Tuesday, August 09, 2011

HADA - The First Eight Days

I guess I thought that telling the internet I was going to do Hour-a-Day August would make it somehow actually happen. I guess I thought wrong.

We spent the whole day out of the house on July 31 - church in the morning, followed by a wedding and reception (with me behind the camera). My mom came to visit on August 1 and I was too worn out to even tidy up before she got here. I did manage to clear a path to pull out the hide-a-bed, and that was about it.

My mom helped out a ton while she was here, and by the end of the week, the post-camping fall-out was mostly put in order. I moved the last of the camping gear to the basement, trudged my way through laundry (which still isn't caught up, and mostly still needs to be put away), and (mostly thanks to my mom) the nasty backlog of dishes was caught up. But, in spite of this progress, I don't feel like very many of those things count for HADA, because they are all daily maintenance tasks that I should have done anyhow.

Tuesday we took my mom to the beach, and Thursday we took my mom and my cousin and her son to the zoo. I'm totally counting those things for HADA, because we don't get to the beach often enough, and because I've been talking about going to the zoo with my cousin for months. But it's still kinda cheating, because it wasn't overtly productive.

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Wednesday, I sent my mom and the kids to the backyard for a while and thoroughly mopped the kitchen. Then we loaded up my hallway full of "donate" boxes and took them to Goodwill. So, Wednesday was a total HADA win, because I managed to put in my hour, AND I managed to finish one of my unfinished HADA (April) projects.

Friday was Valerie's birthday, and we had a little party at the park with some friends. Birthdays happen only once a year, so I think an extra day off is more than fair.

One day, I don't remember which, I dumped out the craft supply box and organized it. I forgot to look at the time, but it was probably about half an hour.

Saturday we had a family party for Valerie's birthday, and (per her request) I made her a volcano cake. It turned out okay, but I hope she asks for a volcano cake again next year, because I have many ideas for how to make it better.



Sunday after church, we went out for dinner with my mom and my in-laws, and said goodbye to my mom.

Monday, I threw in the towel and did nothing all day. Except that my "nothing" included not putting a diaper on Valerie, so it actually ended up being an unplanned potty training day. (And a very successful first day of potty training, I might add.) Since potty training is something I have been putting off for a long time, I think that counts for HADA, too.

Okay, so maybe my record for the first 8 days wasn't quite as bad as I originally thought. Here's the tally:

Aug. 1: Day off
Aug. 2: Went to the beach - 7 hours
Aug. 3: Mopped and donated stuff - about 2 hours
Aug. 4: Went to the zoo - 6 hours, organized craft supplies - about 1/2 hour
Aug. 5: Bonus day off for Valerie's birthday
Aug. 6: Made a cake that looked like a volcano - about an hour
Aug. 7: Day off
Aug. 8: Started potty training - all day

So far I haven't managed to get much done today, although we did make it to the La Leche League meeting almost on time today. I'll post later if I manage to squeeze in a proper HADA hour.

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