Quick Takes Friday

1-
Okay, I know I say this just about every other Quick Takes, but YEAH for PAYDAY!!! I still haven't taken back over the budgeting, and I think that the low dollar amounts in just about every account were making hubby twitch. He's going to take us girls out for lunch today to celebrate, and I already have dinner cooking in the crock pot. I am liking my meal preparation today!

2-
I'm trying to get into some sort of cleaning routine so that when we put the house up for sale (our current goal date is November 1st) we have a system to keep the house mostly clean. I am not a particularly neat person. In fact, I used to be a slob..unlike hubby who used to be a neat freak. In college, I used to go into his dorm room and throw his laundry all over his floor (it was always neatly piled in a laundry basket) because his room was unnaturally clean. Now, I would say we are a balance of the two. Mostly clean, but there's always a couple of things that probably should be cleaner or neater. Not the best cleaning philosophy for selling a house. So, as of now, in the mornings (right after getting the girl's breakfast) I put away their clothes, make their beds, make my bed, unload the dinner dishes from the dishwasher, and start reloading with anything left over and breakfast dishes. At lunch time, I will continue loading the dishwasher, and run it if it is mostly full. Then, at dinner, I am unloading the dishwasher (if necessary) cooking, eating, praying, reloading the dishwasher, running it, starting a load of laundry while the girls and hubby pick up toys, wipe off table and get into jammies. After the girl's bedtime, the laundry gets dried, folded, and put away, except for their clothes, which go into a basket until the morning. I still need to work the floors and counter tops into the deal. Not to mention continue packing items we won't need for a while.

3-
On the cleaning front, for Eva's home economics this week I had originally planned to follow the lessons in the order of her book, which would have had her learning how to cook with eggs this week and use the stove next week. I thought about teaching a kid to cook while trying to keep the house in excellent shape for showings, and decided to skip the rest of the cooking (and all of the baking) until we are in the new house. So, I skipped ahead to the cleaning section, and taught Eva how to vacuum. Charlotte wanted to learn, too, so I gave her the dust buster and had her vacuum underneath the couch cushions. I think having Eva able to run the vacuum will be helpful to last minute cleaning sessions.

4-
Eva is currently taking a ballet class twice a week on Mondays and Wednesdays. This Monday was a federal holiday, so hubby was able to come with me to take her to class (Charlotte had spent the night at grandma's house) so we watched from the second floor. She is so serious about her class, you can just see the concentration on her face, but at the end of class, they were learning a step (a little bit like a grapevine) and Eva was just not getting it (she kept putting one foot behind the other and stepping back more and more with that foot turning herself in a circle) so after class, hubby decided to try to show her how to do the step...I thought it was pretty hilarious, particularly since hubby was showing her how to do ballet moves in the middle of the community center while people were picking up their kids.

5-
Some other moms in town and I have started a cooperative preschool class once a week, and Charlotte had her first week. She had a lot of fun, and was not at all sad about us leaving her there (I'll be teaching at our house the first week in November). She is the youngest of the group, but appears to have held her own. It's funny, she is the only one of the four kids that isn't the oldest...so she has prior experience with things like cutting with scissors, where the others, being the oldest and 3 or 4 years old, really haven't done any cutting at home. She has her own pencil box and notebook to take to class and bring home, and she just loves them.

6-
Today is the feast of St. Gerard Majella, Eva's patron saint. Tomorrow is the anniversary of Eva's baptism. So, tonight I am going to get out Eva's baptismal candle to light during dinner...maybe I'll make dessert, too.

7-
That dessert will have to be made of apples, I think...since I have a large bowl full from MIL on the counter. I also have all of the carrots and beets that hubby pulled out of the garden when the ground softened up enough. I need to figure out how to cook the beets (we only got two large and two small total), and figure out what to do with the carrots...I am thinking that I may slice them up and blanch and freeze them. I just have to figure out how I am supposed to do that!

More quick takes this week at Conversion Diary!