Staying Busy

Dan is about three weeks into his new job, and he is really enjoying it. (Praise the Lord for that!) He's been working some pretty long days, as fall is a busy season for his organization, so I've been trying my best to stay busy. We've pretty much finished settling in, so I've been doing quite a bit of reading. Our public library is a 15 minute walk from our apartment so it's close enough to go as often as I need new books! However, I've also been re-reading from my stash of books in our hallway (no bookcases yet), attempting to convince Dan that many books = happy wife. Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books are some of my perennial favorites, and while I was working at the HC campus store, I snagged full color collector set copies of 4 of the first 5 books. (I still need to find Farmer Boy in the same edition; I love Almanzo's adventures growing up! And I see that the publisher has some of the later years in the same addition. This is going on my Christmas list!)

Anyways, Dan has never read them, so I can't wait until we have some little girls and we read them out loud on a family adventure. I really think he'll be impressed by how ingenious and industrious Pa was. The stories are so amazing. They had so little but they were so happy and content with what they had. And Ma was an amazing wife. She never failed to support Pa, no matter if they were sick or smashing grasshoppers or doing chores in a blizzard. So very many lessons to learn from the Ingalls family.

One thing I've adopted in my effort to make time pass quickly while Dan is at work is by completing a chore a day.

Ma's chores went like this:

"Wash on Monday,

Iron on Tuesday,

Mend on Wednesday,

Churn on Thursday,

Clean on Friday,

Bake on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday."

I decided to modify a bit:

"Bills on Monday,

Kitchen/Living Room on Tuesday,

Grocery Shop on Wednesday,

Laundry on Thursday,

Bathroom on Friday,

Bedroom on Saturday,

Rest on Sunday."

I guess one could say I'm a person who thrives on schedules.