I'm An Actual STAY-at-Home Mom Today

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Normally, I spend most weekday mornings at the gym. I drop Caroline off at school around 8:20 and head to the gym; this gives me time to shove my stuff into a locker and run/do other cardio before class starts at 9:30. By the time class is over at 10:30ish I do the shower, hair, make up thing and leave somewhere between 11:15 and 11:30, depending on how focused I am in the locker room.

If I have any quick errands to run, I do that; then I go home.

After lunch and "chores" I sit for a few minutes with my laptop and then get Caroline from school. It's a rare occasion when I'm home alone all day long.

Tomorrow I'm participating in a Triple Challenge at my gym, which consists of a trifecta of classes back-to-back-to-back: Body Attack, Body Pump and Body Combat. If you complete all three classes you're entered into a drawing to win all sorts of prizes. Most importantly, this is a charity event, which will benefit St. Jude's Children's Hospital. So, I have to pay to torture myself, but if I'm going to torture myself, it may as well be for a great cause.

Because of tomorrow's exercise extravaganza, I took the day off today; I have a feeling well rested legs will be a great commodity tomorrow, starting bright and early at 8am.

With today's self imposed gym break, I thought this to be the perfect opportunity to take my car in for some scheduled maintenance.

My car is getting it's brake and power steering fluids flushed and hopefully the brakes are being de-squeakified, as well. Because, seriously...they squeak. And it grates. And it's embarrassing.

Hopefully they'll squeak no more; if not, I just might lose it. For sure.

It's a good thing I don't have a vehicle at my disposal. If I did, I might be tempted to flee the house and shop or something. Instead, I haven't an excuse in the world to keep me from staying home and restoring some much needed order.

I scaled a mountain of laundry and vacuumed pop corn up from Caroline's bedroom floor that has been there for at least a week. Eeep, that's bad. I also put together the goody bags for her Birthday/slumber party on Sunday and made another batch of my beloved split pea soup.

All in all, it's been a productive day. I still have more laundry to fold and I *could* mop the floors. However, my comfy chair is super inviting and this is the first time I've pulled out the lap top all day. Maybe I'll just take a few minutes to catch up on what's happening around my little corner of the blogosphere.

It couldn't hurt, right?

I took some pictures of my laundry pile (stalling!) before I put the clothes away and also took pictures of the goody bags and it's contents, but my camera battery is charging so they're unavailable at the moment. I hope to put together a post about Caroline's up coming birthday party. Hopefully tomorrow.

It won't compete with last year's Winter Wonderland party, but for my sanity, that's a good thing.

We're keeping it really simple this year.

Simple seems to be my current theme. I figure I better keep the tangible things simple because my brain and it's neurotic tendencies tend to make inner Alison less than simple.

I'm looking at today as an opportunity to recharge and feel like I've regained some order. I kind of slacked off the past few days in the housekeeping department, which isn't like me. Sure, my floor is almost always dirty, but I don't usually let too many other things slide by. Being homebound offered me no excuses.

Just what I needed.