A little of this and a little of that

Hubby found out yesterday that he tore the meniscus in his knee and he does, in fact, need surgery. The actual surgery will flatten him for a week (no work) and he's not sure on the rehab. The surgeon was willing to do the surgery today, Hubby's supervisor wants him to wait a week, the Higher Ups at work want him to wait a month, his doc says he can do whatever works best for him and his wife can't decide what she wants so she'll go with the flow and let the experts decide. :) (He should feel honored so many people care about him. ;) ) He has appointments with this doc and the surgeon today so they'll come up with a game plan then. At least for his sake, the swelling has gone down and the pain has diminished.


This summer vacation bit has really thrown my able mabel creating time into a tailspin. So much for trying to stockpile a stash of products before Baby comes. Between appointments, out of town guests (no complaints there), trying to keep the house clean...there is just so little time to work. I was able to carve out an hour of light switch cover time yesterday. Who knows when I'll be able to finish those up.

In order to emerge from the summer with a tad bit of sanity intact, we need to make some changes around here.

• The kitchen will close for breakfast at 9:30am. The other morning the big girls were making breakfast as I was about to start lunch. Ugh. They had been up since 9 but were reading in their bedroom.
• The job chart will be modified to have these kids do more of the cleaning. Jobs such as washing the walls, knob and switches; washing the floors; washing the bathrooms; folding laundry; wiping down appliances (you should see the front of the fridge. blech). All things that multiply greatly in the summer. I can shout and holler until I'm blue in the face about walking outside barefoot and then coming back inside with dirty feet and it doesn't make a difference. I'm hoping if the kids can do things like wash the floor once a week, they'll think twice before making messes. A girl can dream, can't she?
• With the hope of cutting down on the grocery bill, which in theory should remain the same in the summer since the kids bring cold lunch to school but it doesn't, I'm trying to always have a stock of frozen veggies and some sort of baked good in the freezer. My kids will eat frozen veggies right out of the freezer as a snack, perfect for a hot summer afternoon. (I learned that one from JB) My kids LOVE cereal and would eat bowl fulls of it every morning. I'm taking my MIL's advice and only letting them have it twice during the week (we'll be flex on the weekend). Oatmeal, pancakes, waffles, eggs, etc. will fill in on the other days.
• I'm sure there will be more changes but we'll make them as needed.