Saturday Solutions

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

I hope you find solutions to make your day/week/month/summer work better for you!

A bit of planning can make a world of difference when the time comes to accomplish something.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Our summer vacation will predominantly be on 'the Rock', Newfoundland. Living up to its name, this sparsely populated, physically large, rocky island with part of the Appalachian chain of mountains running through it has limited highways (and accommodations) so can be a challenge to tour. It is larger than California, but, like California has bits everyone has heard of and lots of bits with interesting things but off the beaten path.

It is accessible by 2 passenger ferries. My original booking was to come and go on the same ferry due to the timing of our volunteering. Now that we aren't selected as volunteers at the national church general council, we have 13 days to explore, instead of 3. And I want to explore as much as possible.

So this morning I managed to swap our outbound ferry and now arrive at one end of the island, will drive up and over to the other end. It means 9 hours less driving backtracking. Which is almost 2 days extra. As well, this ferry leaves 6 hours later than the other, so we have more time between church on Sunday and the ferry on Wednesday (it is over a 2 day drive just to get to the ferry.)

I'm all excited but not doing what I should be doing at the moment. Instead I'm dreaming about how to get all the things I want to do into just 13 days.

[Nancy]

I dreamed of a sewing machine repair last night. 5 have taken fed out for the chickens. H. Is still asleep. We have light rain here this morning. Got on tne scales and it is not going the right direction.

Divided up the meat last night and froze half of it. H helped.
Who is watching the horse race?

Neighors all around are planting flowers and getting ready for memorial day decorating. I want to find a tricolored sage plant.

[blessedw2]

I hope I will be able to stay here today and work.

Wishing you a solution's resolved day.

today:
dh cat litters
me walk in the woods
dining room, 3 season room

[helia]

Solutions: One of my solutions to my busy day today is to make pulled pork for small group. It takes me 5 minutes or so to prep it for the crockpot and another 5 minutes to prep it for eating when we're ready. Also, I won't have to worry about leaving dd16's concert early to cook for the group. Easy peasy. And it tastes good. Another solution today is to make brownies from a mix rather than something from scratch for the district-wide outdoor band festival today. Each family from our high school must do 3 hours volunteer work, and a baked good counts as 1 hour. Dd16 is working 1 hour and I already worked 1.5 hours on set up. So, we're covered.

Yes, this is a busy time of year, Harriet! And yes, it is sometimes hard to guide teens to get enough sleep. Dd16 did pretty well with sleep and her AP exams. She did not stay up late cramming and went to bed at a reasonable hour the night before each.

Part of the busyness here is the constant hosting we are doing. It feels like we're in "feeding the masses" mode. Wed. night was Wed. dinner crew - 3 friends and baby J joined us until about 9:30 pm. Last night, S, R, and baby J joined us from 7 - 9:40 pm. Today, I need to bake a pan of brownies for the band festival. Tonight, small group will be small, but we'll still be hosting an additional 6 adults, feeding 10-11 total adults, including dh, me, 2 of our kids and a babysitter, as well as 3 kids ages 3 - 10. There are plans afoot to go see the Avengers afterward, so I think small group will need to be done at 8 pm, which is doable but will be a stretch for us. We will need to run our dw 2x today to catch up before small group - and then we will probably need to run it again after small group.

Yesterday was additionally difficult because dh gave me his menu Thursday night for his Friday night celebration. Friday morning, I needed to do everything for the meal: the groc. shopping and prep some of the menu items, as well as go to WW (didn't happen) and prep for class because I was out of the house from 1 - 6 pm with payroll so prep time after work was minimal. I had an hour to finish the ribs and get the rest of the meal together. Kids helped with setting the table. The house was a mess - no time to pay attention to that - but S and R are like family so that was OK.

So, between now and 3:10 when I need to leave to go see dd16's band perform, I mainly just need to clean to prep for small group.

Done:
- s2s and self-care
- bfast
- work at band festival set up 8 - 9:30-ish
- brownies made and in the oven
- crock pot set up with pork

Next:
- sit down with the family to eat bfast
- send brownies and soda with dd16 when she leave to go work at the festival
- kitchen tidy

[Harmony]

Hello, I am finally connected again. Computer was in the repair shop all week, from Mon morning. It is like a brand new computer again. Which is good and bad. Everything needs tweaked and registered. It took me a couple hours to install the printer/fax/scanner. Kept getting an error while reading the disc. Lady who did all this for us was surprised I'd kept all my original discs. Ya think?

Anyway, I will keep working at it. At least the speed is better. It was seriously messed up!

So... I will have to catch up. While I was without computer I realized how inconvenient that was, couldn't look up information we needed from county... and DH had problems ordering truck parts...but we managed...hand-writing bills, etc.

I also noticed that my brain seemed "quieter" with less to think about... have also noticed that with not putting the tv on all day. It took me a good while to get used to that but now I'm not addicted to having the background noise going and it's better. Tweaked my routines around here also. I timed my weekly blessing hour - hour, hah - it took me 3+ hours to do that, and that was with everything picked up before hand, and no extra vacuuming behind furniture, etc., and with me working as hard / fast as I could. Also, no laundry or changing sheets as part of that either. Do any of you manage to get that done in an hour?

Also tracking business hours and I have an average little over 25 hours a week. Not counting the extra dirt it makes or the constant interruptions for phone calls, etc. So I have a better idea why I'm so busy all the time.

It's nice to be back!

[Harriet]

Harmony, glad to know those problems are over. Sunny let us know you were temporarily out of touch.

lucylee, "the young man"'s sister is graduating this weekend at Samford so their extended family is converging there along with hoards of others, of course. Interesting to hear the few snippets dd gets by text. The usual uni grad weekend frustrations but very beautiful campus.

Solutions - today will be a day of thinking up solutions, yes. I need to solve some problems taht have been creeping up on us. Bedtimes need to be whipped back into shape. Laundry is now in a schedule-solution carried over from yesterday that should keep the twins spinning here. Some repairs awaiting solutions.

Is it possible? Can it be so? Maybe, maybe I don't have any errands.

[blessedw2]

Hi all.

eating lunch and dining room table looking spiffy. dishes are almost done... my house my house ... my kingdom for a clean house.

[Kathryn-in-Canada]

Real problems focusing today.

After my ferry solution, I quickly dressed and headed out to IKEA. Picked up another item for the balcony - a planter with 3 fake plants. And a 3-tier plant shelf. That has to be assembled so is waiting for me to finish the sermon (actually start the sermon, if I'm being honest.)

The planter looks fabulous. I'm hoping the fake grass along the edges will work as well since that's the last major part of the project.

In the meantime, I'm going to take some interim photos. Because, you know, why not be distracted rather than working on the task at hand?!!!

(Photos are up now: http://bb.shesorganized.org/viewtopic.p ... 34#p123534 )

[Nancy]

I have been cleaning up outside containerizing seeds I had raked up for some exercise. Needed a solution for two 5 gal buckets that would not come apart finally put em in the bathtub and shower head worked with warm water to separate them. Now I am thinking how to deal with these. Rain has stopped and sun is trying to come out.

Hens are out and I cleaned coop roosts off and around the run and some nest boxes.

Trying to think about mojo for the rest of stuff on the docket for today before it gets away from us.