Houseguests: Preparing for them, then enjoying them

Enjoying company is a little easier for me these days. Now that I avoid overhostessing, things are better. There is still a tremendous amount of energy required to prepare for house guests; even a generally clean household needs a few extras before guests can comfortably be absorbed into the home.

I feel like I have read a lot about Christian hospitality and how our attitudes are supposed to be welcoming and how we are to show love to travelers and friends by opening our homes to others. We read in the Bible about how the early church met in homes, about how Chloe (wasn't it Chloe?) opened her home so believers could meet, learn, and worship together. And then there was that couple in the Old Testament who had Elisha over to eat and sleep often on his travels through their village. As I prepared for house guests this time, I thought about that couple. They really were not just fly-by-the-seat-of-their-pants hospitable, they were organized. As you recall, they built Elisha a room onto the side of their house, so that he would have his own special place to stay whenever he needed it. Wow. Now that's hospitality.

Hospitality is hard, at least for me. People don't talk about this aspect of hospitality, at least not while I'm in earshot. Maybe no one wants to seem unfriendly, so they gloss over all the upheaval hospitable behavior can cause. We need to be hospitable anyway, because God told us to be. While I was preparing for guests, here are some things I did:

-Planned our flexible menu and grocery shopped accordingly.

-Baked some breakfast treats that are fast "before rushing off to the 8a.m. church service" food options for everyone.

-Talked with my toddler about our guests to prepare her.

-Moved our potty training area to a guest-free zone.

-Put a welcome sign up on the door of the guest area, along with some welcoming toddler masterpieces.

- removed often-used items out of the guest room, in our case this consisted of baby care and baby clothing items

- gave the guest room an extra dusting, sweeping, and overall freshening-up.

- Washed the quilt and linens on the guest bed and brought the air mattress out of storage.

- Washed the guest bathroom really well, after removing all the children's bath toys and towels from it.

-Set out fresh towels and new bars of soap and extra TP.

-Prepared the dining area for guests.

So while I did all that, over the course of the week which led up to the arrival of the guests, I thought about how truly hard it is to do all of that in addition to keeping up with the needs of our household and our family. Because that little list I just wrote doesn't cover any of my usual must-do housekeeping activities, and all of those household cycles (laundry, dishes, meals, childcare, joyfully repeat) continued throughout all that preparation.

And people ask homemakers what we do all day! *smile and chuckle*

Anyway, the act of opening our homes to others requires work, organization, creativity, and then when the guests come we need to show them patience and kindness and attention (yet not overhostess, of course) and enjoy them.

It seemed like a great deal of the preparation involved physically removing our own things from the guests' space, anticipating what their needs would be, and providing for them accordingly. It felt like an object lesson, like I was learning that hospitality is putting someone else's needs first.

So now the guests have been with us a couple of days and I'm realizing that despite the enormous

amount of work, it is so great to have 2 new personalities in our daily routine. They have transformed our household into a place with a lot more laughter and a lot more goofing around, it is really enjoyable. The visit is a treat for all of us. I am glad they have come.

Now I'm off to go prepare for a company dinner and a company breakfast while the little ones nap.

"How do you spend your day?" the trouble explaining homemaking

It happened again: another person asked me a variation of the question "what do you you do all day?/ how do you spend your time at home? / how can you stand so much time at home? etc. etc." This time the question truly was asked in the nicest possible manner, with absolutely no judgement or meanness.

I remain baffled and shaken up by it, though, because it was asked by a pretty good friend with whom I have a great deal in common. We're both Christians, about the same age, we have the same number of children (who are even the same age), and we live in the same city. We have been getting together each Tuesday morning at the park for a play date with one other family and have been having a picnic snack mid-morning.

And today conversation amongst us three mothers led to lunch food ideas - "what do you usually give your kids for lunch?" she asked, looking for ideas for her own routine, no doubt. I mentioned that yesterday we had leftover dinner food at lunch: fish, broccoli and baked potato. Boring, balanced, tasty, easy enough to just reheat and eat. Trying to keep the conversation going I politely asked how she usually handles lunch. She pointed at the picnic spread of portable sandwiches, fruit, crackers and water and said that they have this every day, that they never have lunch at home, they are always out and always have something pretty similar to what she had packed. I was stunned. "You never eat lunch at home?"

Never. Eat. Lunch. At. Home. The picnic lunches she packs are perfectly healthy, that wasn't what stunned me, it is just baffling to me that she can prefer to be out of the house so much on a regular-like-clockwork sort of basis.

Conversation progressed and we sort of compared (in a very friendly way, no animosity or argument that I sensed) how we each function.

My house and life would be a wreck if I were not home most mornings and afternoons - the continual cycles of household cleanliness, food preparation, child care rhythms all keep me utterly occupied. Rarely in my life now do I get to indulge in the lovely sewing projects or recipe experiments that I used to do, and that in a future season I will once again do. Right now, with my about-to-turn-3 yr old and my 11 month old my life is a lot more about keeping my head above water and keeping things fairly clean, so that we can just get ourselves happily to the next meal, the next bath, the next outing, the next nap time. I don't mean to express those thoughts in a desperate way.

But! I was stunned when my friend said that after they do their morning routine of getting dressed, breakfasted, and getting the kitchen cleaned up, she and the kids are completely bored by 8 or 8:30am. So they pack a lunch and go out - to a different playgroup, children's museum, library story time, Bible study group or park for each day of the week!

Curious about our routine and about how we do not live like that, she posed that dreaded question which i already mentioned. I then felt my brain seize up and my words refused to flow at first. I thought of my online homemaker blog friends (bless you, fellow happy homemakers! I am so encouraged by you and wish we all lived in the same neighborhood!) and wanted to phrase my words/explanations to her in a loving, inspiring way that would help her.

And I hope I did help, though I suspect I didn't. I mentioned that my girls play well independently, even Baby Madeline, and are always busy with something, and that I feel that my homemaking activities are never really done, so I am always busy, too. I shared all of what I just shared with you, readers, and I also mentioned that as a Christian I think of homemaking as a calling, and I mentioned Titus 2's admonition for women to be keepers at home. This is an important job, and if we don't do it, it will not get done. However, we were more focused on the question of how to fill the day, rather than whether to be homemakers or not, so bringing up Titus 2 felt a little off-subject.

So here we are back home from our morning out and now the little girls are napping. Although I have 5,000 things I need to see to instead (see note) I just had to blog about this, because i have no other outlet for such an ordinary-yet-extraordinary conversation.

Note:

Things I need to do:

defrost meat for dinner

clean both high chairs

Take dry diapers out of the dryer

Empty dishwasher

scrub the bathtub

take a stack of cardboard boxes to the garage

sweep the dining room

carpet sweep the living room

mail 2 letters

update the grocery list, while finalizing next week's menu in anticipation of house guests

prepare 2 loads of laundry for 7pm when I can once again use the washing machine

get to the filing my husband asked me to do

do the ironing

and if I were to go on and write out all my other tasks that need doing, goodness gracious, we would all be here forever. When someone asks me what I do all day, or if I am bored with things (who has time to be bored? and who can get bored with 2 adorable little girls to care for?), I get rattled inside and don't quite know how to unrattle myself.

How do you respond to such questions? And how do you share, in a loving manner, how to become content at home? I would looooove to hear how other homemakers handle such things, or how you stay/become unrattled.

Update, on Wednesday morning:

Ok, so I shared my concerns with my husband last night. And he listened. But he just calmly asked me why I was so dismayed by that conversation, and continued to ask me variations of "why" until I began to feel .... like maybe I'm just crazy? Are there other homemakers out there who understand me here, or am I the problem? I could really use a little encouragement.

Of Cabbages and Kings, and Whirling Dervish Heather.

My blog is fast turning into the kind of blog that used to really irritate me. You know, the kind that has a blogger who only writes rarely. I'm sheepishly grinning right now, because now I understand that kind of blog. I would read them, get interested, then, bam, the mom has another child or something else super interesting happens in the household -- and what kind of posts follow this?


Not many.

But I get it now! Of course the mom couldn't post! She was otherwise occupied.

So, to be honest, those kinds of blogs don't irritate me anymore (partly because I don't have time to read them at all), and partly because I am humbled to admit that there's another kind of blog that irritates me instead: the kind of blog that always has thoughtful posts and always is interesting. I am amazed by those women who are able to do this blogging stuff as well as keep up with their homemaking. I salute you!

I am just quickly checking in here, while one child splashes in the tub off of the office where I type, and while Baby Madeline slumbers. (I have the monitor right here by the mouse).

This morning I was someone who, according to my wise husband, I'm not supposed to be. I was who he refers to as Whirling Dervish Heather.

I did laundry, I filled the dishwasher, I fed the toddler, I popped batches of cookie dough into and out of the oven, I chopped vegetables for a beautiful soup, I invited the neighbors over for lunch, I nursed. As I did all of that joyfully and with great zeal, I felt happy and at home and at ease and capable.

I thought about how NOT to overhostess, and pulled off an impromptu lunch pretty well. Yay.

But, as she always does, Whirling Dervish Heather is now completely exhausted, and alas, she has not yet made dinner. Sigh.

The baby awakes, and I must trot.

Once More into the Breach! My Retro-Themed Kitchen: the Betty Crocker illustration garland.

Don't you just adore old cookbooks? The thing is, though, in my own experience I have not found them to be particularly great sources of recipes. However, I have a soft spot for the illustrations in them. So one day this winter, I got out my scissors and attacked this old Betty Crocker - - and made a garland for my kitchen cupboards. It is right at my eye level, and is nice and inspiring to see as I cook and clean and such around my little kitchen. Here it is:
The story seems to begin with a lady in an apron planning, then shopping,
then stocking her fridge,
then working in the kitchen,
then taking the fruit of her labor out of the oven, then presenting it to loved ones,

and then repeating that age-old process. Thus, the life of a homemaker! This garland of illustrations reminds me that I am joining the parade of women homemakers who have gone before us. They may have had kitchens that appear slightly different from ours, but they were doing the same thing: serving their families and making (I hope) tasty and healthy food. Onward, my fellow cooks, mothers, wives, homemakers! Once more into the breach!

My Retro - Themed Kitchen: the new wall hanging.

Hi! Things are going well here at home; I must say that the addition of a second child seems much more peaceful than the arrival of the first. I'm still groggy and not as organized as I strive to be, but our days are basically in pretty good shape.
Here are pictures of one of my latest projects: I've made a dear wall hanging for the kitchen. Above you'll see the before and after photos, and then close-ups of the hanging itself.

The fabric was from Fabric.com and all I did was finish off the edges, sew on ribbons, and hang it by a dowel at the top. The little retro images show ladies in aprons doing various everyday household tasks, and the motto reads Domestic Divas Do It All.

I find it greatly encouraging throughout the day as I pass by it doing the billion-and-five domestic tasks that only show if I do not do them!

Oh, and don't be alarmed by the background of the ironing close-up shot: Baby Madeline was under my attentive supervision as she stretched upon the guest bed.

Smart Sewing

I just love this quote:

"It is a token of healthy and gentle characteristics when women of high thoughts and accomplishments love to sew: especially as they are never more at home with their own hearts than while so occupied."
--Nathaniel Hawthorne

Grocery list strategies

I truly feel called to be a homemaker, and I do my best to do a good job at it. There are 2 tasks within homemaking, however, that are out to get me.



1. Cleaning the shower

2. Planning meals



Now, I loooove to cook. Really. And I'm pretty good at it. So its a mystery to me why I am stopped in my tracks when it comes time to plan out the next 2 weeks of meals.




The Printed Checklist
Yet, aha! I have found a good, workable solution: I have a template style grocery list to help jog my memory and speed myself along as I write the list. In other words, I have assessed our most-often required grocery items and printed them out in an organized list. It is organized by the sections of our favorite grocery store so that while I'm zooming around the store I have a list that works with me, not against me. (Backtracking in the store uses up a lot of time, trust me, I was a green bride once, way back 3 years ago, ha ha).

A section entitled Meals This Week
And, on the list (see lower right hand corner of photo) I have a space in which I jot down the recipe titles that I have planned on the family menu. So, for example, if we're in produce and my husband asks "Hmm, why are we looking for beets?" instead of drawing a complete blank and having no answer for him, I can simply refer to my notes and tell him. *smile*

It is a helpful guideline for me! It helps me remember things.
The menu is totally not etched in stone - its a guideline for myself as I decide when to cook what, when to defrost what, and how to sort/separate meat into the freezer, and how to align meals so as to put leftovers to good use. And, it helps me remember why on earth those beets are in the vegetable drawer.

Further help with meal planning: clippings, envelope, bulletin board!
I have such a hard time planning meals that I have invented a little system for myself. After the groceries are put away, I take the grocery list and clip off the Meals This Week section. I pin it up on the kitchen bulletin board. When I'm finished with that list, I file it in an envelope which is pinned to the bulletin board in my kitchen. Then, when it is inevitably time to sit down and plan out the upcoming 2 week menu, I refer to the old "Meals This Week" clippings from that envelope to get ideas. That way I'm not reinventing the wheel each time I write a grocery list.


As a new bride I slaved over recipe books, wondering what we'd both like to eat, writing out grocery lists containing very little order (or ordered by each recipe, which was a disaster of a system!), and then sometimes I'd come home and forget which recipe book a planned dish came from, anyway. And why did I buy Swiss chard?

My husband and I departed for our honeymoon trip 1 day after our wedding. He peered into my suitcase with surprise, and noticed several cookbooks that I was taking with me. Always the gentleman, he paused and told me gently:

"Heather? Where we are going, you won't have to cook."

To which I replied: "Oh, I know. I'm just getting ready to do some recipe planning on the plane so that I'll have our first week's menu all planned and the grocery list ready to go when we get home." *smile*

Silently, he nodded and thought this over. And that was all he said about that.

Find a system that floats your boat!
All that being said, this isn't the only way to do things. I like it and it works for me, but I am always on the lookout for other methods that work for other homemakers. I hope you have a great system that serves you well, and I would love to hear all about it.

Anyone have any fabulous plans they'd like to share? Happy homemaking!

Note: Take a little trip over to Raising Homemakers to view a great link-up with lots of other homemaking blogs - you'll find plenty of great homemaking tips and encouragement in this noble calling. :o)

Mending a Pop-Up Book

Book mending is a little mentioned, yet ever so handy skill for any homemaker to have!

Farmer Fred is a favorite of a certain 1 year old I know. I actually have taken it upon myself to hide this book now and then, so that we don't spend all day reading it!

Recently Farmer Fred and his barnyard animals suffered some wounds from Hurricane Elena, who got a bit overexcited and did quite a bit of damage. So, I got out the Scotch tape and did a lot of mending, thinking to myself yet again how interdisciplinary homemaking is.

In the incredibly exhaustive encyclopedia of homemaking skills entitled Home Comforts, author Cheryl Mendelson covers book mending with great aplomb. However, she doesn't say anything about pop up books! (I'm grinning as I write this, please don't think that I actually looked it up before I got out the Scotch tape.) Its a great book and every homemaker should have access to it.

But I don't think my 1 year old should have open access to Farmer Fred. I will be keeping this book out of reach and I will be chaperoning her time with him from now on. *smile*

Saying Yes to Sewing

As a little girl, I remember saying:

"I want to learn how to sew."

"No you don't," replied my mother.

"I want to learn how to sew."

"No you don't," announced my grandmother.

They told me to spend my time other ways, to "save time and trouble" buying ready made items. They did not understand. Their particular response to my wish to learn this skill was both baffling and irksome to me. "'No, you don't'?" I thought rebelliously, "Yes, I do!"

Now that its 2010, I'm 30 and have my own little girl. Goodness knows if she'll want to learn to sew...though she is interested in everything I do, so I wouldn't be surprised. But! I am determined to create a sewing-friendly environment for us. When I embroider, I hand her my smallest embroidery hoop to hold so she can feel included. And earlier this week when I popped over to my sewing machine to mend a diaper cover, I sat her in my lap so she could watch. Look at the glee in her face!

Does anyone have more ideas which I could put into practice as I continue to craft a welcoming household attitude to sewing?

Over at Raising Homemakers, which is a wonderful resource for others who are interested in such things, be sure to peruse August 18th's link-up! You might find some kindred spirits who are also striving to manage a godly household (maybe even one that is sewing friendly!).

Adventures in Ironing...I mean, Adventures in Odyssey!

Ironing is one of those tasks that I have a tendency to let pile up if I don't have some sort of system or motivation to complete. Until I got married I had no idea ironing was important to men. So, you ladies-in-waiting/single gals, this is a skill to master. Not that I've truly mastered it yet. Anyway, here is my latest Grand Idea for passing the time while ironing:

I listen to Adventures in Odyssey online while I iron! To tune in to these well-written, fast-paced, family-friendly, God-honoring radio drams, visit www.whitsend.org and click on "On the Radio".

My sister and I have been fans of Adventures in Odyssey since about 1989. It is a continuing story about a fun community of people in a town called Odyssey - however, the stories make sense in whatever order you hear them, so don't fret about being out of the loop.

Let me know what you think, as I am perhaps their biggest fan, as those of you who know me are aware. :o) Does anyone else know about Odyssey?

A Cathedral in Time / Getting Ready to be "Sunday Heather"

"Six days you shall labor and do all your work. But the seventh day is a sabbath to the Lord your God."



Sundays, if a homemaker is not careful, can easily begin to seem a lot like all the other days of the week. Except for the fact that there's church in the morning, I mean. I have a lot to learn about keeping the day of rest separate from the rest of the week, I am no expert. No siree, in fact, I have a lot of questions about how to spend the day in a way that honors God.



Wise counsel over the years of my studies has led me to believe that the admonition to "do no work" does not equal "do nothing". I believe resting can mean recreating - doing something that revives us from our labors. However, I repeat, I am no expert.



I love the phrase by Abraham Joshua Heschel calling the sabbath day a "cathedral in time". Each week as Sunday approaches I try -- and often fail, but I keep on trying -- to take measures to prepare for the day. With planning and effort, I can make room for Sunday to be a day with more rest in it than if I did not prepare. In fact, in our house I am known as "Sunday Heather" on Sundays, because on Sundays I rest a lot. I move slowly, I don't start projects, I take longer to do things. Here's what this homemaker does to get ready for Sunday:


GOALS:

• By Saturday night, have the kitchen counter cleared and the dishwasher empty.

This means that on Sunday, there will be a place for me to simply stow dirty dishes away in the washer instead of dealing with them or with clean dishes that would need to be put away.

• By Saturday night, have the dining table set for Sunday's after church lunch. Sometimes, if I'm exhausted, I go for the rock-bottom goal of simply having the table clear and ready for setting before the meal. Other times, when I'm feeling like a rock star homemaker, it means that I have a special tablecloth out and candlesticks ready for lighting, places set and serving spoons out. This creates an anticipatory feeling in the living/dining area of our home: not in a show-off way I hope, but in an ushering-in-the-sabbath kind of way. Having the table set the day before also means that on Sunday that's one less thing for the homemaker to even think about/make time for doing.....it means there is resting time in place of doing time before the meal.

• By Saturday night, I try very hard to have laundry finished so that on Sunday I will definitely not need to do laundry. For me, this makes Sunday stand out against the other days of the week, because I do laundry pretty much every day except Sunday. In our household we use cloth diapers on little Elena, so having laundry completed for Sundays means that I have a niiiiice stack of clean cloth diapers stacked on the changing table, yahoo!

Note: this does not always happen. Sometimes I blow it, and instead of a restfully prepared stack of snowy white diapers, they are in a heap in the dryer down the hall, and I have to deal with that on Sunday instead of luxuriating in a calm, lovely, prepared stack.

• By Saturday night, I glance around the closet that my husband and I share and make sure that he has some ironed dress shirts to choose from for the morning service. Sunday mornings are a terrible time to have to iron.

• Because of our particular recycling situation, which is too uninteresting to explain, trust me, I pack our cardboard recyclables into my husband's car trunk before he leaves for work on Saturday afternoon. (He works Tues-Sat.) That way, we can dump them at the recycling place after church. Oops, is this work? Hmmm. :o) Sigh.

• And, I try to pack the diaper bag the night before, too. This includes a small cloth bag full of quiet tiny toys to keep Elena occupied throughout the whole service. Once I forgot this detail, and I hope I never forget it again!

• Before bed on Saturday I pull out whatever I'm defrosting for our main course on Sunday.

That way, when we wake up on Sunday, a lot of the details are taken care of and we aren't starting the day completely from scratch.



Is this perfect? No, often we are still pulling out the garage a few minutes late. Is this the only way to do this? No. In fact, I would really appreciate hearing anyone else's ideas for preparing for Sundays. Any suggestions?

The Household Guestbook

The road to a friend's house is never too long.

That saying always makes me think of the S. family, a family whom I greatly admire for their big-hearted hospitality and cozy home. Their house is a huge distance from everywhere, completely inconvenient to find, and nearly hidden in a posh wooded neighborhood of coastal New England. Yet, their household is like a people magnet! Their guest book is always stuffed to the gills with names. They must know some secret of how to attract crowds of fun, wonderful people, because I've been to more gatherings there than I can shake a stick at....appropriately, the S. family gave my husband and I a guestbook as part of their wedding gift to us in 2007.

I've been shyly collecting guest signatures in this book, and it is sweet to sit and admire the names and comments that guests leave. This book will serve as a nice record of the friends and family who visited us over the years.

Two days ago, however, the guestbook served me in an entirely new way. And feel free to chuckle at me, dear reader, when you discover how it did so. One of my new neighbors, whom I had met by way of delivering a big smile, a welcome, and a mini loaf of banana bread in January, came over for supper. For the life of me, I could not recall her name. To my shame, she remembered mine, as well as my daughter's! Gosh.

The visit went beautifully, we all had a grand time. And at the end of the visit I pulled out the guestbook and asked if she would do us the honor of signing it. (You see where I'm going with this?). She was thrilled to sign, and wrote her name very clearly, along with a happy comment.

So, now I know her name, yippee! Yet another use for guestbooks. I really think that if more people knew about the joys of guestbooks, more households would have them. Tee hee.

Your friend,
Heather

Daily Life: an account of this homemaker's Thursday

What does a day in the life of a homemaker look like? As you might be able to tell from my poems and high ideals about homemaking, I have a romanticized notion of our calling. However, do not fear for me, reader! This romance is tempered by the practical doings of daily life, an account of which is listed below.

A sweet friend of mine asked me yesterday how I spend my days as a homemaker. So, at the end of the day I jotted down how my hours had sped past. Here we go:

4am - I woke up and decided that I really needed to nurse the baby. So, I quietly went into the nursery for a short nursing session and then went back to sleep.

7:30am - Baby E. awoke and made sweet happy cooing sounds in her crib until I came and greeted her. She smiled up at me and offered me her doll and a soft bunny....then I noticed that her cloth diaper was at the other end of her crib, and that she was sitting happily in a puddle...So, I put on a smile and a stiff upper lip, gave her a big "Good morning!" and a hug.

Began to put a new diaper on her, and started a load of laundry which included 1/2 a bag of dirty diapers, her wet sheet, blanket and mattress cover. I used homemade laundry soap that I learned how to make a few years ago on Crystal Paine's blog. Recovered her mattress with another sheet. Set aside her cloth doll -which was also wet - for hand-washing. I just made that doll for her and I don't want the washing machine to be rough on it.

Since the day seemed warm already and promised to only get more hot, I dressed Elena in a cute sleeveless seersucker dress and bloomers. I made a simple breakfast for Elena and I : scrambled eggs and sliced banana.

We spent some time outside on the deck while it was still partly shady out there. I brought out a baby quilt for us to sit on, a few board books, a toy, and let her play and crawl and explore out there. I watered some of the plants and harvested the dried rose petals off our bush, intending to make them into potpourri for Grandma Neuharth's Christmas present. We read the two little books and went inside. Changed E's diaper. Tidied the nursery. Emptied the washing machine, and set aside the mattress cover to be dried outside, while I stuck the diapers in the dryer. (I try to be energy-conscious with what I do, but the dryer is a weakness of mine). Brought the big drying rack outside to the deck and hung the mattress cover.

9am - Baby Elena went down for her morning nap. My husband got up. He works second shift, so his hours are not really aligned with mine as far as sleep. I have a rip-roaring head cold and did not feel like doing anything but sitting, so Jeff and I watched an episode of 19 Kids and Counting. While it was on I harvested parsley and rosemary from potted plants and tied them up for drying. Found a good spot on the wall of the basement staircase for pinning up the strings of herbs: it will be dark and cool for them there, which are good conditions for drying.
Then I put away clean clothes.
Cleaned all the toilets and sinks in the house. Emptied bathroom wastebaskets. Put fresh linens in our bathroom.
Prepared Jeff's new baseball pennant for hanging in his office.
Did a hand washing session with 3 baby dresses, one doll dress and one cloth doll, then set them outside on the drying rack after taking down the newly-dry mattress cover from the rack.

12 noon: From the partly opened nursery door, I watched Elena play in her crib for a minute before I walked inside: she hugged her orange bunny, talked to it, made it hop, and lay contentedly on her side while she babbled to herself. Eventually she noticed me. I greeted her, then changed her diaper. Nursed.

Brought Elena downstairs and she visited with Jeff and I for a while before i got her lunch prepared and fed her solids. I prepared side dishes for the meal that Jeff and I were to share, and Jeff grilled the main course, which I had defrosted and plated up for him to take out to the grill. Ate lunch with Jeff.

Jeff read aloud from our daily Bible readings.

I made Jeff's evening lunch and packed it in his work bag. Looked after Elena as she crawled around and I emptied and reloaded the dishwasher.

Brought E. upstairs to the nursery to play while I restocked the stack of clean diapers and put her clean clothes away. She listened to her Jesus songs and reveled in being able to play around her toy box: being able to prop herself up and reach into the toy box is still a new thing for her and the excitement hasn't worn off yet.

I rotated her mattress and re-covered it with the now clean mattress cover and the clean sheets. Then we both were called downstairs by Jeff who was on his way out the door for work. We waved goodbye to him, then walked to the mailbox.

Came inside out of the heat. Elena played merrily on the quilt on the living room floor with the Wal-Mart flier that we got in the mail. She liked the dog pictured on the cover. I stayed with her and taught her that dogs say Ruff! Ruff! She proudly imitated. We played together for a while.

Took meat out of the freezer to defrost for tomorrow's midday meal. Another diaper change.

Afternoon nap for Elena. During that time, I repaired a toy, had some tea and composed a blog entry, then read posts on about 2 other blogs. This all took about 1 hour.

4pm. Elena woke up. Nursed. Elena played. Took E. outside for a 1 mile walk. Made some dinner. Gave E. a bath and put her in a nightgown and overnight cloth diaper. We began to quiet down for the night.

I read to Elena and put her to bed by 7:30pm, nursing again beforehand.

I rested on our bed for a little while. Then got up and began making homemade applesauce. While I peeled and sliced a few pounds of apples, I listed to a half hour radio show called Adventures in Odyssey over on the Focus on the Family website.

While the applesauce simmered I aired the house and wrote this account of the day. Watered the outdoor and indoor plants. Cleaned up the kitchen. Emptied clean dishes from the dishwasher -- again! what would I do without the dishwasher?!

10pm nursed Elena while she slept (this tanks her up for the night and she typically sleeps all the way through until 6am, which is great).

Then I wearily prepared for bed and turned out my light.