Week of Money: Where we have a low key holiday week

DAY ONE

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun eying me in bed, unsure if he should “wake” me up by jumping on me (he is also not sure where I am, as the duvet is all curled up), or just wait until I am more awake. I sit up a little and hold my arms out so he knows it’s okay. He jumps into them and snuggles me.

7:21 a.m. — I make a tea and log in to start working on the blog.

7:59 a.m. — Tea done, I give myself a break to go over my budget for the new year. My new money goal for this year, is to hit a goal I set in 2030, in this year. So basically 8 years early. Crazy? Maybe. But I also told myself to aim last year in 2021, to complete a goal I set in 2024, and I did it. Why not aim for the stars?

8:20 a.m. — We head out for the morning to go sledding.

11:40 a.m. — We come back in, cold, tired and definitely I got my cardio in, going up and down that hill.

12:15 p.m. — Lunch.

1:01 p.m. — Time for a nap, and quiet time. I lie down and read my book.

2:56 p.m. — Up from his nap, we have a Stuffie celebration!!! Lots of cookies and games. Colouring, and Squishy mountain.

6:35 p.m. — Laundry time.

7:40 p.m. — He creates more levels in Think Rolls to share with other children as well.

9:45 p.m. — Time for bed, and we lie in the dark, talking. We talked about Shaun the Sheep last time, and my favourite character is Timmy but Little Bun cannot decide between Shaun or Timmy.

Spent: $0

DAY TWO

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun snuggling me.

7:11 a.m. — I get up and work on the blog while he reads his new magazines beside me.

8:42 a.m. — Done! I go to the bedroom and start putting away things, like washed sweaters, and hanging up stuff I’ve tossed in there.

8:55 a.m. — I settle in to condition more leather goods. It takes quite a while and lets me review what I have so it refreshes my memory.

9:47 a.m. — Heels. I guess I won’t be wearing these any more if at all. I will keep them anyway just in case, or at least one pair, but I guess most of these can be resold at a later date.

10:25 a.m. — Little Bun asks me in horror: Mommy, are these general Kindness suggestions in my magazine, about making cookies and toast and jam for people because I am definitely not doing this for anyone with Celiac’s disease!!!

I explain to him that yes, these are general items and if you knew someone with the disease you’d know not to use anything with gluten in it, which includes the flour the cookies are made of, not just the bread for the toast and jam. I tell him he’d have to use gluten-free bread and items.

11:25 a.m. — Time for lunch.

12:59 p.m. — Down for his nap.

2:53 p.m. — After his nap, we hang out in the bedroom and watch a movie together. We need a low key activity because my head hurts.

5:22 p.m. — I review my budget for 2022 and decide it is good.

5:22 p.m. — I have such a terrible headache right now. It isn’t covid for sure, I have no other symptoms, it is related to the snowfall we just go (barometric pressure drops make me very sick), and that I am cutting back on caffeine, hence the withdrawal symptoms.

5:40 p.m. — I am lying down in bed while Little Bun and I play together. We read magazines and questions, discuss them — like “do you think teachers should wear uniforms to school, if the kids are? why or why not?”…

9:41 p.m. — Time for bed. Early bedtime. My head is splitting.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

??:?? — I wake up to a throbbing headache. It snowed a lot last night, and I am sensitive to that, and the caffeine withdrawal. The funny thing is I need to have JUST enough caffeine, not more or less, or else my brain starts getting terrible headaches.

7:00 a.m. — I drink a huge glass of water to help. Maybe it is also dehydration from sweating at night.

7:09 a.m. — Logging in to the blog, I start organizing and doing what I am supposed to do. THEN I will make a cup of tea. I am currently struggling with a personal decision right now and haven’t talked about it with anyone, keeping it quiet. I don’t know what I am going to do yet, but something has to change as I am not where I want to be.

9:25 a.m. — I make a tea and go through, deleting things off my Downloads and Desktop. It’s such a mess! But an organized one, in the sense that I know where to go.

9:25 a.m. — I go and lie down in the bedroom to read. I can at least read and not have a terrible headache pounding at my skull. I pop a Tylenol as well.

12:05 p.m. — Lunch.

1:08 p.m. — Down for his nap.

1:09 p.m. — I am taking a break. I wanted to condition some leather items but my head still hurts.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap.

3:40 p.m. — He is watching Shaun the Sheep while I am lying down in bed, reading.

5:27 p.m. — I get up for dinner and then I do dishes and he wipes all the cutlery.

5:27 p.m. — I am lying in bed again, as we play together. The Stuffies are coming to Squishy Mountain, and we are having a great time.

9:51 p.m. — Time for bed. We lie in bed and chat, we grab a question and talk about it every night now. He chose to say: “Housing is not a basic right“, and I challenged him on it. I talked about various situations, showed both sides, and asked him what he thought in both scenarios, and explained how it isn’t always black and white. Nobody chooses to have a hard life, per se. We have to be considerate and think about our own privileges and start in life, before judging others who have not had the same opportunities or continued love and help. But yes, sometimes people do have to take ownership of what they’ve done.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up tired. My headache has finally passed, I have been eating Tylenol like candy.

7:10 a.m. — I log in and start blogging again.

7:29 a.m. — I am browsing on the internet and Little Bun wants to click on things, so I let him and direct him where to go. He loves (still) being a little child sitting on my lap and helping me do things. It’s so cute.

8:08 a.m. — Little Bun asks: “Mommy, today or the next time we have noodles, can I help you?“.. I reply that he can, and he beams.

8:12 p.m. — We head out sledding. We end up meeting a family who is also out early, and turns out they, like us, are being super careful and not being out when there are a lot of kids. Basically, they’re trying to stay away from people in general, like we are.

10:45 a.m. — Back home after sledding.

11:22 a.m. — Lunch.

12:03 p.m. — He plays in the bedroom beside me – we read books together while he hangs out and the Stuffies go to Squishy Mountain.

1:02 p.m. — Nap time.

2:56 p.m. — Up from his nap, we bounces out of the bedroom – “HI MOMMY! WHAT SHALL WE DO TOGETHER?”

3:10 p.m. — Paper organization apparently. I go through my papers and sort through things. Now that it’s the new year, I have to wait until March-ish to file taxes.

4:56 p.m. — All that done, we play in the bedroom.

5:30 p.m. — Dinner, dishes, laundry.

8:59 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

??:?? — I wake up with barely any headache with Little Bun laying on top of me and snuggling into “Squishy Mountain” (the duvet). It usually takes a while for these caffeine withdrawal (or excess) headaches to disappear as long as I keep the caffeine intake low for the new few days, and then go back to normal. My problem is when I am scooping the green tea matcha into the bowl, I don’t have a set scoop or amount, so I end up scooping some random pile which could be more or less than what I have been typically having.

6:34 a.m. — He and I both get up, start the morning routine, and I log in to blog.

7:09 a.m. — Still struggling with my personal issue, on and off I think about it. I think it is weighing on my mind and kind of exhausting me to the point where I just lay in bed and feel tired from it all. This can’t go on like this for my mental health, so I am going to have to decide something by the end of the week.

8:47 a.m. — We head into the bedroom, and start finishing the conditioning on the other items. Little Bun just sits there and watches me, then plays on the iPad.

12:20 p.m. — Lunch!

1:04 p.m. — Down for his nap.

2:58 p.m. — Up from his nap.

3:25 p.m. — I am lying in bed, reading until dinner time. My brain is tired. Little Bun is watching Shaun the Sheep.

4:47 p.m. — Bored, Little Bun comes in and reads magazines beside me until it’s dinner time. He starts asking me questions and I come up with a game to create the silliest combinations possible for a cookie. He comes up with: Kiwi, Zucchini and Paprika! … I say Watermelon, Tomato, Marshmallows! …. All disgusting bites.

5:49 p.m. — Dinner, dishes, cutlery. Then laundry. We also vacuum the house.

9:56 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun snuggling me in bed. He’s so heavy now. He curls up into my Mommy Nook and I take a deep smell.

??:?? — Little Bun’s question: “Can you guess a way to make yourself invisible? The only way is to block photons from bouncing on you, so you have to put on a metal suit that reflects photons so that they don’t go into people’s eyes. The worst thing about that is that everyone else is invisible, but you can’t see anyone or anything. So if you get injured you wouldn’t be able to be seen so the doctor can’t help you!”

6:59 a.m. — Little Bun plays the Starbucks for Life game. He enjoys collecting the little characters and reading about them, like Basil the Mouse or Jingle the Bunny or Puppermint Chip.

7:15 a.m. — I continue working on the blog. Little Bun starts working on his pages. He finished Grade 3 last year, so now we are starting Grade 3 to 4. I plan on quizzing him on previous Grade 2 and 3 subjects in total, to make sure he understands and retains the information, before jumping farther ahead.

8:25 a.m. — I finally stop and have a tea, then log in to my bank accounts to clean up my transactions and check on things. Little Bun rereads some of his older pages of work he has done to review, and I give him a geography quiz on Canada to fill in.

Little Bun: Why am I getting this again?!?

Me: Because I am making sure you really know it.

Little Bun: But I won’t forget it if it stays in my long-term memory.

Me: I know, but I am testing that it is there! Sometimes you can learn something and then forget it a month later. I am checking to see that you retained it.

9:57 a.m. — I head into the bedroom to lie down and read. I am trying to make the most of my time off by not thinking about ‘work’ per se. It is very hard, as I like to get things done.

10:55 a.m. — Early lunch.

1:05 p.m. — Time for his nap.

3:41 p.m. — Up from his nap. He slept in this time because he must have just been super tired.

3:58 p.m. — I end up dozing off, myself, cocooned underneath a duvet. Little Bun is in the living room watching Shaun the Sheep.

4:40 p.m. — I wake up suddenly, feeling not at all groggy but refreshed and a bit tired. I could keep sleeping but I force myself to get up. This was the perfect nap!

5:28 p.m. — Time for dinner.

9:25 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up feeling pretty rested actually. That short little nap yesterday I had, must have really helped me. I feel great.

7:00 a.m. — Little Bun starts on his homework, and I log in to start blogging. I am deciding not to log into work until 8 a.m. so that I can get some blogging done and have the rest of the day to myself, so to speak. I wish I had some curriculum sheets from the local school so I could follow along with the program or at least benchmark myself. I wonder why they don’t offer this to homeschooling parents in the area, as a helpful bundle of “hey here are some things the teachers do in their classes“.

7:59 a.m. — I log in to work and start reviewing emails / having short follow-up calls.

12:33 p.m. — Lunch in front of the computer – the first day back is rough.

1:05 p.m. — Time for his nap. I am on calls all day.

3:01 p.m. — Up from his nap. No sleeping in today.

4:20 p.m. — I log off for the day.

5:38 p.m. — Time for dinner.

6:05 p.m. — Little Bun – Let’s have a Stuffie Celebration!!! Games, food and toys! We end up having Stuffie Adventures, Candy Treasure Hunt on Squishy Mountain, lots of cookies for everyone, and hanging out.

9:45 p.m. — Time for bed.

Spent: $0

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