Week of Money: Where I finally finish the decade-long art project I have been working on!

Newest YouTube Video (drops every Thursday!) – My YSL Arty Ring collection…

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up very very tired. It isn’t even light out. I wonder if it’s midnight.

5:45 a.m. — No, just not 6:30. Little Bun gets milk, and then comes out smiling and happy, telling me about how he and Daddy built a Stuffie Town out of blocks, and how the Stuffies have their own grocery store, car park and statue to commemorate the town.

He also comes up with this game where a blue block named … “Block”… goes and attacks the grocery stores to eat everything, mess things up, break windows and the Stuffies have to help fix everything.

Not sure where this storyline came from, but he was very eager in coming up with strategies and ways Block would eat all the spinach, potatoes, squash, raspberries, lettuce and beets, and how he had no belly so he ate EVERYTHING in the store and ran away burping.

6:15 a.m. — I make a cup of tea, and then we play again in the grocery store / town setup again with Block ruining things.

8:08 a.m. — My partner starts on pizza for the day.

8:15 a.m. — I leave for my appointment and discover some of my issues with my headaches and nausea is the fact that I have eczema INSIDE my ears. It’s building up and causing an imbalance, my ears are not draining properly and it’s all throwing me off like with major motion sickness. She also suggested I eat more iron (spinach, organ meats like liver or red meat), and sleep more, as my fatigue and stress during this time isn’t helping and she encouraged a more varied diet.

9:22 a.m. — Back home, I shower, and then do laundry.

10:18 a.m. — I work on the homeschooling plan for Little Bun, and tell him he has to do a few worksheets a day, AT LEAST. I need some proof for his schooling if they ask.

11:25 a.m. — We have pizza together, and then I snuggle Little Bun as he struggles with a new game called The Last Campfire. The puzzles are too hard for him right now because he has never done Role Playing Games (RPG) before and I think he will enjoy it when he is older.

1:00 p.m. — I take a break and instead of going to the balcony, I make a cup of tea, and work on finishing my travel folio of my year around the world with my partner, and I plan on displaying some of it in my closet, or at least keeping it as something. I just need to finally finish it. A DECADE LATER!

3:00 p.m. — Little Bun raps on the door and squeals: “YEAHH!! YAY!!!!”… as he is given milk by my partner. He certainly didn’t nap. I can tell by how he rapped on the door exactly at 3 p.m. and he also slept a lot yesterday. Plus, the neighbours upstairs are cutting tile or something, because they’re making SUCH A RACKET. I am getting a headache, honestly.

6:34 p.m. — I finish all the dishes, and do two loads of laundry.

6:46 p.m. — Little Bun starts on his workbook sheets, he has to do at least 2 a day, during a weekday.

6:59 p.m. — Clapback on a troll:

7:26 p.m. — OMG. It is like pulling TEETH with this child. He’s wandering off, he’s lying on the floor, he’s watching other things, telling me he’s distracted….  In the time he has taken to do all of this, he could have finished 5 pages and more.

7:40 p.m. — My partner looks at me, and tells me: He has the iPad for hours but can’t do some worksheets? …… and I look back and I say: Exactly. This is going to end now. Little Bun realizes he has overplayed his hand, and starts to squeal with crocodile (fake) tears, to which I am immune to by now. I can tell when it’s real or fake crying. I bring him to the bedroom after he does the rest of the sheets, and tell him: New rule. No iPad until you do at least 2 worksheets, and if you want more iPad time, you do another worksheet to build up goodwill. He’s silent but not angry. Which means he finds it fair / understands.

7:48 p.m. — He asks for the iPad after doing his two pages. I gently but firmly tell him “No“. He gives me a puppy-dog eyed look. I tell him “No” again. He then brings me into the bedroom, and asks if he can play in my closet. I agree.

7:54 p.m. — In the closet, he comes up with games, re-arranges this scarf I have put and hides “treasures” inside. I can’t leave him alone in there, so I lie down on the bed and watch him as he plas.

8:20 p.m. — I remember the laundry and we put it away, then we heat up a bag and I try to hold it against the back of my ears to drain the fluid. I also heat up my back which has been twinging.

9:15 p.m. — Time for bed. I’m tired. I also complain on the way to bed that the food has been subpar, and my partner is surprised. I tell him it tastes like boiled vegetables (which it is because the sauce has long dried up and has not remained on the vegetables) and I am going to need an extra sauce or something because I can’t choke it down any more. I need to speak up more about what I am eating, as he honestly didn’t know it wasn’t as tasty (he doesn’t eat it, he has a fruit diet to help his joints), and he will make a few changes so that it’s (for me) more delicious, seeing as I will be stuck with it for a while.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up and make a cup of tea, with Little Bun saying in his baby voice: “Mommmmmmmmyyyyyyyyyyyyy!!!”…..

??:?? — I feel rested. And I didn’t pop a cold pill last night, which means my cold is going away?

7:03 a.m. — I give him a choice: Math workbook now? Or when Daddy wakes up?  He tells me he is ready to do math workbook NOW, and I start him on a Grade 3/4 workbook page, and then he can do an ‘easy’ one afterwards from Grade One, as proof to show to the Ministry he is in Grade One at home.

8:00 a.m. — LIKE PULLING TEETH. It has been a FULL HOUR and he has only done THREE equations. We have 12 in total. At this rate, we won’t be done until lunchtime.

8:08 a.m. — He hears his father and like a bolt, is on him for some breakfast. I don’t do breakfast in the mornings unless he requests it, I have somewhat successfully passed it off on my partner to handle every morning.

8:29 a.m. — Back to math. I’m determined.

8:54 a.m. — He finished ONE question. I am getting frustrated but just trying to leave it. It sucks up time. And I can do my banking in the background.

9:41 a.m. — I finally bite the bullet (the shipping is crazy), and buy these travel notebooks from The Lust List because I love the prints so much. I plan on using them as props in my closet, as I love the prints of the cities so much. $53 

10:04 a.m. — He FINALLY FINISHES THE BOOK. He wants to only do easy math questions not the hard ones that challenge him and help him, and I lecture him on how it will help him work out puzzles and logic better if he had a stronger base in math.  I also tell him challenges are fun because once you figure it out, you think: I CRUSHED THAT QUESTION. And you feel good about your abilities. He’s silent and ponders this.

10:11 a.m. — We go into the bedroom and play Two Dots, and then he plays in the closet.

11:56 a.m. — After some white currant bread (I approve of this version), Little Bun comes and whines that the game Patterned is too difficult because it has too many puzzle pieces. I stare at him incredulously: It is meant for ages 4 and up. You’re telling me it has too many pieces for a 6-year old? ….. he’s quiet and then he starts working on the puzzle. He’s developing a truly lazy streak that we are going to have to monitor and keep an eye on. I do not and will not tolerate this attitude of “it is difficult therefore I don’t want to do it if I am not going to be perfect at it“. He needs to learn to have a curious, growing interest in practicing and not being perfect because perfection is boring.

1:05 p.m. — He goes down for his nap and I have a lunch. Omelette and fries. TOTAL comfort food.

1:28 p.m. — On the balcony with my tea (oh I love these luxury teas now), and I finish off Louise Penny’s – A Better Man before realizing it is Book 15 of 16. Shoot. I still managed to read it as a standalone, and it was boring for the first third, but the last 2 thirds of the book gripped me.

3:08 p.m. — Little Bun wakes up and slams the balcony door in anger that I have not come back inside from the balcony. I come inside and scold him, surprised at how rude he is to slam the door to let me know he had woken up. He could have just called out to me!! I was so engrossed in my book, I didn’t check the time.

3:25 p.m. — I work on my art project that has been in the works and languished for a decade, while my partner attends ‘ school ‘ online. Little Bun hands me colours and helps me keep them grouped and organized.

4:55 p.m. — We play in the closet.

6:24 p.m. — Time for dinner.

7:25 p.m. — I DO NOT understand this trend of turning books backwards to show a “clean” white set of pages rather than the binding that tells you the actual book. I am sure it looks nice, neat and clean, as is wrapping books in paper so they all look white and uniform but.. DO THESE PEOPLE READ!?.. How can you tell what book it is!? It’s not just decor for me, it’s real reading material and this is a minimalist FAIL for me.

8:30 p.m. — Time for bedtime routine, and we read a few books, a few pages of the elements book. He then asks to play in the closet and he comes up with his own games with a few broken pieces of plastic, ear plugs and empty boxes.

Spent: $53

DAY THREE

??:?? — Little Bun rolls on top of me, a bit grumpily and asks for milk. It’s so dark, I wonder if it’s 5 a.m. again.

4:02 a.m. — I get up to go check the clock and see it’s 4 a.m. I go back in and tell him it’s too early, and he has to go back to sleep because it’s too early. Would he like some water instead? I bring the water bottle over.

Little Bun: That won’t refresh me! *harrumph*

Me: Too bad, take a sip, go back to sleep

(I am not repeating this habit when he was a baby and he would wake up in the middle of the night and ask for milk. I have finally gotten out of that horrific cycle and plan on sleeping mostly solidly from now on.)

Little Bun: *sips* …. NOPE. Didn’t refresh me.

Me: Sleep.

8:00 a.m. — He keeps sleeping and slept until EIGHT. WOW. Well, guess he needed it. He wakes up in a much happier mood, and then I cuddle him, and he says: “Mommmmmmyyyyyyyy” in a soft baby voice. I whisper back: “Baaaaabyyyyyyyy“… and I grab his milk. Everyone gets up.

9:06 a.m. — I make a tea while Little Bun reminds his father that he has french fries ready to fry today (his father laughed and said “Yes I know”), and I get him started on his workbook sheets. He will do 1.5 pages of Grade One math today (takes him about 3.5 minutes to do 20 questions), and then we will flip to his favourite section, the harder math that’s Grade 2 and Grade 3 with geometry and so on. He prefers shapes or things that are more interesting at this point, because he finds the baby math boring.

9:22 a.m. — He finally starts on another section. I mean.. half an hour each section is ridiculous as it only takes him 3 minutes to finish 20 questions.

9:45 a.m. — We play in the closet, then play together on the bed, doing apps together.

11:15 a.m. — We have lunch, then I do dishes, and wipe them all down.

12:57 p.m. — I head out to the balcony after making a cup of tea (loving this fancy tea, it’s making such a difference to drink GOOD tea now). I am WRAPPED in 4 layers of cashmere because we are high up and in the shadows, so it is C-O-L-D.

3:00 p.m. — I come back in ‘early’ and realize Little Bun is already awake and sucking down milk. I hear him in the bedroom making baby noises.

3:40 p.m. — I finish my book (I was engrossed and desperately needed to know the ending), and was slightly let down by the ending. I can’t win them all I guess. Seems very unfinished. And needlessly cruel, and stupid as a fictional plot.

3:41 p.m. —  I do all the dishes (the rest of them), and let them dry, then go through my list of To Do items while Little Bun is preoccupied with a new logic app called Winding Worlds. He tells me: I want to try Winding Worlds again. It’s difficult but I want to challenge myself and then maybe figure it out, and say I CRUSHED IT! … Whatever works. I am hoping to show him that challenging himself, and making mistakes is FUN because no one is tracking him or trying to compare him to any kind of benchmark. He doesn’t have to be in a higher grade all the time, we can downgrade back to Grade 2 stuff if he finds it still a bit tricky. NO ONE IS CHECKING.

4:25 p.m. — I feed Little Bun his dinner, and listen to my stomach – may not need any… I don’t feel very hungry.

6:00 p.m. — Okay, I make a little dish of noodles, but then regret it. I feel too full now. I should have not eaten.

7:14 p.m. — We get ready for bed by playing a bit together, reading books, and then he starts his bedtime routine while I do the dishes.

9:20 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up with Little Bun snuggling into my side.

6:00 a.m. — He sits down and does his two pages of math.

7:40 p.m. — When I go to check, he gets one answer wrong (he tried to go too fast to finish the pages so he could get to the iPad) and when I show him he made a mistake somewhere, he panics and throws a temper tantrum meltdown. I am tired, but I tell him I am just TELLING HIM he got it wrong and he has to read a question more carefully rather than rushing, and I revoke the iPad for the day. He throws a major temper tantrum and it escalates to him crying and screaming in the bedroom.

8:04 a.m. — I leave him in the bedroom with my partner to parent him and calm him down because I am too angry to look at him. I call my friend and we chat, while I am lecturing Little Bun (basically), after he has had his breakfast and smoothie, and calmed down a bit. I tell him it is OKAY to make mistakes and it is OKAY to get it wrong because that is HOW YOU LEARN. Practice makes perfect. Literally. And no one is perfect, and it is okay to make mistakes.

If he always wants a full page of green checkmarks, and I tell him to get there, he has to read the question CAREFULLY and think about it instead of just circling what he thinks is best. For the second question he gets wrong, I realize he was half right, the question was ambiguous and should have given the answer more clearly. I mark it as right, there are certainly eight 10s in the number in the tens place.

9:33 a.m. — Call over with my friend, he did two extra pages of math and regained the iPad for a part of the morning.

11:15 a.m. — He has banana bread (actual bread with bananas, as my partner put a lot less sugar, and no butter) and then I have a meal:

1:08 p.m. — He goes down for his nap and I work on my little art project, making my way into London for the page. I should be done by the end of October at the very latest, and I will be pleased to display it to my mother who will be very excited to see this art piece.

1:24 p.m. — I had to forego my cup of tea for the afternoon because we are running out of milk and my partner is going to get milk and errands tomorrow, and I saved just enough for a cup of tea tomorrow, not my regular matcha latte (I need a cup of milk for that), but enough for a splash of milk in a morning tea so that I don’t end up annoyed for the morning. I need A cup of tea. ANY cup of tea.

3:15 p.m. — Wow, time flew. Little Bun is up, having milk, and I tried to take the last 15 minutes of his nap to read this fascinating fiction on a woman discovering an old apartment in Paris – A Paris Apartment. It’s truly an excellent read, gripping and interesting.

4:56 p.m. — I make a quick dinner for myself after feeding Little Bun.

5:03 p.m. — I go right back to my book, I NEED TO FINISH IT.

6:55 p.m. — I devoured the rest of the book while Little Bun is out on the balcony playing with his father. It was a good book, a little light on the ending (I could have done with a bit more information), but it was a good, solid ending.

6:59 p.m. —  Dishes have been neglected, so I start on them.

7:34 p.m. — My partner tells me in class he has a fellow student from China who writes in a perfect French (almost 99% accurate, to get better you’d need to be a native French speaker) but the professor made him speak in French to prove his fluency. Subtle racism at its best.

No one can prove this is what he meant to do, but why would he ask him to speak it (and NO ONE ELSE IN THE ZOOM CLASS?) instead of continuing to write the questions in French in the chat like everyone else? There was zero ambiguity in what he asked, it was clear, well articulated… and they asked him to repeat the question in French in-person.

My partner suspects they thought he had copied and pasted the question or has been submitting too-perfect essays as his French was too perfect for being a native from China (I know right…). My partner, recognized the subtle racism immediately and was very pleased on his behalf when the student, had an almost perfect French accent and spoke it perfectly without any mistakes. He was so proud.

Even if someone would say: Oh no.. that’s not what it was meant to be….. (all excuses).. it certainly didn’t make sense he would be the only one asked to repeat it on-screen out of the entire class as a test, rather than to continue typing just because his name is so Chinese and not French or Anglo.

7:00 p.m. — Little Bun ‘attends’ virtual school in France. They put all of their learning classes online and my partner is now committed to having him do half an hour a week at least, if not more, and to be ‘taught’ by a teacher, in addition to him teaching and me as well. Little Bun can’t do a whole 8-hour day with us, he would be fine in school but right now we are doing short bursts.

8:45 p.m. — I start planning my next tea purchase as we get ready for bed, and do our routine.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — Little Bun is upside down in the bed and kicks me in the face. Lightly, not like a horse, and I cry out.

6:30 a.m. — I wake up, and make a cup of Earl Grey instead of matcha as I don’t have enough milk. I save enough milk to make a second cup mid-morning if need be.

7:25 a.m. — He starts on his math and I whisper that we will do painting today IF he does his math first. He gets excited and I side eye him.

7:32 a.m. — I pull the trigger and buy a few more teas. I’ve decided to stick mostly to Mariage Frères teas because the other ones I suspect aren’t as good based on reviews and what others have told me, and once I find Holy Grail items, why try other ones and be possibly disappointed? The bill comes out to $208.79

7:46 a.m. — I picked up the following:

• Wedding Impérial – caramel and chocolate notes, heard a lot about this one
• Christmas Cake – just the description of vanilla alone makes me happy as I love vanilla teas
• Covent Garden Morning – hazelnut notes, another one of my favourite flavours in teas
• Fauchon Macaron – this is the only deviation because it says MACARON. I must try it.

I very nearly splurge on $140 USD for two teas from Newby that have the most beautiful tins designed by Matthew Williamson but then pull myself together and ask myself I want to waste that money just to have two tea TINS….!?!?

I still haven’t ruled it out, honestly, as the tins are truly beautiful… but I don’t have any more money left in the budget for them.

7:55 a.m. — Little Bun will now be renamed to Little Procrastinator. Now I have a thing where I just give him a look, he stares back at me, and then he sits down and does his math equation properly. He gets very distracted as I am working on the computer because he is reading in my Week of Money Posts what I am writing about him, the Little Curious Bum. Maybe having him reading so well, and so early on isn’t a boon after all!?

9:12 a.m. — In the bedroom, we play in the closet, then we play with Two Dots (we win this pretty badge!!!) while my partner is in school (Zoom). Then we go through all of my paints and my items for jewellery and try to figure out what I’d like to do.

11:30 a.m. — My partner finally finishes school, and I am still in the bedroom playing with Little Bun.

12:00 p.m. — I have a quick lunch with Little Bun.

1:25 p.m. — He is down for his nap, but chit-chatting like a little chipmunk to his father in the bedroom because he clearly doesn’t want to nap.

2:05 p.m. — My partner goes out to run errands and Little Bun comes out to go to the bathroom. I ask him if he would like to spend time painting now, with me on the counter instead of finishing his nap. He looks at me, and shakes his head: No, I’d like to try and have some quiet nap time to myself for another hour please... I am surprised at how obedient he is to stick to his ‘nap’ schedule because I can tell by the light underneath he is playing alone with the curtains and the window, but I leave him and start setting up the counter to do a little jewellery and painting project.

2:15 p.m. — I cut out two large plastic bags and tape them together to make a painting plastic sheet, so we don’t dirty the counters.

3:05 p.m. — After milk, he runs out and says: WOW!! ..with big eyes. He’s very excited to get painting, and I let him have paintbrushes, any colour he wants, and he just starts furiously brushing on a piece of paper, mixing colours and creating new ones, while I work on creating my jewellery. I haven’t decided exactly what I want to do because I’m still trying to figure out what would look nice.

3:11 p.m. — I decide on this configuration and to do teals and blues coming from the bottom. I plan it out and will superglue the items afterwards (this is not the final product):

3:15 p.m. — I tape it all down so it won’t move:

3:37 p.m. — Then finish painting the mix of colours I want:

I let it dry on the paper after I clean up the paint in between the jump rings so it isn’t as gloopy.

3:50 p.m. — This is what is leftover on the paper afterwards, very artistic!

4:01 p.m. — I try to upcycle a silk shirt I ruined with some gold, but I hate the results…

4:17 p.m. — Little Bun painting:

He starts with blue:

 

Then he started mixing a TON of colours:

And he made up a story with what he drew and painted about footprints secretly going over the paper, disappearing off the page. It’s quite creative!

4:40 p.m. — I am so inspired by his mix of paints, I will do this purple, lavender, teal and dark inky blue colour way for my next necklace:

5:16 p.m. — I cue him to clean up, we scrub the acrylic paint off his hands and arms, and I set to work cleaning up while he plays in the bedroom.

6:40 p.m. — My partner home, we are still in the bedroom, and I open the closet to let him create a new game where he makes his Stuffies do certain clues to start the boat, and gives hints/suggestions like in this app he was playing recently.

7:30 p.m. — I eat again. I feel too hungry, I was going to skip dinner but I didn’t eat enough for lunch I suppose. I make a super fast pasta with a bit of sesame seed oil (my favourite), a pinch of salt and cheese:

8:11 p.m. — Little Bun attends ‘online school’ with his father, and they do the exercises with the teacher together for about half an hour.

8:50 p.m. — A package for my mother shows as delivered but I guess someone stole the package off their doorstep… of Monet’s book of recipes  and a bias tape cutter. It is already three days ‘late’, and I see the delivered package photo they took… but seriously? People steal packages ALL THE TIME, why didn’t they ring the doorbell? My whole family was at home the entire time. Now I have to see what we can do.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up refreshed. Little Bun REALLY slept in.

7:32 a.m. — After milk, I warn him there was no milk this week, so he will get another bottle tomorrow but then nothing else for the rest of the week until my partner goes out again.

8:11 a.m. — I make myself a matcha and drink it slowly, savouring each sip. It’s the only thing that gets me through the start of the day while I start my Amazon Chat with customer service to see what happened.

9:29 a.m. — My parents are looking through their door cam now, and seeing who stole the package.

9:40 a.m. — I also find this really funny..

My partner says “recipe” is the worst word for him because it should be “reh-ceep” not the way it is actually said. He just memorized it as-is.

10:15 a.m. — I play with Little Bun in the bedroom and hang out.

10:33 a.m. — I colour in more pages of my travel art notebook, and organize my things.

12:05 p.m. — I log in to check out Adina Mills’ new jewellery drops and cannot bring myself to spend $270 USD on a single necklace, so I pass and as I refresh, the necklace is gone (sold already). They’re nice though, but I think I’ll just take my chances with them secondhand. This is the one I was looking at. Her jewellery usually sells out within half an hour of posting…..  I think if it was any other stone but labradorite (which I own a lot of), I would have considered it. I pat myself on the back for saving money. LOL

12:28 p.m. — I have lunch – quinoa, beets, chicken. I mention the beets are horribly tasteless and mushy, and he promises to cook them less next time.

3:05 p.m. — After my break, I come back inside, do all the dishes, and clean up a little. We start vacuuming the entire house, or rather I do it because with him, it goes three times as long (he wants to hold the button and push the vacuum with me helping), and I just want to get it done.

4:16 p.m. — I go and lie down, my back is hurting, I am nauseous. This eczema inside my ear is really throwing off my sense of balance and there’s nothing I can do.

4:22 p.m. — I have a terrible canker sore that has been building for the past few days, and I ask Little Bun to look at it for me. NEVER IN A MILLION YEARS would I have expected him to PUT HIS FINGER ON IT because once he did, I screamed like he slapped me (it was VERY painful), and started crying from the pain. It was like he put a finger right on an open wound.

5:20 p.m. — I grab the laundry and ask him to start folding the towels. He starts on the EXCUSES instead of doing them, saying “I will be EXTRA HUNGRY afterwards if I fold them and will need energy“, and I get frustrated at him, and snap back: If you don’t want to fold it, don’t fold it but don’t give me excuses about not doing the job. Enough. I will REMEMBER THIS, Little Bun, the next time you ask me to do something, how you don’t want to do a household chore that is YOUR JOB.

I know I sound rude to a 6-year old, but sometimes he needs to be told off because I find I give him a lot of leeway and compensate / accommodate him, but it isn’t helping him. We are going to see with the next batch of towels what he does. If he doesn’t fold them without complaint, as this is his new Big Little Bun job in the family, I will revoke iPad privileges.

5:45 p.m. — We hang out in the second bedroom while I check on my necklace and add the beads and drusy stone. He’s playing with my bead box, using them like little balls to roll around the lid. I added gold beads to the side, and the blue drusy in the middle. The other necklace I am starting on, is a white drusy and I will paint the bottoms just like Little Bun’s paint inspiration with lavender, white, dark purple, indigo and teal. I haven’t decided if I will do it in the same gradient colours, or something different, maybe a wild kind of mix like the paint is dripping all over.

P.S. As I was typing this paragraph, Little Bun beside me says: “You mean INSPIRATION not INSPO.”.. because I had written “inspo” and he was offended I did not type out the entire word, and made me correct it.

7:30 p.m. — My partner starts on dinner, and gives me a massive steak because the doctor suggested red meat for me. I eat it but feel the kind of oily residue on my lips which I don’t love. It was a welcome change, but I feel like I just enjoy salt more than the meat itself, and I would have been just as happy with chicken. I do feel a bit better however from the extra iron, I suspect.

8:00 p.m. — I finish all the dishes and let them dry (my partner already did the other half like the cutting board, etc).

8:12 p.m. — We build a huge maze together out of blocks. When I say “we’ I mean I did it, with prodding and hassling him to bring me blocks.

8:37 p.m. — I grab the Grade 3/4 Summer Book and quiz him on spelling the words. He gets 83 out of 100, which is pretty solid. He struggled on longer words like Important and so on, I suppose he can read it, but he never had to spell it before, so he didn’t. Now I am sure he will see the word more often and remember how to spell it by looking at it in groupings as I did as a child – IM – POR – TANT.

8:49 p.m. — Then I make a decision to salt that canker sore. I know it sounds painful and weird, but I’d rather suffer through 5 minutes of excruciating pain (I can feel it radiate throughout my body until the dopamine kicks in), than 5 or 14 more days of this canker sore slowly healing itself, causing me pain all day long. I wet my finger, put some salt on it, go to the bathroom so I can see better in the mirror, then PRESS the salt deep into the wound and hold it there until the pain (mostly) disappears from the dopamine.

8:50 p.m. — I brush my teeth, and then we read a book together, he brushes his teeth with his father and we get ready for bed. I take a night time cold pill, I can feel my throat getting raw. He conks out almost immediately.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I pop another cold pill for daytime now after I get up, grab his milk, and make tea.

7:40 a.m. — My ears feel clogged like they can’t pop. I might need to use a warm compress against the backs to try and drain the water and open up my ears so they CAN drain….

8:27 a.m. — I go through my blog tasks for the day – Answer emails, delete emails, check messages, respond to people, check comments, respond there, remove Spam, update the Week of Money Post. This sucks up at least an hour if not longer.

1:13 p.m. — Lunch was great – omelette and fries, my favourite. Little Bun goes down for his nap

1:15 p.m. — I am on the balcony, reading my book, with a cup of tea, stuffing my face with a week-old brownie I forgot in my bag.

3:22 p.m. — I do the dishes. Then laundry. I go on and finish the entire art project that has sat in my care for over a decade, colouring in all the cities, the pictures, listing the cities and trips at the back. Now I have to figure out what to do for the back of this folio. Maybe special life events?

4:40 p.m. — I take a nice long shower after feeding Little Bun, and then go and lie down to read my book. When I am engrossed, I cannot do anything else.

6:12 p.m. — I do even more of the dishes.

7:47 p.m. — I finish watching more episodes of Grace and Frankie while I go through my list of things to get done.

9:15 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

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Want more? Read all of my previous Week of Money Diaries.