Things I should be doing...

1. Laundry
2. Finishing the agenda for Sunday's meeting
3. Unloading the dishwasher
4. Sleeping because there are no children awake

But alas, I am doing none of these. I felt the need to chronicle my day because I have this feeling that one day about 5 years from now, I will wake up and go, wait a minute, I'm 26, not 36 right? Where did 2004 - 2015 go?

Since I am trying to save more and spend less, I have become an official crazy coupon lady. Today was my first experience with couponing on Super Doubles Day at Harris Teeter and I've got to tell you, I am hooked. I am in love with the website www.southernsavers.com. This week, I have officially bought 3 weeks of groceries plus a stock pile of various bath / medicine cabinet products for $150! For a family that spends WAY too much on food normally, that is pretty darn good! My goal is to cut our grocery budget in half this year and I am well on my way! Just to brag a little... I bought $100 of groceries today for $25.

So, my morning started with a 6:30am trip to the grocery store because with all of this coupon madness, it is too hard to go with the kids since I need to pay attention to what I am buying. Once back home and a quick shower, I got Will to school but had to come back home because he forgot his hat & gloves and they were going outside! I finally made it to work at 9:30 where I got much less done than I would have hoped. We have an important meeting this weekend I need to get things together for. After lunch with Will, Courtney, MM and Natalie all I had time to do was run home, feed Maddie May, change her diaper and it was time to get in carpool line!

It was not until I was on my way home from school at 2:30 that I remembered I DIDN'T BUY THE INGREDIENTS FOR THE CAKES!!! Clark, our fabulous youth pastor and I alternate months taking youth to the homeless shelter each month. We take dessert & coffee for 15-30 homeless men & women. We offer a short devotion time, accept prayer reguests, and we pray with them. They enjoy the dessert and warm coffee and we are blessed by the opportunity to serve. Last time I was there, a sweet man asked, can you make Pineapple Upsidedown Cake? To which I replied, because that's what I do, "I never have but I'm sure I can. I will make sure you have it next time!" Ahhhh the ambition that seems like such a good idea at the time. So, since I was vehemently opposed to taking all 3 kids to the grocery store again (I did that yesterday and had enough fun for the week) I called my mom, the saint, and asked her to stop for me on her way to my house.

I am realizing now that I actually have no clue where the time went between 2:40 & 4:00. So... it is now almost 4:00, Jake has just read me the VERY cute book Small Pig, MM is napping, halleluia, and Will is off to spend the night with MiMi and I have 1 hour & 45 min to get these cakes ready before I need to be at church for choir... Easy right? Well, Maddie May wakes up with no plans to let me bake if that means she sits in her chair alone so I am making Pineapple Upsidedown Cake one handed. Anyone who has or has ever had little kids knows that anything you try to do takes about 3x as long as it should so when Jeff walked in the door at 5:45, I practically tossed Maddie May to him as I pulled the last cake out, dumped it on a plate, and walked out the door to pass the cakes off to Clark to take to Bethesda. Whew!

After that, it is all pretty tame... I planned to work in my office on the Sunday meeting info while Jake was at shoir because I had the night off from Middle & High School bible study but because I work in a church with people I love so much, I kept getting distracted by friends walking by who came in to chat. By the time Jake finished choir, I was really no closer to finished with my agenda, but I was smiling because I got to talk to Bob Gammon (one of my favorite people ever) and the sweet Kristen & Shelby.

I came home to remember what a mess I had left in the kitchen and after reading with Jake again and getting Maddie May back to bed, I tackled the mess that was the kitchen. I still have about 100 lbs of laundry to fold since even though it goes against everything I believe in I took 2 loads of laundry out today and left them in baskets instead of folding them right away. I couldn't help it... it was one of those days that laundry just gets done between other things or else no one will have clean underwear and Maddie May will have no clean diapers in the morning!

So here I am, chronicalling my day so one day I will remember what it was like when they were little. When days were a blur of feeding little people, trying to work when I possible, and cleaning the ever present mess all over my house! As I think back over my day, the one thing that made it chaotic was baking the cakes and there is no way I would change doing that. I'm not even sure if the man that asked for it was there tonight since I didn't go, but if baking a cake could have brightened one person's cold (very cold) day, then it was all worth it. I have been so very blessed, the least I can do is share something I love to do with those who need something to est!