The Day

I'm going to suggest you skip most of this post, as the only reason I'm writing it out is for my own posterity. It will bore you. But first I'll tell you a Kaylee story--then you can skip my litany of "what I did". ;)

Kaylee has been working very hard on her math this year, bringing home her work book even if she didn't have homework, studying the night before a test willingly, etc. I made a deal with her that if she got an "A" on her next math test, we'd go celebrate with ice cream. She then said, "If I get an A+, can I have an ice cream cake?" I said sure. So today I picked her up from school, and she said "Well, Mommy, I didn't get an "A" on my math test...I got a "C"." I said "A 'C'?? Seriously?? Why?" She hands me her test, and it's a 100%. She got me! So I took Kaylee to the store and she picked out an ice cream cake, and I had them write on it "100%" across the top, then "Congratulations!" under that, and then they wrote two math facts like "8 x 6 =" and "5 + 4 =" on the bottom. That's what Kaylee wanted. :) As we went through the checkout line, the male cashier started clapping. Kaylee and I both looked up at him in surprise, and he said "Hey, you got a 100% on math! That's terrific! Congratulations! You're going to be an Einstein in math if you keep going like that!" He handed her the cake to hold after he scanned it, and as we were leaving he kept going, telling her that he was proud of her and to keep up the good work, and actually clapped again and got a couple other people to clap for her too. She was glowing when she left there. There's a man with a kind spirit, working a cash register at Kroger. He made her day.

So this is the boring posterity part. This is how our days go, sometimes. Steve has more of these days than I do, as he's almost always working on something or doing something, from wake up to lay down. My yesterday had even more flying in it but was similar to today, which went like this:

This morning after I got up, I went to fix Kaylee's lunch and realized I was out of little sandwich bags to put goldfish, her sandwich, and other lunch items in. So I hunted down used (but clean) big gallon sized baggies to put her food in instead. I got her breakfast, where I noted that I had now used the last drop of milk in the house. I haven't had time to go to the store. She came out of her room wearing sweat pants because she didn't have any clean nicer clothes to wear, because I hadn't had time to do laundry. I went to get dressed and I too was out of clean pants, so I reverted to an old pair of baggy jeans. Today her cookie dough fundraiser order was due, so I placed an order on behalf of a few of us, wrote out the check and got the form all ready, got her backpack and lunch and snack all set up, then hustled her out the door by 8:10 a.m. I drop her off at school, then head right to Glenndale where I meet a primary student right away, and we hop in the 172 and fly until about 10:45 a.m. Sign the logbook, talk about what's on the next flight, put something on the schedule, and then it's time for the 11:00 a.m. flight in the Citabria. Today this one didn't work out, because the run-up caught a bad mag check; the plane backfired badly, so we shut it down, Chuck changed out some of the plugs, we tried it again, still not good, so after an hour we called it quits, and instead of flying from 11-1, I tried to fly from 11-12, ate from 12-1, and then hoofed back to Glenndale to fly from 1-2:45 p.m. in the 172 again with someone working on their checkride prep. Sign the logbook, and I hit almost all green lights on my way to get to Kaylee's school 20 minutes away in the 15 minutes before she's let out of school. I make it, pick her up, and I find out about her 100% Math test. I'd promised her an ice cream cake for an A+, so we ran to Kroger's to pick up the cake...and milk...I'm feeling productive now. I take her home and promise we'll celebrate with the cake when I get back home tonight. I have thirty minutes at home, so I empty the clean dishes out of the dishwasher so I can clear off our counter full of dishes that need washed, talk to Kaylee, go over some of her stuff, and start a load of laundry, before driving off to JC Penny's to pick up an item, haul out of there and drive down to Sheridan by 5:30 to meet the last student of the day in the Cherokee 180. I leave there around 7:15 p.m., drive through KFC on my way home to grab dinner, make it home around 8 p.m., eat dinner, help Kaylee with a project, do another load of laundry, and finally check my messages for the day too. Steve walks in, we celebrate Kaylee's A+ with her cake, as promised, and start working on a few things. Now that it's 11:30 p.m., I'm not caught up, my laundry is still going, and I'm wasting time writing out today's chain of events. ;) It can be a little tricky to keep up while working 12 hour days (outside the home, let alone inside the home), keeping up the house, keeping up on the kiddo's school stuff, and being a decent parent, too. The last few nights I've fallen asleep around 11-11:30--that's how you know I'm pooped. :) Fall is always a super busy time, and that's a good thing! It will slow down soon enough. But not yet--first we have Indian Hills and a wedding this weekend, then the ramp up and all the work for the BBQ Bash next weekend, which we're not ready for yet... We're paddling as fast as we can. :)