Busy Day, Full Life

What a day!  It's nearly 10:00 p.m., but it feels as if it should be later.  Due to some poor planning on our part, we missed Mass this morning, something I very much regret, as today was First Holy Communion for a couple of young girls in our parish, and I'd really hoped to be there.  This led to Jon and I discussing what went wrong, and where we could (and should) do things differently in the future, though, so not a complete waste. :)

Making pancakes

I actually cleaned the kitchen last night while Jon was out trying to kill a portal (for a game we play, but that's an explanation for another post), so breakfast came together smoothly enough, and we enjoyed sausage links and homemade pancakes.  Our coffee maker appears to be on its last legs, though.  Strangely enough, our coffee this morning, through two separate pots, was about the color of a nice cup of hot tea. :/  So it looks like we may be shopping for a coffeepot soon, as if there wasn't enough to keep us busy here lately in the realm of kitchen appliance repair/replacement disasters, what with needing to replace all the elements for our stove except the broiler, and then me proceeding to order the wrong EVERYTHING from Amazon.

The rest of the day was filled with errands of one kind and another, and helping the 11-year-old complete his science fair project, an undertaking that is just now, blessedly, finished.  He tested various citrus fruits to see which would make the best fruit battery, then he and his dad had a little fun by hooking a bunch of them up together to light up a thing of LEDs they stripped from a $1 flashlight.  I love getting to see him enjoy a school project, because this particular child often struggles with school.

 Late, late dinner (I didn't get to start cooking tonight until 8:00!) was a new recipe I found on Pinterest called cheeseburger burritos.  The kids and Jon all agree they're yummy, so this may become a regular around here.  It's not all that easy to please this many people at once, so when I find something that does, you can pretty much bet we'll have it again.

In the interest of keeping it real, there was also a bit of screaming and ranting done by a frustrated and stressed-out mom *cough, cough* who was at the end of her tether with all the trash, sticky spills, and dirty laundry that no one ever seems to bother to clean up.  Particularly when one of them mentioned that there were not enough socks for school in the morning.  Yes.  I am aware of this.  I am painfully aware of the fact that if I do not do laundry every. single. day, there are not enough socks.  Even though we just bought socks a few months ago.  Perhaps if you children would put your socks in the laundry hamper when you take them off, instead of making mommy play sock scavenger hunt every. single. day. . .

But dad gave them an earful too, got at least enough picked up to (mostly) restore my sanity, and started the diaper laundry, including scraping two poopy ones that I had set aside in the hopes that they would peel easier once they had sat for a bit.  If you don't cloth diaper, you're probably saying, "EWWWW!!!" right about now.  If you do, you probably know exactly what I'm talking about.  At any rate, he gets serious brownie points for dealing with that in an effort to make my life a little easier in a stressful, overwhelmed moment. Especially since he is, shall we say, less fond of the poop angle of cloth diapering than I am.  And this is just one of the little reasons why I love him to the stars and back.

And now, the crescent moon is flitting in and out amidst the clouds, and lightning flickers on the horizon as a spring thunderstorm moves in.  And I had someone to steal a few moments and share the beauty of it with me, a tiny oasis of peace in the ocean of chaos that our life sometimes seems to become.

So yes, as many seem to remark, I have my hands full.  But my heart and my life are also full.  Our life could seldom be called easy, but it is always blessed beyond measure, and I am so, so grateful for these busy, full days with my big, beautiful, chaotic mess of a family.