A Day With No Deadlines

 As I had mentioned in my last post - this has been a very busy year but it feels like things are slowing down a little. We always keep busy since Ken and I both have our own businesses (he has an insurance agency and I a wedding flower business and I teach music lessons), are active in our community and have four kids but we are dropping down to normal busy and that is nice. I had a lot of fun on Thursday enjoying a day without deadlines to worry about.

  I still had dreams of getting a lot done but I could flit about like a butterfly and do whatever project seemed important at the moment. I could spend a little extra time here and there. I could notice something I had forgotten earlier (something that really needed a little extra cleaning or something like that) and take the time to care for it. I had time. It was wonderful. I thought I would share a few pictures from Thursday.

I took the time to make apple crisp for breakfast. It was fun to find a couple of candles to add to our table to make it special.

 Megan is 10 and is perfectly capable of brushing and caring for her own hair but I had fun taking the time to braid it for her on Thursday morning.

 We try to play and sing together most mornings (though with kids going off to work and with me having to leave to go places early several times lately we haven't gotten to do it as regularly) but on Thursday morning we were able to spend extra time and we practiced quite a few songs to play and sing for the people at the nursing home today.

 This is our current reading selection for after lunch at our house. It was a delight to have all of my kids home (we have been missing one or two all to often lately).

 Mara is my herb lady. She takes care of drying most of our herbs and then getting them put away into jars. She worked on that while I read aloud.

 We did end up leaving home for a while. I had thought I would just stay home but my mom had called and said she had a lot of milk, and didn't I want to come get some? And then the boys said we needed chicken feed. So we went and got milk and then to the feed store and got a little over 500 lbs of chicken feed. It is cheaper when you buy it in bulk and so we stocked up. We shouldn't have to buy feed again for a good long while. We are storing it in garbage cans.

 Ken's dad called in the evening to visit (they live in Nevada so we don't get to see them very often) and the guys and Kitchi were enjoying relaxing in the living room with a fire going in the fireplace.

 My big project of the day was making curtains and hanging them up in the boys room. Jonathan likes to do schoolwork at his desk (Aaron and Megan prefer the kitchen table) and when it is sunny it just pours in his southern window and the bright light bothers him. I was able to look through fabric I had and find some that would work. Aaron liked the horse fabric. I had to add the tan on to make it big enough but it works. Both boys ended up liking them and I like that they didn't take long to make and I could use what I had on hand.

 The curtain rod was given to me by a friend after she moved and didn't need it. Very nice!

 Mara found some of our flowers still blooming outside and brought them in to decorate. That is pretty cool for northern MN in the middle of November!

 I finally got the boys hair cut. It was over due!

I cleaned off my window shelf and I also cleaned off all of my counter-tops and used a sealer polisher on them. That was nice to get done.

   It was a lovely productive day. So grateful for God giving us this slower time of year.