I often think at the end of a day what a wonderful feeling it is, knowing that your day has been productive and your time well spent. Today was another great day – not only did we get lots done, but we had fun, too!

I’ve been working on varying breakfasts more – I’ve gotten into a boring routine of cooked breakfast cereals, which my kids have been finding tiresome. This morning I made raisin oatmeal scones – sounds elegant, doesn’t it? My kids really liked them, and I liked getting something healthy into them.  I made them with whole wheat flour and oatmeal (of course!), but for the first time I soaked the flour overnight to remove the phytic acid, which binds with the nutrients and keeps the body from utilizing them properly. I learned about this from Nourishing Traditions, by Sally Fallon – a great book, filled with recipes and info. Then in the morning I just had to add in the other ingredients, pop them in the oven, and served them fresh and hot. The raisins added sweetness – there was no added sugar. I also made a couple of large pans of banana bread while I had the mixer out, and that will be for tomorrow’s breakfast.

After breakfast I had a ping pong marathon at the community center with one daughter. I usually reserve the mornings for homeschooling, but she wanted to use her gift coupon (I mentioned them here already) for a session of ping pong with me, and the last two days things kept coming up. My husband was home this morning to hold down the fort with everyone else while I was gone, so we were able to go, and had a great time – we played five games, and she won the last one. She really loved that!

We got back and I did academic stuff with everyone who still needed help. Afterwards, some of the kids took advantage of the unusually warm day and roller bladed and biked. My oldest son did a major reorganization of the garage – he worked really hard and it looks fabulous now. He had to move at least 50% of the stuff that was in there to a different part, but now the things we don’t use much are to the side and the workbench is in the center, with lots of room to actually use it. One daughter cleaned the oven while another prepared the pizza dough for dinner. I decided to do my own major reorganizing of the kitchen cabinets. I had been planning to replace all of the kitchen cabinets, even though they look fine, because I needed more cabinet space and I can’t buy cabinets to match what we have since they are ten years old. Today I moved a bunch of things around, and have managed to use the space so efficiently that I don’t think we need to replace the cabinets any more (which is really good, since I like my kitchen as it is for the most part)! The space wasn’t efficiently organized, which is important to me, but I used my frustration about the current inefficiency to think about the space differently and find a good solution. We now have a baking center, where the mixer, bowls, flours, sugar, etc. are all in one location, so I won’t have to go back and forth anymore from one end of the kitchen to another. This is so helpful since I do a nice amount of baking. For a while this afternoon, when we were all working in the kitchen, it looked pretty disastrous, since I’ve often found that things look worse before they look better (eg, I emptied the contents of a number of cabinets onto the counter, but was then able to clean the inside of all the cabinets and reorganize). But now it looks great.

Then I took one daughter to her piano lesson, then took my son to his tutor, and after I picked him up, decided to do some quick shopping after taking care of business at the post office. I enjoyed shopping with him – I love being with all of the kids as a group, but it’s really nice when I get time with each one. We stocked up on a bunch of baking supplies, which are always good to have around here, especially with the bas mitzva for dd coming up. Fortunately while I was doing this, my older girls were on the ball and had the pizza in the oven while I was out (although I hadn’t told them to, since I hadn’t planned on shopping then) so we were able to eat dinner on time.

We haven’t made pizza for dinner for ages – I used to make tofu pizza, but then stopped using tofu when I learned about the hazards of soy. For many years I avoided dairy almost entirely, using it just once in a while. About a year ago we changed that, and for tonight’s pizza we used cheddar cheese. A couple of nights ago I discussed the new menu plan I was preparing with the kids, and we decided to have a weekly pizza night. Tonight was the first time – they loved it!!! We made 4- 9×13 pans, and it was just the six older kids eating it – and they still all wanted more!

I also spent some time researching the craft activity for my daughter’s upcoming bas mitzva. We really wanted it to be something that could be donated to charity, and got some good suggestions from a homeschooling email list I am on. One of the suggestions in particular appealed to my daughter, so tomorrow we will go shopping for all of the supplies.

After dinner, my almost 8 yo son asked if he could go with me to my Toastmaster’s meeting. Toastmasters is a public speaking organization, and I go twice a month. This son had accompanied me for the first time several weeks ago, and apparently enjoyed it because he really wanted to go again! So then we got to enjoy the night out together. He voted along with all of the adults for the best prepared speech, impromptu speech, and evaluator.

When I got home, he headed straight for bed, while I took the opportunity to chat with my mil, who had come over while I was out and stayed talking with my mom. We haven’t had a chance to talk in a while, so it was probably 11 or 11:30 before we finally said goodbye. As soon as I post this, I will be very ready for some sleep!

I’ve often found it’s not the days we go out on trips that fill me with a sense of peace at the end of the day, but rather the days that we stay home, enjoying one another and making our home a place we feel good to be.

Avivah