Day in the Life

So I read the day in the life on Abby's blog and I thought it might be interesting to do.

(And yes, I know I haven't blogged in ages. Read this, you'll see why. Also, there is so MUCH to say, I just don't know where to start.)

7:00 wake up to Molly stomping in the hallway and loudly playing The Great Pumpkin.

7:10 Coffee/check email for urgent stuff. Husband does more morning duty than I do, helps with breakfast, and general bustling, but he's also getting ready to go to work at the same time, so it's a little crazy. Check ravelry and twitter for non-urgent stuff. Solve a lost shoe crisis, a jacket crisis, and argue about brushing hair. Usher little people around trying to make sure everyone eats, brushes their teeth, and leaves on time.

7:40 Say goodbye to Mr Wit and wait outside for the bus with little wits. Molly thinks it's funny to push me from behind. It's not.

7:53 Back inside. Remind oldest wit to brush her hair and teeth, and tell her (3 times) not to wear capri pants when it's 45 degrees. Still checking ravelry and drinking coffee, trying to wake up and shake off the foul mood and sense of failure from yesterday.

8:12 Send last wit out to bus. Finish reading mindless stuff online.

8:30 Pick up the family room/kitchen- wipe off table, put stuff away, turn off bedroom lights and shut doors and other various shit that people have left on. Notice that Thing 1's laundry is full but don't wash it. She's old enough to be responsible for her own. Get a load of Thing 2&3's laundry, start it, remember the agitator in the washer isn't working right, and my all efforts of figuring out how to take it apart have failed. Soak laundry anyway.

Clean up, fix hair, brush teeth. I don't shower in the mornings when it's cold when I'm going out in a few hours because my hair will be wet for at least 4 hours and blow drying makes me want to stabl myself because it takes so long. Go and look for pants that aren't plaid or covered in ladybugs (my dye day clothes). It's between black cargo pants that annoy me when I wear them and comfy black knit pants. Go with the black knit.

9:30 Eat breakfast: leftover chicken and rice - I'm weird with breakfast. It's oatmeal about half the time in cold weather because it's quick and warm and good. But the rest of the time I eat something completely not a breakfast food. Make to-do list for the day. Discover hole in leg of pants. WTF? These aren't even that old. They were either cut with scissors by little hands, or snagged on something somewhere. I'll probably never know.

9:45 Start moving again. Check DVR for something to have going in the background. I find bad reality TV keeps me moving more than music sometimes. Flipping Out- great. I always feel less crazy when Flipping Out is on.

Lay out red yarns in a better way to get them to dry already. Get more coffee. Pack up box of kid's summer clothes that have been in here for a week because I didn't have a box. Pick up living room. Call my dad for advice about washer. He says he can come over in the afternoon and look at it.

10:15 Sit at desk to work. Find pile of school papers I need to take to meeting today because for some dumbass reason, the teacher thinks Molly is capable of reading this newspaper and shit, and also sent home a letter saying she can't go on a field trip because she didn't get 90% points for behavior. PISSED. Dude, she's autistic, she's not going to behave like the rest of your class. Sometimes I wish these teachers could see what she was like a few years ago so they can be impressed that she's in their class at all and not punish her because she can't get 90% behavior points. OTOH, she's throwing pencils so what do I know.

Try to figure out how to deposit a check. Our bank accounts are with Irwin (the company that laid my husband off just before they were seized by Federal Regulators). They've been taken over by another bank, our money is secure, but at the moment, there's no where to go to the bank except driving all the way downtown, which is Mega Inconvenient. Put check aside to figure out later. Check email for the 1000th time looking to see if I have a reply about my skein winder. It is the single most expensive business expense I've ever bought and the motor burned out yesterday. I have 6 skeins of 1300 yard laceweight to re-skein, not to mention 8 kilo cones of sock yarn to skein, and a burnt out skein winder. It should be under warranty, but this is really bad timing.

10:30 desk (mostly) clean, office/family room mostly clean, time to go to school meeting and then plug full on into yarn club development when I get back.

10:45 Meeting with special ed teacher and Molly's behavior specialist. Gen ed still says she can't go on field trip, but we worked some other stuff out. Still trying to get her to stop pinching people and throwing pencils.

11:30 Back home. Realize I forgot to go to the library while I was out, but don't care enough to go back. Make calls to medicaid, respite, and school psychologist. Get through to no one. Bang head on desk 48 times. Eat chocolate. (Hey, it's dark chocolate with cherries, it's good for you).

12:00 Behavior specialist stops in after observing at school and we talk about things. Try to make a plan for support so Molly can be in Girl Scouts. 3 more calls on the list I need to make.

1:30 Dad shows up trying to fix the washer. I decide that laundry soaked for hours and then agitated by hand is clean enough, spin it out and the washer starts leaking. Great. Dad starts taking the back apart. I can't help much so go back to working on my computer. Dad is muttering a lot. Not encouraging. Worked some more on club setup intermittently and helped with washer. (Note, this is not an efficient way to design a web page).

2:30 get Sean and Molly off the bus. Help Dad put washer back together (unfixed, but not leaking). Talking to him I find out that last time we were at his house there was money missing too. FML.

3:00 begin fighting with Molly about homework. Starts with me saying it's time to do homework and her screaming for 10 minutes that it's not time to do homework. I win that fight. Then I tell her she has to read something. Anything. Resume screaming that she doesn't have to read. I tell her she has to read or I'm taking away the hexabits (little toys she likes to play with). More screaming, along with stomping and door slamming. I calmly show her to her room, remove the hexabits, and cry in the hallway. 30 minutes later she says she will read, but she wants to read News for Me. School has sent no News for Me today. More screaming. 3:55, she says she'll read. 5 minutes later, done. Resume swearing at washing machine and trying to reassemble it. Dad calls washer repair place I can't afford. Somewhere in there got Sean to do his homework with minimal drama or supervision.

4:30 Oldest girl-child is home. We begin the dance wherein I tell her to do her homework and she sits at the table looking like she's doing something. I'm trying to do some graphics work while breaking up fights between little people and telling people to put their food away.

5:30 Ask oldest girl child how she's doing on that essay due tomorrow. She hasn't started it yet. Sick of this crap. Molly and Sean are fighting again. Now it's time to put out fires and give up on getting work done today. Mr Wit comes home and breaks up fight.

6:15 Start fire extinguisher mode. Make leftovers for dinner, wash dishes, put away red yarn. List of things I did not get done today is long, but I am too frazzled to work or play with anyone.

Well I started this blog post because I thought it would be interesting but it was just depressing. This is the point in the day when I begin feeling like running away from home.