A friend asked recently if I'd kept up the routine I wrote about in my last blog post... No, I'm afraid not. Here's more what life is like now.
I answered the phone and heard, "Mom, I'm out mowing the lawn and got off to pick up a glove, and now it won't start." I taught her to use our ride-on lawn mower last week. It seemed like a good idea to teach her that life skill, and it means less work for me. Win-win! She was out trying to mow the field again. Sorry neighbours! I've now informed my daughter that she should wait until you are awake to start mowing. Also, she now understands that mowing in the rain can wreck the belt on the mower (which I learned the hard way in the past). I'm proud of my daughter, because I know she's trying to be helpful, though I also know she's doing it for the pay-out I offered to her if she did it today "if it was dry enough" (her selective hearing ignored that direction).
Our middle son is in the midst of learning to drive. He has a lesson for 90 minutes, about once every few weeks. We've been practicing almost every evening. He likes to keep his practice sessions with me to about 20 minutes, which he says is the optimal time for learning. He is rather annoyed that his formal lessons are 90 minutes, but resigned to accepting that now. We have been driving to and from New Glasgow with him frequently for the past 16 years now. Last night I suggested to him that he's ready for a bit higher speed driving, so maybe he could practice by driving me to Walmart and we could get groceries. New Glasgow is a 20 minute drive from home, one way. As we're going there, he looks at the clock and says it's 5:50 pm, so we should be home by 6:10 pm. Sigh. He now understands that he cannot do his practice trip in just 20 minutes. Thankful that he's learned not to rage when he gets upset! He resigns himself to fact he's now out away from his computer games for a full hour, and happy he's getting stuff to make sub sandwiches for himself later. He does very well with the higher speed driving AND navigates his first experience with traffic lights pretty well, too!
Our oldest now works full-time in a labour job, cleaning at a lumber yard. He works 12 hour shifts, 4 days on and 4 days off. We rarely see him, as he's either working, sleeping, or hanging out with his friends, but his boots and dirty clothes tell you he is working hard these days, and when we do get the rare opportunity to see him he does say he likes the work, too.
It's now about 7 am and my daughter says "The cat is eating grass." I respond, "How about pick up the broom and sweep up the grass you brought in?" She heads into her bedroom, where supposedly she is going to clean so she can go visit her grandmother.
At this point, I'm feeling stressed out and like I want to vent, so I think about writing and the above is the result.
As for my own routine now, I tend to get up when my body wakes up, which I'm often annoyed to find is about 6 am. I rarely have it in me to exercise like I should be doing. I'd love to sleep in, but it seems that my age means hot flashes and waking early, so here I am. It's now 7:45 am, my husband is heading into his home office to work, and I'm typing on my computer. It's time for breakfast, then usually I'd jump into doing some bookkeeping, which I still enjoy, but today I have that all caught up for all of my clients! I have the luxury today of spending the morning with nothing I "must" DO, so I'm writing and then I'm going to relax with a book and just BE for a while... My daughter wants me to read "Carry On" by Rainbow Rowell, so we'll see how that goes, or maybe I'll spend time on my 2000 piece puzzle that's been in progress since Christmas of 2018 (it's 2/3 done now). Later today, I'll head to our church, where I've been recording services weekly, and then I'll edit the videos I record, so I can post a service video for tomorrow at about 1:30 pm in YouTube (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCett3SueXHlnqYw3i0Fhikw) and Facebook. I work part-time for the local convenience store now as well (https://www.facebook.com/Lyons-Brook-Rite-Stop-1419733751628355/), with a few shifts scheduled this weekend. I am really enjoying this new job, too!
Life is busy, and life is good!
As I've mentioned in past, my friend Eva does video blogs about virtues daily:
https://www.facebook.com/groups/1837608406496868/). Yesterday she asked, "What are your thoughts about the virtue of RESPONSIBILITY?", leaving me to ponder that for the next 24 hours...
My closing thoughts today... Life with teens and as a middle-aged woman does not support that previous routine, but virtues are what's good in all of us... At least my family is practicing their virtue of responsibility!
If you enjoyed this post and would like to read more written by me in future, you are invited to go to my page in Facebook as well, to follow and "Like" the page so you will get notifications in your Facebook feed when I write posts in future. Thanks for reading!
, and now I'm enjoying reading 
where I learned today about short film
