A Day in the Life...

I woke up at 6:05 this morning to digital frogs making digital frog noises on the alarm clock. Kyle hit snooze twice before he finally got out of bed and gave me the whole empty bed for a blissful 30 more minutes, until he came back and reminded me that it was indeed a work day.

Every morning (if Henry is still sleeping) I am faced with the decision of getting up with Kyle at 6:30 and having a leisurely cup of coffee and email check before the rush to make it out the door on time starts or staying in bed for those extra 30 minutes. Every morning I choose sleep. This means I have from 7-7:30 to get Henry up, dressed, fed, a lunch made, jacket on and out the door. Since Henry is currently boycotting anything that can be deemed a "smandwich", most of this 30 minutes is spent staring into the refrigerator wondering what the holy heck I can send off with him in his little Spiderman lunch box. I tried sending him an assortment of snacky things that somehow added up to a meal one day, but his teacher sent home the message that he needed some sort of "main dish" like a sandwich. Knowing what they routinely serve for lunch on the rare occasions that I make the poor thing buy hot lunch at school, this made me laugh out loud. But, as we all know, I feel compelled to make a good impression in his teachers (who I truly adore) and so I sit at the open fridge and look for a "main dish". Today I settled on a little Tupperware container of tuna fish, which I think he'll eat. Add in an applesauce, a cheese stick and some pretzels and we have ourselves a lunch. In a little brown bag because the Spiderman lunch box is currently lost somewhere in a pile of "stuff" in the back of Kyle's car and I didn't feel like trying to dig it out. I tell myself that I'll reuse the little brown bag for something else later, but it will probably never make it home from school. This morning Kyle actually got Henry dressed, which is a rarity, and all I had to deal with was sock and jacket duty. I lucked out and Henry was in a cooperative mood. The trick is to tackle him and get him dressed before he is fully awake. If you miss that window, you are in for a 15 minute wrestling match from Hell.

Damn. I just remembered I forgot to send in Henry's tuition check , which was due today. Between that and the tuna fish smell his teachers will have to endure, that good impression just flew out the window.

After the boys leave, it is computer time. I actually told myself that I would get up and go straight to the gym this morning, even though my legs are still on fire from Saturday's work out. Something happened between bed and the computer, though, and it doesn't look like it's going to happen. I'm telling myself I'll go later, but that almost never works. Once I sit down at the computer it is pretty much all over. I have an internet "circut" that I must complete before getting to the day's tasks. I check email and respond to things that require immediate attention. I go to Bloglines and check to see what's new in the 37 blogs I subscribe to. A lot of these are blogs that review kids' gear. I feel compelled to see what is popping up on these sites so I can stay in touch with trends and whatnot. Cool Mom Picks, Working Mothers Against Guilt, Rare Bird Finds, Goodyblog, Cosmotot (which should be running a Crankypants review any day now), IndieBabies to name a handful. A few are friends'. A few are heroes (Ariel Gore, Kimya Dawson, brooklyntweed). A few are crafty (Whip Up, sixoneseven). A few are just because I love them (Post Secret, Parent Hacks, Go Fug Yourself). I check my Bloglines about 5 times a day. I can't help myself. Damn- I forgot that I need to reply to Tela over at Working Moms Against Guilt about an interview/review/giveaway we are going to do in April. I even love that blog and am really looking forward to it, but it slipped out of my sieve brain. Sometimes I wish that I was a natural organizer. Or that I had an assistant. Or something.

After blogs, I start message board checks to keep up with my other crafty mamas, congomates and to make sure there is no Crankypants drama that needs to be addressed. It seems that Suzanne from Goodmamas is taking all the heat off of me right now, drama wise. It is a relief to be out from under the microscope, but since Suzanne is a friend and I know what it's like to be at the center of the hubbub, I feel for her. I feel like I know some of what she is going through, and I know that no one on the other side of the shopping cart and crashed site can understand. Even though she has an amazing sense of humor and sense of self, I know it is insanely stressful. This morning I don't feel like there is anything I need to respond to so I keep my big mouth shut.

Now it is time to assess what I actually need to get done today. I need to photograph a pair of longies I finished last night, and edit them-but Kyle took the camera to work today because he has become the go-to guy for photographing sporting events and there is a baseball game after school today (this will buy me an extra hour of work time this afternoon because he is taking Henry with him). I'll have to put that off until tonight, which means I can't ship those longies until tomorrow. I have to ship another pair of classics which didn't make it into Saturday's mail. I have to make a bib for a customer who has been waiting for a while, but my sewing machine is broken. This means I am going to have to see if I can do some sewing at a friend's house this week, but if I am going to do that I might as well bring over a stack of things to sew, so I need to do all the cutting and prep work for a whole batch before that can happen. I need to get all of that prep work done today. I also need to call the sewing machine guy today to see if I can drop of my broken machine soon. I have two custom orders to finish by week's end. This means I need to finish the first pair by Wednesday if I want to stay on track and I only cast on last night. My goal is to get the body done today and the legs done tomorrow. We'll see. They are 20" waist, 19" rise, so that is a lot of knitting and my fingers have been bothering me lately. I have a new bunch of requests to get on the waiting list that need to be dealt with, so I need to send that mass email. I should probably set up a new email account with an autoresponder just for that and have my web guy put it on the longies page, but I haven't had time to make the list of other site updates that need to happen yet (my home page is still talking about holiday sales, sheesh) so I've been putting it off. Ugh, this list thing is starting to overwhelm me. Best just get to work...