Day 30 – Close Call

11:15 p.m.: I am climbing into bed, Friends is turned on, as it always is at bedtime (“The One With Russ”), when it hits me – I didn’t Slice! Two entries left, I can’t mess it up now! “I forgot to Slice,” I tell my my husband, and head downstairs.

Now, I think back upon my day, trying to recall something particularly noteworthy. Washed more floors today, nope. Did more laundry today, nope. Had a fun riding lesson, maybe. Took son to baseball practice, nope – stayed in the car, read a book. To me, nothing really stands out as a “slice-able” moment, so here I am slicing about forgetting to slice. I think I have written about this very thing two other times early in the month. I suppose history does repeat itself.

Good night!

Day 29 – Spring break

It is officially my spring break! Hopes of sleeping in were stymied by my internal clock shouting, “The teenager is not up for school yet! Must go wake him!” Ugh. I tried to ignore the internal shouting, but I knew what would happen if I did: the knocking at my bedroom door, “Mom, I’m late, can you drive me to school?” So, I got up. Honestly, it still felt like sleeping in, getting out of bed at 6:15 a.m., for I usually get out of bed before five. I let one of the dogs out, and eventually drove the unhappy-to-be-done-with-his-spring-break-teen to school. That’s okay, it was a good excuse to hit McDonald’s for my Diet Coke!

Back home, shower, head back out. Bank, Target, Kohl’s, Dick’s. The teen’s baseball pants don’t fit anymore, and he has a scrimmage game tonight. Success! Just hope they’re the right size!

Home again. Spring break always brings grand plans in my mind of all the projects I will get done. This year, I decided (and Sliced about, I think) to give myself some grace in terms of these “projects”. If they get done, they get done. If they don’t, and I stay in my PJ pants all week reading books, then so be it! So as I was driving home from the store, I was thinking about which project I would tackle.

I decided to do first, what I was most not wanting to do. I read recently (can’t remember where) to do the hardest, or most dreaded task first, then the rest will feel easy, and you will feel a great sense of accomplishment. What is this awful task, you might ask? Floors. Cleaning the floors. Hardwood floors and bathroom floors. I realize this really isn’t a project, per se, but to me it still sucks!

As I stand at the kitchen island and Slice, the robot sweeper is doing its thing, then I will go around with the vacuum and do the baseboards and all the dog hair the sweeper left behind. Then I will drag out the hardwood spray and mop-thingy and get to work.

What then? Maybe I’ll be so motivated I will go upstairs and do the bathroom floors. Or maybe I will change into my PJ pants, sit on the couch and read a book. Or take a nap. Or watch Below Deck. Whatever I choose, I will have at least gotten one project done!

Day 28 – Lazy Sunday

It’s been a lazy day today. It definitely feels good not having to worry about getting it “all” done before heading back to work tomorrow! Spring break is this week, and I get the house to myself, as my 8th grader had break last week! Yay! What have I done today? I love lists, so here goes:

I have….

Slept past 7:00 a.m.

Cleaned up the kitchen

Put on “real” clothes

Two loads of laundry

Grocery shopping

Dropped son off at baseball practice

I have not done…

Six loads of laundry

Lesson plans

Check school email

I guess I have done more than I thought! Oh well, at least I am not stressing about the work week! Enjoy your week, everyone!

Day 27 – Memories

Does anyone else have the app Timehop? I love it! If you don’t know about it, Timehop collects all the pictures you’ve taken on this day over the years, and shows them to you. It’s pretty fun!

At this time of the year, I start to see pictures from spring break trips we’ve taken. Wisconsin, Disney World, San Diego, Universal Studios. It’s so fun to see pictures from 10 or 11 years ago, especially when they include the “little kid” version of my now 14-year-old son! This week I’ve seen pictures of him at 5, hugging Buzz Lightyear, at 9 with his cousins at Universal Studios, and at 11 snowboarding in Wisconsin.

This year we are not taking a family vacation, so the pictures make me wish for warmer temps, palm trees, and the beach. For now, I guess I will just have to be content with Timehop and my memories!

Day 26 – Dinner revisited

As I stand at the kitchen island getting ready to start dinner, I remember I need to Slice. “What am I going to write about today?” I look down and BAM! There it is… my inspiration! Hello Fresh.

I’m sure many of you have heard of Hello Fresh. It is a meal delivery service that provides all the ingredients for 2, 3, or 4 meals for 2 or 4 people. You can have weekly deliveries, or schedule them to fit your schedule.

My sister sent me a code for a “free” box, so I figured I’d try it. Well, “free” turned out to be more expensive than I thought! If you don’t cancel the delivery before a certain date, it will show up on your front porch whether you want it or not! I tried to keep up with canceling the deliveries, and only using the service every now and again, but twice now I’ve been surprised by the withdrawal from my bank account!

So, I have officially canceled with Hello Fresh. The food was quite good, we’ve had yummy things like Sweet Chili Pork Bowls, Beef & Cheese Tostadas, Pork Sausage Rigatoni in a Creamy Sauce, and Honey-Butter BBQ Pork Cutlets. All delicious! Honestly though, too much work! The last thing I want to do at 5:30 p.m. after a long day of third graders is spend an hour in the kitchen prepping dinner. We have 3 more meals in the fridge, then we are done. On the menu tonight: Ancho BBQ Sloppy Joes. Sounds pretty good! Have a great weekend!

Day 25 – The pool is open

Okay, maybe not completely open, but uncovered anyway! Hubby decided to uncover it last weekend. “I want to see the clear water,” he stated. “Don’t worry, I’m not turning on the heater or anything!” Well, that’s a relief!

We are always the first to uncover our pool in our little section of the subdivision. From our backyard, we can see three other pools. ALL of them are still covered right now. Hubs even put more water in it! It’s not completely filled, but he figures if we do it little by little, the water bill won’t hurt so much!

Well, no one can tell us we don’t get our money’s worth out of our pool! We use it from mid- to late April through the first week of October! Yes, we have a heater, and yes our gas bill is high! But we wouldn’t have it any other way!

Day 24 – August, again.

Wednesday is remote day for everyone. Well, the students, anyway. Teachers are still in the building. Planning and meetings, as well as at least two Meets with students. We go back to face to face learning five days a week on April 7th. Spring break is next week, so today was one of the last big planning days before we return.

My class did split, so I have a new teaching partner. She is a veteran teacher, but she’s from a different building, and hasn’t taught third grade in a while. She spent the morning with me to plan our first three days back after break.

A few of us had this conversation the other day… it feels like August all over again. All teachers know that feeling. The “too much to do, and not enough time to do it” feeling. The “how am I going to fill all this time with class/teambuilding activities?” feeling (this is a requirement in our district). The “can’t I just get to the content?” feeling.

  1. We had it in August.
  2. We had it in October when we went Hybrid for four days.
  3. We had it in October when we went back to remote.
  4. We had it in January when we went to Hybrid (again).
  5. And here we are again, feeling it in March/April.

We will get through it, like we always do. I just keep thinking, “seven more weeks”.

Day 23 – Dog chaser

We have a new dog at our house. We adopted Cody on December 13, 2020. It was kind of an impulse, but my husband and I both had been thinking about getting a second dog for quite some time. Boomer, our other dog, has been with us for five years. He’s a really good dog.

The new dog, Cody, is a year and a half old and still very much a puppy. He likes to chew things. Random things. He likes to chew things that he didn’t chew yesterday but all of a sudden decides he wants to chew them today. We are trying to teach him right from wrong, just like any responsible pet owner. Included in that is going outside in the yard to do his business without having to be on a leash. We’ve been working on this quite a bit more now that the weather has gotten nicer. My son is usually in charge of taking him out, but Sunday afternoon he was at baseball practice, so I was on Cody duty.

I let him out in the yard without a leash and he did his business right away, and continued to sniff around. Little did I realize there was a family walking down the sidewalk taking an afternoon stroll. Cody spotted them and took off like a shot across the street and over to the people. I ran after him, calling him, but he didn’t come to me. Instead, he ran back across the street to the other side of our house. My husband and I split up, one of us on each side of the house, but apparently we were not fast enough. He disappeared.


I immediately ran inside to grab his leash, and leashed up the other dog, knowing that Cody would come over to Boomer. As we started out the front of the house, we could not see Cody anywhere.

So I started walking. Or shall I say, I tried to keep up with Boomer! Let’s just say that Boomer is not real great on a leash! Normally, when walking him anywhere, he wears an anti-pull harness. I did not take the time to put that on him in my haste to get out searching for Cody. So I was really being dragged down the sidewalk by Boomer. We raced through the entire neighborhood, asking anyone who was outside their homes, walking down the street, pulling into their driveways in their cars, and even asked moms and their kids at the park if they had seen our medium sized, friendly, black dog. In the meantime, my husband was in his truck canvassing the whole entire neighborhood, as well as the subdivision next to ours. Cody was nowhere to be found.

Forty-five minutes later, my husband calls me, “I’ve got him.“ Next, my obvious question, “Where was he?“ “IN John’s house.”

John is our neighbor. Our next-door neighbor. Apparently, when my husband and I both ran to the front of the house looking for Cody, he ran to the back of the house and up the back steps of John’s house. We did not see him standing at the top of the stairs looking into the patio door of John’s house! Why John didn’t call us right away, still remains a question to be answered. All’s well that ends well, right?!

When I woke up Monday morning, I couldn’t figure out why my shins were so sore. Then I remembered: the tour of the neighborhood! I guess I really am getting old!