorts of lists to the pages, which sorta sounds like chaos, but it's much better than me putting lists and things in a bunch of different places like I usually do. Baby steps.

Another resolution is for me to attempt meal planning because cooking this week almost killed me. I feel like I can either clean or cook or homeschool, but the combination of all three feels like it's going to crush me sometimes. And usually the hardest part for me is figuring something out to actually eat. It's just some mental block I have. So the other night I pulled out my favourite cookbooks and wrote a month's worth of recipes into the planner. I want to use my cookbooks more because I love them, and always feel lazy not using them. Two birds, one pesky resolution stone.

{six}

I picked my saint of the year from Jen's saint generator, and received St. Fabiola of Rome. She's the patron of difficult marriages, victims of abuse, victims of unfaithfulness, victims of adultery, divorced people, and widows. I swear, every saint I've picked the last couple years are patrons of really terrible things. And I'll also state for the record that my marriage is in now way especially difficult right now, and no abuse or all that other bad stuff! Thankfully. I guess she wants some cheerful intercessions, or something. She was a great friend of St. Jerome who was a tough cookie to be friends with but he really liked her so that's gotta say something for her personality. She musta been feisty!

Also, when I was doing a little research I found this wacky article of an art exhibit done about her which I found completely fascinating. It's a beautiful original portrait.

{seven}

January. It's a helluva month. I'm trying to give myself a little credit and not feel too much pressure. We were all inside all week because of temperatures not getting out of the -20's, so cabin fever may kill me. I'm allowing a bit more tv, more book reading for me, and trying not to look at the calendar. But there are some really rough days. Please let it warm up just a little so I can throw some kids outside!

Hope you all are having a great weekend!

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