This week

Sort of in survival mode here. I caught a cold over the weekend as we were heading into Andrei's most intense 2 weeks of the semester. Oops! We need to keep HIM healthy, too! I think I would rather be sick than have David and/or Andrei be sick.

So I've been laying low, but I guess if I feel like blogging I must be on the rebound.

Last week we had a stream of guests every other day, and today we would have too if I hadn't cancelled. But what seemed like a recipe for a nervous breakdown (in terms of lots of entertaining) didn't turn out too badly. Apparently keeping one's home clean is EASIER when you have more guests. I wonder why that is? More discipline? Less time to mess it up? Kind of reminds me of Fly Lady and working towards always being ready for company. Lately (when the sniffles don't get me down) I have been operating on the principle of "DO IT NOW." In general I do triage with housework and that means that a lot of seemingly insignificant tasks pile up because I don't see them as being worth my time. I'm still bad about the dishes, but returning things to their places or putting things in the trash right away does reduce the work later on.

I also feel calmer when other people do the cooking, or at least contribute. I'd love to be able to do it all myself, but then I turn into a monster. On one of the occasions I opted to make a salad and have storebought dessert. My tastebuds may have missed out, but the stress of trying to pull a dessert together in addition to everything else would have had consequences, not to mention I would have neglected David.

Meanwhile, it's Lent...but we're not fasting. Andrei and I "joked" (though not to make light of the Resurrection) that fasting would actually be pretty practical during Holy Week due to the vigor of the scheduling. He doesn't have time to eat breakfast before work, and by the time he's home from church in the evening we don't get to eat dinner until around 11pm. And then it's time to prepare for the next day's lectures/sermons/etc. And of course I think of the Passover too and the unleavened bread and the traveling clothes...readiness.