what 8 hours of me-time looks like

Mike gifted me with an entire day all to myself yesterday, leaving me with the one responsibility of dropping Natalie off at daycare in the morning. We knew we'd have a credited day of daycare this week, and had originally thought it might make sense to use it on Thursday, when he and I will both be home and could use the time to cook, clean, and pack for Christmas. Sweet husband that he is, Mikey offered instead to switch the day to yesterday, so that I could have 8 uninterrupted hours to do whatever I wanted.

Aahhhhhh, 8 solid hours. I truly cannot remember the last time I had that much time to play with. I quickly made what I thought was a modest list of about 18 things I wanted to get done during that time. Um, I apparently overestimated just how much time I actually had to work with. I did manage to have a great balance of productivity and pure laziness, despite only getting through a handful of things on my list (the list included: bath, scrapbooking, nap, housecleaning, present wrapping, packing, and more).

Here's a look at what occupied my time:

A lot of eating. We had cupboards and fridge full, which led to lots of All Dressed Up chip consumption (with sour cream, obvs) & the mysterious disappearance of an entire Hershey's almond milk-chocolate bar.

Repaying Mike's gift by making him a present to come home to: Chex mix! His favorite.


After cleaning the downstairs rooms of our house (while I did do a fair amount of scrubbing and dusting and laundering, mostly I just moved piles of stuff from downstairs up to our bedroom), I rewarded myself with a low-cal juice (to counteract the aforementioned gluttony) and a trashy magazine by the tree.

Tackling the various piles of Natalie's clothes that needed to be sorted into Put Away, Pack for Christmas, Pack for Florida, Donate, and Save for Posterity categories. I even managed to get part of her Florida suitcase packed and made lengthy lists of stuff not to forget for both Christmas and our trip to Florida.

The clothes-sorting then degenerated into just planning adorable outfits for our Florida vacation, like this one. I decided to set out an outfit for every day, with accessories, and then pack each outift all folded and rolled up together. This may have been a pointless extra packing step, but I'm hoping it will make getting her dressed every day a lot easier once we're there. I hate realizing that I forgot a certain pair of shoes, or searching through neatly folded piles to try to find the shirt that I wanted to wear with a certain skirt or pair of pants.


In all, I would call it a pretty amazing pre-Christmas day. I still have tons to do before the weekend, but yesterday was just what I needed to get organized, clear-headed, and rested for all of the holiday madness that begins in the next couple of days.

Of course, seeing Mikey and Natalie come through the door in the evening was definitely the highlight of the whole day--having time to myself is marvelous not only because it's good for my mental health, but it's also a reminder of just how much I miss my family when they are not with me.