Day off

About 7 years ago I had to stop being a stay at home mom and go to work. I was also going to school full time. I hated leaving my baby in day care and not being there for my kids. My housework became spotty at best. I was tired, crabby, cranky and stressed and I hated it. (leaving my baby and all that, not the job, I had a great job and and even better boss who has become a great friend.)
To combat the stress, the kids and I invented Movie Day.

The first Saturday of the month became Movie Day. We would do all housework and laundry and homework on Friday night. We would go to either Hollywood video or Blockbuster and rent 1 movie each. Then we would hit the grocery store and purchase unhealthy, but yummy treats. Saturday morning, we would get up and have a good healthy breakfast. Then we headed downstairs to the familyroom, movies and treats in hand. We would then proceed to spend the entire day in a movie, junkfood stupor. We would laugh and giggle and eat. When one movie ended, we would start all over again. When the last movie was over, we would clean up the family room, take showers, gather up our clothes for church the next day and we would be happier and less stressed because of it. We knew that we could face the rest of the month and anything it threw at us because we would be doing it all again in just a few short weeks. We still laugh over jokes invented and stupid movies watched back then.

We did this ritual for about 1 1/2 years. Then in Aug. of 2003 our life situation changed, we hoped for the better, but it turned out not to be so. And Movie Day became something that didn't happen very often. In fact, it stopped altogether. Every once in awhile, one of the kids would wistfully ask if we could have a movie day and it was promised that "we should do that". But it never happened.

This winter has been long, hard and cold. Mr. Flu moved in right after Thanksgiving and no eviction notice served seems to get him to leave. This weekend, he moved into Brandi's space and I had had enough. I was tired, crabby, cranky and stressed. So, Saturday I worked hard to get the housework done. Laundry done as possible with 6 kids. I went to the grocery store and bought snack food.

Yesterday, Ethan and I went to Hollywood video and rented 6 movies. Then we went home and I made Picco de Galleo, Guacamole, Chocolate Fondue Spread, Carmel Fondue Spread, a veggie dip, cut up a bunch of veggies, opened two packages of tortilla chips, graham crackers, Lorna Dunnes, animal crackers, and Limeaid to drink. We headed downstairs, filled our plates and watched movies and noshed all day long. I was able to get all the bedding washed and dried while we watched, so we all had nice clean sheets to climb into.

I was relaxed and felt nice when the day was done. I didn't realize how stressed and crabby I really was. It was nice to have a simple day off and be able to reconnect with my kiddos. And the movies were really not as stupid as I thought they would be. In fact, I laughed and enjoyed myself all day.

*we saw, Air Buddies, Underdog (my favorite), Singles 2nd Ward (my friend is in this one, not as good as the first one, but 2nds rarely are), Spider Man 3, we rented 2 others, but will watch them later this week.