Creative Chaos

Creative Chaos

Monday 16 May 2016

what's a day like in my household?

I've been enjoying reading some blogs lately that give you a run down of a day in the blogger's life.
I thought I'd do the same.


Today - Monday 16 May, 2016.


Woke at 7am. Early for me! Husband has been up for half an hour. Lay in bed looking at daily school calendar; read e-mails and the NZ Herald newspaper on-line.
Got up at 7.30am and showered. Woke youngest kid up, who basically had time to get up, get dressed, pack school bag, use the bathroom and leave the house! Oh there was a slight mad panic trying to find fitness gear!  (it is very normal for him to have zero breakfast - this has been routine since he was 5 and drives me crazy! He may or may not make a school lunch - if I make it on the very rare occasion, I quite often find it left on the bench!). Eat my day in, day out breakfast of muesli and yoghurt while going on-line again to join up with Vintage Purls latest woollie club. Say goodbye to the husband and youngest; chase up the middle child who is very self sufficient ; leave the oldest sleeping who is on exam week. He quite often goes to school later, as his school/year 13 treats them like they are already at university, so he may not have to be at school till 10am and then could be home 2-3-4 hours later dependant on classes. He does not have to be on the school grounds if he does not have a class! I still get confused at his timetable and then he might go straight to work after school and arrive home at 10pm or so. Some mornings, if I'm at school early, I don't even see the boys until after school or the eldest until he has come home from work at 10pm!


I leave around 8.15am, pray for decent traffic (it usually is going south) and get to school 20 minutes later, arriving about 15 minutes early. I always grab fresh water and a cup of tea and settle down to check e-mails before the first class arrives 10 minutes later. A "busy" class this one; then the next class arrives. I spend my time reading with them, showing new books, returning books, organising the class librarians; getting students to deliver National Library book boxes to me from the office (13 have arrived and all need to be put onto my library system - a ton manually as not on the Australian cataloguing system I use; then issued to individual teachers. A long drawn out process , which will probably take the rest of the week to sort!); dealing with the IT guy and another new computer for me; having 17 kids from another class turn up who want everything from rainbows, to clouds, to air, to hang gliders, to birds, to flight, to earthworms, to how we breathe (all while dealing with the class in the library and the class that lives on the side of the library...); answering the phone; chasing teachers for urgent things; helping teacher aides... by 10.30am I am stuffed!


A 15 minute break knitting and taking another cup of tea back with me. Next class turn up; books everywhere by now, as I'm sorting National Library books for this teacher and helping our newly trained librarians. A 45 minute break with no classes, so I whip through stuff a lot faster and then lunch. Well kinda. I sit eating at my desk, processing more National Library books for the next teacher.


Then it is back to back year 1/2 classes for the last 1.5 hours of school. I end up leaving the poor things to their own devices as I discover a teacher is away from another class and her class has not ordered their Duffy books. I go and sort this out.
The bell rings at 2.45pm. I spend the next hour (unpaid) at a meeting as I am a house leader in charge of 150 students.


A busy day. I also hand out raincoats to all new children, run assemblies every now and again, go to other schools, have other schools arriving to check out the library (another principal is coming next week - I'm doing outside-school-hours sorting out their school library for them), fit new shoes on children.. it is NEVER boring and I've always piles of books on every surface and the floor...
Usually is covering of new books in there - that is a constant thing!


After the meeting I run into the local post office, library and supermarket (and score brilliantly with clearance items) and finally get home at 4.50pm. Boys are all home, in their bedrooms chatting to mates, gaming etc. Pleased to see the year 13 study notes/textbooks all over the dining room table.
I sit down for another cup of tea and read some blogs.
Husband arrives home around 5.30pm, we chat about our day; I go fold laundry; he starts cooking dinner. Normal process in this house too!


You'll notice I do not one scrap of housework in the mornings before school - we catch up on everything in the evenings! After dinner we usually all head to our rooms; we watch little tv (I'd watch 2 hours max a week and have no idea about any show nor who anyone is - yes - I was one of the few who had NO idea about The Bachelor or who they were or what night it was even on tv... don't care/not interested.). Boys do homework and take themselves to bed.. quite often I've fallen asleep before them anyway! Need to sort out a birthday present for this Thursday for the middle kid - he told me last night he was not fazed if he didn't get anything on his birthday - seriously - told him that could be the case as he has given me zero ideas what he wants and I won't buy anything unless I really know what he does want...


Now I'll do some knitting, or university work and drink the cup of tea my husband has just bought me!


My life really is easy; we have few family dramas; boys are very independent and get themselves to places; I no longer drive them here or there for anything or any activity as they take themselves (apart from Saturday morning soccer); I'm not hugely social (basically because work totally exhausts me and then university work totally kills me!) and I seem to spend half of Saturday cleaning up the house too. I am a homebody as well! We do not see our families very often either and do not catch up with friends a lot either.. I think our life is pretty simple. Basically I live week to week and collapse in the school hols! I'd love to know a day in your life. add your post in the comments.


Weekend early light - STILL warm and wore tees and shorts all weekend - crazy for mid-May!


4 comments:

  1. Good to read about your - very full and very busy! - day!

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  2. I like this type of post, have read quite a few recently, always interesting tomread about others' 'everyday lives' X

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  3. Hi Kimberley, thank you for letting me know about the giveaway, so very kind of you. I cannot find your e-mail address, can you drop me an e-mail in reply to this comment and I will let you have my details. Thank you again! Hope you have a good day. Amy xx

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  4. I like these posts too, interesting to see how other folks spend their days. xx

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