A Day in the Life When We Stay Home

Some days are busy days, and some days are Home Days.  Monday is a Home Day.  It is my one day off work each week, and it's been hard to figure out what that means - to have your "Day Off" be a day your husband goes to work, a "School Day", and a day that most people are already jumping into their next week, looking ahead, contacting me, wanting and expecting me to be available.

I call Monday my "Sabbath".  I've written it on the calendar, on every Monday, to remind myself not to schedule anything else on Mondays.  And I've adopted a few rules for my sabbath: no work for pay, no commercial activity or shopping, no driving.  So this is what a home day ends up looking like:


Wake up whenever I wake up. (7:45)  I don't set an alarm clock on Mondays.  My husband has already left for work.

Putter about cleaning up the house and kitchen.  It's always a huge mess on Monday, because on Sunday I work all day and my husband usually doesn't clean up after himself.

The kids wake up whenever they wake up. (8:15)  Yesterday the girl was up first, and wanted me to read to her.  I was going to take a bubble bath, but since she wanted to do some schoolwork I delayed that.



8:30

We read a bunch of books off our library stack.  Some of them were for "school" or were related to subjects she is studying right now, and others were just for fun.  Olivia and the Fairy Princesses was for fun (I loved it - perfect for my not-quite-a-princess daughter), and it inspired us to look up YouTube videos of Martha Graham dancing.





9:30

I decided to go take that bubble bath, and let Hypatia go ahead and watch a video while I was in the bath.  I read my liberal theology text while I soaked.

10:00

I got concerned that Carbon hadn't got up yet, and went to check on him.  He was lying in bed playing DS.  I got him up and out doing his animal chores.

Then he watched a DVD about Inventors while Hypatia did some math and language lesson and read to me.  He was inspired by the DVD to sit for awhile with a notebook and sketch some possible inventions of his own.



Somewhere in there while he was doing that, Hypatia did her violin practice with me.






Then, once they were ready to do something together, I set up the art table.




This is Hypatia's tribute to Starry Night by Van Gogh.



Other morning activities: watching a TV show episode and cleaning their rooms.

12:30 I serve lunch, and my husband gets home from work (it is a holiday afterall - but alas he is still not done and locks himself in the home office/schoolroom to keep working).

1:00 Hypatia and I do her Spanish (silly games using the spanish words for parts of the body) and I read her history chapter to her.  Meanwhile, Carbon does math and language lessons.

1:30 Carbon does his Writing Strands and practices piano while Hypatia is off playing by herself.

2:00 Everyone is done with school work and I let them watch some more TV while I head off to lock myself in the bedroom and try to finish that chapter of the liberal theology textbook.

Afternoon of unsupervised play and screen time, and I study and do chores.

5:00 Dad comes out of the study and plays some board games with the kids.

6:00 I serve nachos for dinner - yep, I wasn't really feeling like cooking.  Outside chores are done to put the animals to bed.

6:30 Dad lets the kids talk him into downloading a new game onto the Wii and they all spend time playing it together.

I read and do the dishes and mop the kitchen floor.

8:30 We read bedtime stories and put the kids to bed.

And that is what our Home Day looks like usually!