Hour-a-Day April: Day One

I managed to hit the ground running on April 1. One of my goals right now (in life, generally, not just HADA) is to build a stronger routine into our daily life. I'm a fly-by-the-seat-of-my-pants kinda girl, but I have discovered that life runs more smoothly, and we have more fun, if we have some kind of structure holding our days together. It's going to be a struggle for me to keep up a schedule once school lets out in June, so I'm working on it, now. So, before tackling anything HADA-related, I made myself a cup of tea, and gave myself a few minutes to sit and gather my thoughts before diving into the day. John Wallace rewarded me for my patience by going down for his morning nap relatively early, and staying asleep for a good, long stretch. I don't know if I will be quite so lucky every day this month, but it was a good start to the first day.

I picked a task for my first day that has been bugging me for months: The bathroom. I've been doing basic upkeep cleaning, but it's been a long time since I dug in and scrubbed the shower walls or mopped the floor. The girls have some bathtub crayons that are relatively easy to clean off - if you clean them off right away. But that has not been happening, so it took quite a bit of elbow grease. But I got all the crayon off, and scrubbed the crud off of the bath mat and hair trap. Then, since the baby was still napping, I hopped in the shower myself. While I was in there, just for fun, I grabbed the Comet and scrubbed the bottom of the shower curtain liner. It worked pretty well, but then I decided to unhook the whole thing and just throw it in the wash. I won't say it's as good as new, but it's much, much better than it was!

The bathroom took the full hour, but since the baby was cooperating so well, I decided to keep going. I begrudgingly tackled the kitchen, instead of the many HADA tasks that I would rather be doing, because, well, we need clean dishes if we want to eat.

Where is my 3.5-year-old in all this? Good question. I thought she was watching TV, but the show just ended, and she isn't there to start another one. Oh, there she is. Sitting in the middle of the garden digging in the dirt. Good thing I hadn't planted anything yet! But she's having fun, and getting some vitamin D, so I let her play. (Until she stripped down naked, and peed in the garden. Then I brought her, and her muddy footprints, into my clean bathroom and gave her a bath.)

Meanwhile, my oldest daughter arrived home from school (she has half days this week for some reason). I wasn't able to get much more done from that point on, but I did make some progress on normal tasks like dishes and laundry. On a whim, I made a tray of brown E's out of construction paper, since my daughter pranked me pretty good when she got home from school, and I thought it was only fair to return the favor. (Her analysis: "Mom, please don't fool about food. Because we really wanted brownies.") (Don't worry, I made real brownies for dessert.)

After the girls were in bed, I tackled our broken printer. I still can't get the feed tray to work properly, but I can by-pass it by using the envelope tray, so I guess I'll call it a win, for now. At least I have the ability to print again. I managed to squeeze in a few of those "been meaning to get to that" tasks, too, like rinsing out the humidifier so I can pack it away for the season.

All in all, I am pleased with my progress on day one. (I can already tell you that day two will not be quite so productive, since it started with us all oversleeping by an hour because the battery on my phone died overnight, and we are planning to go to Longwood Gardens this afternoon.) One day down, 29 to go!