A day with many hours

Yesterday was a day that felt longer than most. Not in a bad way, but it just seemed to have significantly more hours in it than other days. This is, of course, not true- though I suppose it technically had more waking hours for me than some days. I was up at 5:30 a.m. and didn’t go to bed until midnight last night!

The early wake up (pretty normal for me, anyway- even on Saturday it’s rare I can sleep in even if I want to at this point) was due in part to Ethan having a 7 am soccer practice in a neighboring town. We had to pick up his friend by 6:30 to make it out there in time. It was a gorgeous, sunny morning, so I really didn’t mind. I sat in my car in the sun and read my book, looked at my phone, etc. and just enjoyed an hour of solitude while I waited for them. 🙂

When we got home (only ~8:30 or so), the kids wanted to play video games with their friends after breakfast for a while. Ivan had some errands to run, so I got going on some cleaning projects in our bedroom. I had some laundry to put away, dusted/ vacuumed our room and then decided to tackle some bathroom organization/ clean out. One of the few things neither of us love about our home is that we have a small master bathroom. When we bought the house, it was one of the things that made us hesitate, but we decided as long as it at least HAD a master bathroom (that was a “must have” for us), we could make do with a less than ideal size.

Anyway, as a result, we don’t have too much storage in there. The previous owners put in this shelf/basket system instead of a closet, which works fine for us- we share one basket and then each have one to ourselves. But these baskets needed some serious cleaning out. Our medicine cabinet over the sink did, too. It felt SO good to weed stuff out!

After that, I wrangled the kids off the games and we cleaned most of the house. The boys did their assigned chores (cleaned out the van, their bathroom, bedrooms, straightened shoe closet, practiced piano) and I cleaned the kitchen, living room and sun room. That all took a while, and by then, Ivan showed up bearing gifts- TACOS. 🙂 He stopped at a Mexican grocery store for carnitas. YUMMMMMM. We all love these so much.

After our food settled, Asher and I went out for 2 mile walk/ run. It was sunny and fairly warm for Wisconsin, so it was quite enjoyable. Ethan opted out, since he already had soccer in the morning. 🙂

I then proceeded to spend a couple hours being totally lazy. The sun was shining on our deck in the afternoon, so, despite having no deck furniture out there yet (not quite deck patio season….), I propped myself up against the house on a blanket and read my book for a long time! Out of the wind and in the sun, it felt so great. I actually got a little sleepy in the fresh air and after a while took a mini nap! (until the sun started moving behind the house, and then I just got cold.)

I planned to then go do something more productive, but as I headed inside, a bit chilled, the hot tub was calling my name. Ivan was working on a project in the garage, so I ended up jumping in the hot tub with my book for another half hour or so. Lady of leisure. Hahahaha.

After a shower, I did some household admin tasks on the computer for a bit and then, in keeping with my kind of lazy mode, we decided to just go out for dinner since no one felt like cooking. Dinner was fun but it got a bit later than we planned. Lots of restrictions of course are still in place for social distancing, reduced capacity, etc. so we ended up having to wait in the car until they texted us that our table was ready. No big deal though.

When we got home, I got sucked into planning some more details for our summer vacation in August. I *meant* to just do this for a little while, but ended up sitting at my computer until midnight!! But, I am SO HAPPY to have the bulk of the toughest planning done- the lodging.

We are going to do a long road trip out East, up through back country of Vermont, New Hampshire and then up the coast of Maine to Acadia National Park. It’s a long drive from Wisconsin, and there’s so much we want to see along the way…. So, it has required some complex planning. I’ve been working on it pretty hard for a couple weeks now.

Not counting random nights on the way out/back, we have six different towns we will be staying in for varying lengths of time. Trying to figure out the best places to stay in some of these more remote, smaller mountain/ forest areas was challenging while having the overall route and timing make sense, too. (And, not having it totally break the bank!! Yowzers some of the places up there can get $$$$. I am not sure who pays $550/night for a room at a bed and breakfast, but those people are not us. At least definitely not on a 2 week road trip (or, ever. hahaha.)

I think I got it though! All essentials are BOOKED and I’m really, really happy with our planned itinerary and the places I found. CANNOT WAIT!

Whew, long day to recap= long post. Sorry ’bout that. I will let you get on with your day! Have a great Sunday.

Daily Gratitude:

Tacos. The end.