The Monday List

Our church family is truly blessed through the gifts and generosity of one of our members. Not only did Ruth - owner of My Secret Garden, and Sunday School Teacher extraordinaire - create the dazzling altarpiece above (and the photo really doesn't do it justice), but she also brought orchids for all of the women in church yesterday. It was a treat that took me back to my childhood - to one very special Easter when my Dad decided that I was old enough for a corsage of my own. You could see faces light up over this unexpected gift. God is, after all, often in the small things

On to the list...

Last week's list was perhaps a bit ambitious. Then again, it was kind of a strange week.

What I did accomplish: Obviously, the girls' Easter dresses. A post on the details is forthcoming. I also took care of the pre-Easter details....but not until the day before. Some of that Spring Cleaning was happily accomplished - but not near enough of it, and much of my work was undone in last-minute Easter lunch preparations. Sigh.

So what took up the rest of my time? Well, several things.

First, my sweet little Pixie is very firmly in the midst of her horrendous threes. (Three is Soooo much worse than two!) She had a rough week, and I spent a lot of time working with her through tantrums, near-constant demands for things she couldn't have and a lot of angry sulking. As all of this was accompanied by poor nighttime sleeping - a sign of physical or developmental growth in my kids - I'm guessing that it'll be over in a week or two when the growth spurt slows.

Second, on Thursday I took the Princess to see an ENT after our family doctor finally decided that her tonsils were a problem. The long and the short of it is that she will have her tonsils removed this coming Wednesday. In all honesty, we're relieved that we're finally going to be taking this step. My girl has always snored like a freight train, and definitely has apnea as well. My guess is that the quality of her sleep - and thus the quality of her waking time - is going to improve dramatically after the surgery. At any rate, we lost almost all day Thursday because of the appointment.

Third, I had a large amount of work to do for my PEO chapter last week. Early on, I spent an entire day working on some letters which needed to be sent out, taking great care with them to hit a tone that was both loving and firm. After Thursday's ENT appointment, though, I also had to work to find someone to replace me for part of our next meeting - which is scheduled for the day after the surgery. I'll be missing our next two meetings (bad president!) due to family reasons, and so wanted to get as much of it squared away as possible.

Finally, I just had one of those weeks where I was emotionally and physically down. It happens once in a while, and when it does I find that I need to honor my low states by not pushing too hard. If I need to rest, than I need to rest.

New day, new week, new list.

1. Obviously, the Princess's surgery is going to be our top priority this week. The pre-op nurse will call tomorrow to give us our schedule for Wednesday and to explain everything that will happen. My Mom is coming down to help with the Pixie, and my husband is taking the day off so that I don't have to sit alone at the hospital. It is an outpatient procedure, which is fantastic, and we've been told to expect a 5-7 day recovery time. We're hoping for an easy time of it...but we'll just have to see.


2. In the meantime, I have some cleaning to do over the next two days to get ready for our little patient. Today I'm going to finally attend to all of those clothes that need to be sorted and either stored or donated.


3. Tomorrow I'm going to be cleaning the Princess's room so that she has a peaceful place to recuperate. She will be pressed into service when she comes home today.


4. While I'm at it, I want to get the Pixie's room cleaned up too. It won't take much as most of the problem is simply the gigantic pile of stuffed animals strewn about.


5. I do have one 'must do' for the week. On Saturday I started teaching another sock class, and as we have our second session this coming weekend I need to make sure I have samples prepared so that I can easily demonstrate heel flaps, turning heels and gussets. We used mini-socks quite successfully last time, but this time I want to use regular socks. Besides...I need to replace a few pair of my own!


6. As I also would like to have something to share with the guild tomorrow night, I need to block my lacewing shawl today!


7. My sample knitting proved to be a bit more difficult than I had expected - partially because the pattern isn't spelled out in full detail. It's not due until the end of the month, but then the sooner the better and so I'm going to work like crazy on it this week!


8. And because I had promised to do something just for myself....Last night I cast on for a new vest. I'll share the details with you very soon, but for now all I'll say is that I'm having a lot of fun working on it, and I'm VERY excited about the end results.

Given the week I'm going to have - I think this is more than enough!

Have a great week!