Shew! Days at home are hard!

My new inclement work schedule for work (since we got totally shut down by the government, and we're really just waiting for our final pink slip) is when the kids are off school, we are off work. Wow, so kushy, right? It really is. Today I have been totally a stay-at-home-mom with Tayan and Zene. Lemme tell ya, I dreaded the day before it even started though. I am much better off at work with only work stuff to worry about than here, managing everything, cleaning stuff, laundrying, and yelling at kids... and trying to play with them a little, too.

So that's how it started: with dread. I moved on to coffee, chores, avoiding Zene asking to play a game, then finally playing the game, packing, cleaning, getting them dressed, going to the store to buy a bin to be my outdoor cat house, going to Southern States to have a very nice lady just give me all the straw I wanted, coming home, cutting hole in said cat house, arranging cat house outside, then finally got to sit and chill for a minute with the cat on the porch.

Oh, and of course the kids have required about 5 meals in the mean time, and lunch was pretty sweet. They had leftover chicken, one had a hot dog, carrots, raw brussel sprouts, and I made them try mashed sweet potatoes. I had mashed sweet potatoes, leftover chicken, and a couple brussel sprouts. I don't do raw carrot. I hate it, and that's just that. I don't have to eat things that I hate.

Then I rocked out to Adele and Amy Winehouse, sang loudly, and did dishes. Now I am chillin again, actually sitting in my bed with a laptop, with a two-window view of the snow outside. Tayan's playing video game (which I denied him all day till now), and Zene's watching Spy Kids (and also sitting next to me intermittenly). I feel excellent.

We had chocolate chip cookies in the house today, and I didn't even care. Let the kids eat them. I re-organized our ridiculous collection of candy and snacks for our trip tomorrow (Bryan insists we have like a 10lb collection of these with us on all trips so he can choose exactly what he's feeling like), and wasn't the least bit tempted. Granted, I had already eaten 90% of the chocolate we had, and what's left I don't like. Thank God it's all gone, but I wish I'd had a little more strength in the last few weeks.

Tonight I'll do some exercise after the kids go to bed. I'm not sure what the rest of the weekend will hold, because we will be traveling, and not to hotels (where I usually rock out the fitness centers). I'll set myself up for success food-wise though, and let the exercise fall where it may. I did really well this week, and I can feel it deep down in my self.

It's so hard to sit back and enjoy a moment anymore without doing anything else. Without having a laptop on my lap, or my iPhone in my hand, a kid talking at me, or planning for my next move. I am going to make a point to get more moments like that, where I'm doing nothing but staring ahead and not thinking. I think I could manage at least a 2 minute period of this per day. How sick is that...? Two minutes. It would help though.

I'm going to start right now, unless Zene comes back within the next two minutes... and I figure there's an 85% chance of that happening. But I'm going to try anyway. If he does come back, I'll offer to read him a book.

Have a great weekend, everybody. Celebrate Dr King on Monday, in whatever small way you can. I can't describe the way I feel about that man, but it all has to do with love. Tayan told me all about Dr King yesterday, and I was never more proud of him as a school student. I think it's the most important thing he's learned at school sofar, and I hope they teach him more about him every year. I know I will.