Cleaning the Kitchen

Yesterday was one of the most tiring days I've had in a while.

It started off by waking up at 5AM to get ready for my first day of nannying. Made it from Puyallup to I-5 with no problems (Luke had taken my GPS so he could get home) but then got lost on post trying to find the family's house. Finally found it, but I was about 10 minutes late. Not a good way to start the day.

The boys I take care of are great - 4 and 6 years old and well-behaved but very energetic. Way more energy than I have definitely. Maybe I will have to start drinking coffee. We started the day with touring their toys, including the new "tantastic four" action figures from McDonald's. Then we walked to the park, played outside for a while, set up the sprinkler to play in, ate lunch in the backyard, played some video games, worked on a puzzle, and started a movie. A lot of stuff crammed into 8 hours.

After I left I had to go meet a family that I am babysitting for tonight. They wanted to introduce me to the children and just meet me overall, I guess. I stayed there about 10 minutes to talk about the specifics of babysitting and tell her about my references. Then I headed to Luke's to rest for a few minutes before we headed to our first pre-marital counseling session.

We left with time to spare since we wanted to be on time. Of course, I forgot to account for the ridiculous Fort Lewis traffic just 2 exits north of Luke's. It took us a full 20 minutes to go 3 exits north. Normally on a Sunday morning it takes us 20 minutes TOTAL to get to the church. We called the pastor to say we were on our way, but we'd be late. We made it there, but we were 10 minutes late.

The session went well. We talked about how we met, why we want to get married, and our backgrounds a little. Then we took a personality inventory type test. The pastor had written it himself about 30 years ago but it's proven effective over the years. He took our booklets and is going to evaluate them and we'll meet back in 3 weeks to start our counseling. I'm looking forward to it!

After counseling we went to the grocery store where it took us almost 2 hours to find everything on my list. I am trying to cook healthy, yummy food for us, and it ends up being a lot more work and a lot more money than just buying a few frozen pizzas and ordering take out. I like to cook, it's just I wish the food was free and I had a clean up crew to help me out.

Finally by 9PM I was serving up dinner - some hastily made spaghetti - but with freshly chopped veggies and sausage in it. As I turned to present the feast to Luke, it all sloshed off the plate and onto the kitchen floor where it splattered everywhere. Needless to say, at 9PM, after a full day of work and errands, I was not in a mood to deal with this. I cleaned it up and then went upstairs to wallow in my misery. Luke came to check on me and convinced me to come downstairs and split what was left of our dinner.

After a load of dishes and two loads of laundry I could finally go to sleep, only to wake up this morning at 6 to start the whole process over again.

I'll tell you this - I don't mind housework because I know it's necessary. No one else is going to come clean the house and cook for me, so I will do it. The thing I don't like so much is waking up while it's still dark, working all day, then coming home to work all night. I know this is adulthood, and I accept it. Here's the thing though - I have picked the best mate in the world. Luke is so helpful and so understanding. Although I am realizing adulthood is really hard, I look forward to my life with him, knowing that he will be my partner through it all.

So I hope today will be a little easier, but if it's not, I've got Luke here to hold my hand, make me smile, and help me mop the kitchen floor.