The White House

The White House

Monday, May 9, 2011

Mother's Day

(Scroll down to see the post about the rest of Saturday and my composting).

Call me crazy, but my idea of a perfect Mother's Day is one where I can work in the yard without interruption until I drop.  I had the most Perfect Mother's Day.  (Alternate Perfect Mother's Day would be laying on the beach pretty much anywhere with my whole family.  That's not happening any time soon).

I woke about 8:45 AM and ran to the window.  There wasn't any wind!  Yes!  I was going to be able to burn my lawn, but first Emily and I had to run to the store. You see, the night before she had told me she had a couple presents in her bag. Her step-mother had taken her shopping for me.  I asked what she had gotten for her SM and she said nothing.  I was disappointed, but not surprised that her dad didn't do anything.  That involves putting someone else first; not his strong suit (and making up for it later isn't the lesson I want my daughter to learn).  I have tried to fight that genetic default in my kids for years.  I want them to always put others first...to always consider another person's feelings before their own.  If the whole world could do this what a wonderful place we would live. Anyhow, I talked with her about the whole mom/step-mom thing because I wanted her to understand that I will always be her first mother, but she is also cared for part of the time by another woman and she should show her appreciation on this holiday.  Whew! Wasn't that a long-winded version of "we went to the store".  Anyhow, Em picked out a pretty necklace and earrings as well as a pot and two geraniums. (No, I didn't use my own because these were already flowering). 

When we got back home I went right to burning. After about 45 minutes Nick rolled in and gave me a hand.  He's my eyes every year so the fire doesn't get away from me.

While I burned Homer was working on the greenhouse.  The two little ones were running around in the sunshine and Emily was lazing with a movie.
I had invited Emily's step-mother to come over and spend some time with her and she arrived sometime in the afternoon. We visited, they jumped on the trampoline, I burnt grass.  Finally, it was done.
I have no idea what the temperature was, but it was nice out.  I ended up swinging in the hammock with Emily until we were laughing so hard we couldn't breathe. 

Then I snuggled with Olivia and we feel asleep for half an hour.  It felt so good I took my sleepy self upstairs and napped for another 1.5 hours.  Isn't that what my day is all about?
Oh, check this out... my Mother's Day gift. It sure would have come in handy the day before when I did all that shoveling, but then the surprise would have been ruined.  I love it!
We also burned parts of the ditch that weren't still soggy.  First time I've done that and we found a lot of places that need reseeded this year. (See how well it tore up that bed in the bottom left corner?  That thing is awesome!).

The roof and one wall are done.  Sure is a lot of work, but it is a big greenhouse.  It's 27' long and I think he said 15' wide. The ceiling must be about 14'-16'.  When Homer builds something he does it right!
In the last two days we have gotten 12 eggs.... four each of the speckled turkey egg, the green egg and the brown egg.  I weighed them this morning (because I am weird like that) and they are: turkey 3.2 oz., green 2.15 oz., brown 2.15 oz. and a white one from the store was 1.8 oz.  (I'm not sure the size rating of the white ones as the box was already tossed).
I may have I figured out why I have been sleeping so much.  I think my year runs differently than everyone else with Mother's Day being the last day of my year. The last week or so I've been lazy and resting a lot. Yesterday was all about me and now today I've woke up refreshed and ready to work hard at parenting for another year. It's a good thing, too, because my house is close to being condemned. When I don't clean no one else picks up the slack.  This morning I cleaned the family room.  There was more food on the floor than in the cupboard!! And dirty dishes....my husband likes to blame the kids, but I know for a fact some belonged to him!  I picked up and vacuumed while these 11 photos loaded (yes, my Internet is that slow!).  Emptied the dishwasher and loaded it again. And that, my friends, is about 2% of what I need to do today!!

Time to run.... Olivia needs to get ready for school.  Remember, if you do anything today, show your kids how to put someone else first. We need to erase the word selfish from our lives.

5 comments:

Corey~living and loving said...

Sounds like you had a busy, but productive day. The nap sounds perfect as well. especially with cuddling. ♥ Happy Mother's Day, Gayle

Queen-Size funny bone said...

that tiller sure will come in handy. glad you got some things done and still had some lazy time

Janie said...

Sounds like you had a good mother's day, getting a lot of things done that you wanted done. It's always good to be home with family.

RottenMom said...

The rototiller is the BEST Mother's Day gift ever! This is coming from someone who begged for a power washer for my b-day one year!

Love that you are so caring and loving with Emily about her stepmother, what a wonderful lesson you are showing her.

Glad you had a productive day, you little egg weigher!

Kim@Snug Harbor said...

Happy Mothers Day Gayle! I like the lesson you gave Emily. I think it was an important one. I also like how you had her step mother come by. I get along great with my husbands ex-wife and I think it's a good thing for the kids to see. Sometimes it takes a little work, but we all manage to get along and co-exist, which is nice. I'm glad you had such a nice day. Oh yeah, I LOVE naps. I'd always go for the nap!