ponderings

I had a little extra time in the shower today, so I was doing a bit of thinking. I know... scary! But I have a few random ponderings to share with you and then I want a little reader feedback, okay? Okay. So I was showering.

First thought...
Oh to shower by myself!
We had a few errands that needed to be done this morning and Ryan offered to take the kids himself and leave me alone in the house.
A huge list of things I could get done with an hour to myself around here immediately started forming in my head... so much more and actually productive housework gets done when the kids are not underfoot and undoing whatever I'm trying to do. My floors need to be cleaned, there is plenty of laundry to do today, I should have put a pot roast in for dinner, and of course the house was already strewn with toys at 9AM when they left.
But what did I decide to do with my precious alone time?
Shower.

It was just heaven standing there under the warm water. And knowing that I could just stand there. For as long as I wanted. I didn't have to be hurrying or listening for kids screaming and having to discern whether it was fighting screaming or someone hurt screaming. I didn't have to poke my head out of the shower curtain four times during a five minute shower to answer pointless questions or respond to tattling. Both the kids are just getting old enough to leave alone and "watch out for each other" (those are very big quotation marks) for just a few minutes, so I've been able to squeeze a quick shower in once in awhile without being too worried about Sawyer tearing the house apart or killing himself. Normally I just take my showers at night before bed so I can have that little time to myself and not worry about the kids. But then I'm thinking about how late it is and how I should be in bed already and I still have to dry my hair and so on and so on. At that point it's just kind of one more thing I have to get done.
But today.
I just stood there and let the water wash over me. I took my time washing and shaving and just standing there. Ahhhhh....
And then I took my time getting dressed, doing my hair and getting ready for the day. So nice. Thanks honey!

So moms, tell me... do you get good shower time in your house? How do you do it? Do you hurry while the kids are otherwise entertained? Do you sneak it in during a nap? Do you actually get up earlier than they so you can get up and ready for the day like a normal person?

Second...
I was reading awhile ago Leslie's cousin Kristin's blog and she just had Lasik surgery done on her eyes. I poured over all the details; I am so interested in hearing people's stories and experiences regarding that procedure as I am so wanting to look into that myself.
Anyway, Kristin was writing about all the differences in seeing vs. not seeing without your glasses or contacts in and how life changing it is. She mentioned a bunch of little random things, one of which being able to see the writing on her shampoo and conditioner bottle in the shower. I was thinking about that in the shower today. Now I RARELY am contact-less. I am so, so blind it's ridiculous. And my glasses are so old and scratched up that I don't like to wear them for long, so you will hardly ever see them on me. Mostly I just keep them by my bed for JIC in the middle of the night. But, I cannot stand to not be able to see anything, so I shower with my contacts, swim with my contacts, and pretty much everything else I guess I can think of. And yes, I've lost a contact or two (I wear extended wear disposables) in the lake, but it's worth being able to see. Being able to see 'till I lose one that is.
So, as Kristin pointed out, some people don't do that. I know many people who always take their contacts out before jumping in the pool or wear glasses for a whole camping trip. If you have bad eyesight, when do you go lenseless? (Is that a word? ) How bad is your eyesight... do you have to have your nose to the mirror to put make-up on? Do you go through your shower in a blur or do you put them in as soon as your eyes are open?

Third...
As I was taking my own sweet time in the shower, I of course thought about all the more productive things I could be doing with that "time off". Aside from the housework, next on my list of leisure activities would be scrapbooking. I am so incredibly behind where I want to be in that department. I actually have not gotten anything of value done with our albums since we moved here. That is going on a year, people. It's pretty sad.
I have all this stuff in my head, but I am so lazy about getting photos printed and actually making the time to sit down and do it. But I do spend a fair amount of time planning my scrapbooking... putting layouts together in my head and finding a great picture here and there that I can't wait to do a page on. But I really want to get caught up in order. And then that gets me thinking about when I finally get Sawyer's first year book done. Then what? I've been pondering this for awhile and I wonder how other scrappers do it. With more that one kid... do you keep doing books of each individual child, or do you put them together in family albums? I mean, there are so many layouts I still think of doing for pictures of each of the kids, but there are plenty of great ones of the kids together too. So if I keep a running album of the individual, would I want to do a double of the "together" pages for both of their books? Or just do an individual book for their first year or so, and then just have kids or family albums in general for everything together? How do you/are you planning on scrapbooking or keeping albums for more than one child?


And lastly...
This Game is so freaking ADDICTING!
Did you play with this that I posted the other day? Well, that is just silly and a mere blip on the timewaster meter compared to this one.
This is a full on quiz that I CANNOT FINISH. Oh, but I will. The Barczaks came over last night (Nicole brought over her new laptop to try out her newfound portability) and at one point we had three computers going, all of us trying to get further and further in this little "intelligence quiz". It's one of those brainteaser type logic or stupid logic things. I think Nicole and I spent close to two hours on it. Yes, we're pathetic. But I just cannot give up. So close!

Oh, and I just "got" another one today Nic... you know the clock?
Stop... Hammer Time. HAHA!