A Very Good Day

I started back with a to do list. It really made a difference in getting most everything done.  I really like the new app I am using called Any.DO.  I can type in or use the voice recognition.  I really need more practice with voice recognition, it is a new element is my gadget world. It is a very easy app for non-geek.  I think they had the quirkiness of the artist and the busyness of a mom in mind while they were designing this app. I really like how it reminds me the night before to think about starting my to do list. It also moves unfinished items to the next day without prompting.  I have not had anything this easy to use since the Palm-M500 to do list. I would like to say to the programmers, a job well done.

I would also like to say thank to the wonderful Customer Service Team at I-Robot. Less than 24 hours after the pump died in my Scooba a replacement is being sent out.  Since it was a long way out of warranty their solution was more than generous.  I am always in awe of the wonderful team at I-Robot from the designers, engineers, and customer support.  

As you can tell even with a dental appointment, I had a fantastic day.  I even got a little bit of Yoga in which helped my hip. 

Multi-Tasking

I would like to dedicated this blog post to  Emma S. from Canada. A fan and a regular reader of my blog. Is very much interested to know how I manage the household tasks and the knitting. This is a very good question.

The first thing I would have to say is that I take my knitting absolutely everywhere I go. If I am at the grocery store I have a small project such as a hat or scarf with a very simple pattern. The plus side of this is when the lines get especially long I am usually the first person they take to the new line. I think this is because good customer service mandates that your customers should not be in line long enough to actually be doing a "hobby" and making progress. The only place this has not worked is Walmart.

I also take my knitting to restaurants. We are not the 5 star dining kind of folks. So After I have decided what to order out comes the knitting until the food arrives. The plus side of this that I eat less of the nibbles that are placed on the table. This is a two for. 1 more knitting. 2 less calories are consumed. It also works when everyone is having the desert I so dearly want and choose not to eat most of the time.

When I have to do the carpooling for Eric, I always have my knitting with me. Sometimes they run late in his day program. So I just sit and knit while I wait for Eric. I seem to be one of the only parents that does not get upset with them running long. I also knit while John is driving so I will not be a back seat driver I never knit while I am driving, please don't knit and drive as I feel this is very dangerous.  I have also been know to knit while walking in the mall or at street fairs. My hint for knitting at the movies would be very light colored yarns and a very easy pattern.

I also get a lot of knitting done when Eric is sick. With the children's channels they tend to be on a 6 hour or less repeat cycle. I have to say there are only so many times I can watch the same episode of a show in a 24 hour period. I do keep a fully loaded basket of yarn for scarfs or ponchos in Eric's room by the rocking chair. I also doing a lot of knitting during his breathing treatments ( 45 minutes, 2 times a day), I consider this my down time.

With all this being said, in reality I have 5 hours a day to get all my chores done in between driving Eric. So not much knitting gets done during the day. I am not above running the washing machine, dishwasher and dryer at night while I sleep to free up some time during the day. My biggest chore of the week is still laundry with an average of 20+ loads a week. I also love my I-Robot Roomba and Scooba, this allows me to do other chores while the machines are mopping or vacuuming. Multi tasking is the key. This might sound just awful to most people but one of the advantages to have a child with a lot of health issues is that his aides are responsible for keeping his room and bathroom straight and the rest of the areas of the house he uses neat.

The main part of my knitting gets done when I have time to meet up with friends or while watching TV after dinner.

So yes, I do manage to squeeze in a lot of odd moments of knitting. Each row by it self is not much, but a stolen minute here and there really adds up to a lot of rows.

Procrastination

Eric was home sick again today. Since Eric was feeling better but not quite ready to go back to his day program, I decided to play catch up on deep cleaning.  Today was also my day to work on the filing. Now you might not know this about me but I hate to do filing. So it was a major procrastination day for me today. Instead of filing I did the following chores.

1. Roombaed Eric's room.
2. Unpacked the box from i-robot and put a new filter in Roomba.
3. I put a new battery in Scooba and then charged him.
4. Scoobaed Eric's room.
5. Roombaed our bedroom, twice because he ran out of power half way through the job.
6. Gathered and sorted laundry, but did not do any for lack of a full load.
7. Organized the dining room table. Now I just need to find someone who wants to dust and polish the table. Especially the under the table part. I wonder if the folks at i-robot can come up with something?
8. Loaded, ran and emptied the dishwasher.
9. Filled and emptied the recycling basket twice.
10. Found time to spin at the wheel.
11. Found time to do some knitting.

That brought me to 11 am and my list was done so I had to do the filing. So I sorted, shredded and recycled as I went along. Once everything was sorted the actual filing took 30 minutes. I guess it was just going through everything that I did not want to do.  By 4:30 I had gotten the job done.

By the way Eric slept the entire day. I sure hope he sleeps tonight.

Hump Day

Eric is still out of sync and having trouble remembering that he is home from the hospital. Last night he dozed off and would wake up in terror or be in the middle of a night terror when I got to him. I finally had him settled down at 3:30 this morning. I took the cowardly approach to this morning and let John and his aide handle him. I decided to sleep in until 7:30.

Since Eric has day and night confused I am trying to sleep when he does. Which has lead to a pretty strange schedule today. We had naps scattered through out the day.

I did manage to get to the grocery store today. I was trying to be a little on the practicle side by picking up some heat and serve dinners. I am not one to pick up ready made dinners from the freezer section on a regular basis. John and I prefer homemade from scratch or semi home made when ever possible. We had a Bertolli chicken minestrone soup tonight. It was easy to cook and had a pretty good taste and texture, but not quite home made. But just the right amount of soup for 2 people.

I have to admit that with Eric being in the hospital twice this month for a total of 12 days I am pretty much worn out. So far this month he has been in the hospital more than out. I am hoping to change that track. I am finding a very little time to knit and have not done any spinning since we have been home. I am still finding cleaning very therapeutic. Roomba and Scooba have been working out daily. The recycle bin is 1/3 of the way full. I am very behind on laundry, but wont be able to do any until the machines get fixed or if we start to run out of things by going to the laundromat.

I have not had any time to prepare for the Tucson Wool Festival on March 10, so even if I do not have a booth I will stop by to say goodbye to Kathy.

I am deffently tired and need some sleep so I will take the time to say good night all.

Monday

It was a very busy weekend which settled into a very busy Monday. Since Eric was home sick I made a long to do list which is 3/4 finished. I can actually say that I am caught up on laundry for the moment. We all know that I will have at least 2 full loads tomorrow. Such is life when Eric feels that it is one of his chores to make the most laundry possible. He is usually good for 10 to 12 loads of laundry by himself per week. I do have the market cornered on Tide and Downy. Now if I could just get him to fold and put his own laundry away. Yes I know that will never happen.

My roomba decided to go on robot strike this weekend. It was more like I am just going to sit here in one spot and spin.  John did do his best to fix roomba and politely ignored Teri's comment ;" but did he add a flame thrower, the roombas not really fixed until you add a flame thrower :P".  As this is a right to work state we went right out and got the latest model of Roomba that Costco had, the 550-1. I have to say that the new model is a little different but even easier to use. Roomba actually talks and tells me what it wants. Plus it runs very quietly. I am able to get 2 full cleaning cycles out of it per day. I tend to vacuum a little more during change of seasons because of all the dust.

I am currently in a clean and throw mode so if it is not nailed down it will be tossed, go to charity, recycled or put away. Now that I have a burst of energy back I will go back to my to do list. I hope that you are having a great Monday too.