The Weekly Ramble – January 11, 2025

Oh the days are just packed, aren’t they? Let’s talk keeping house and keeping up, and just where is all the time going?

I don’t know about you, but I feel like there just aren’t enough hours in the day — to do the bare minimum. I have lamented this for awhile. Why can’t I get done all the things that I did when the kids were little?

I had a bit of a breakthrough this morning when I said the same to Bryan…. I had help.

When the kids were little, from the very earliest days, I had help from them. As soon as they were big enough to make a mess, I had them clean up the mess. I had someone to unload the dishwasher as soon as the oldest was 4 years old!

Now that most of the kids are gone during the day or busy working/studying when they are home, there are fewer men on deck. There are still 7 mouths to feed, but fewer hands to do the work.

I don’t think that’s all the issue… I’m probably more tired and more distracted by my phone, but that realization was helpful.

In other news, I ate a few frogs this week.

For some reason the local community college counts a homeschooler as a non-resident. Therefore, FishChick16 would be charged out of state/international student tuition.

I had to jump many hoops this week to get that paperwork cleared. Now, we have homeschooler paperwork to clear since, of course, they couldn’t do them both at the same time. Oy.

One frog eaten and one more added to the pile, but it’s still progress, right?

I also tackled the radiology bill. I got a physical statement in the mail and logged into the insurance to find the EOB. Turns out the radiology lab billed Medicare instead of our insurance. I may be old, but I’m not on Medicare yet!

That’s $443 to keep in my pocket, thank you very much.

If you haven’t noticed the theme, most of my frogs actually have to do with money. Interesting!

I finished three more books this week which brings my 2025 total to FOUR BOOKS READ! That’s pretty cool.

You Who? Why You Matter & How to Deal with It by Rachel Jankovic – I started this last year on audio and finished it driving back from Los Angeles on Sunday. It was really convicting and inspiring and entertaining. I love the What Have You Podcast, so hearing the audio book was a little of the same.

Generally speaking, the book is an analysis of who we are in Christ compared to what the world would have us believe. Over and over again, Rachel points you back to Christ, using a variety of situations as examples.

I ended up buying a used paperback copy of the book so that I can reference it going forward.

The Summer of Yes by Courtney Walsh – I love this author’s humor and creativity. In this book and her previous, The Happy Life of Isadora Bentley, the romance is a subplot to a bigger life issue. In this book the issue of a woman choosing her career over her family.

After last year’s journey of leaning back into my homemaker life, I felt the book was a good reminder in that vein. Not that we can’t have careers, but that family comes first.

Ploductivity: A Practical Theology of Work by Douglas Wilson – This is another book I had started last year when I had a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I “reread” it on audio this last week since it’s actually pretty short.

Some of my take-aways:

• The abundant technology we have is a type of wealth and while the Bible doesn’t say much about technology, it certainly says something about wealth. We are called to turn a profit on our wealth. I found this particularly convicting in how I use the internet and social media.
• We were made for good works. While good works are often defined as “benevolent works”, it’s also good work, in and of itself, like doing the tasks at hand well. I have plenty of those to do!
• Little minutes add up. The book was actually written in little minutes, 15-minute increments over the course of several months. How much of that margin am I letting slip through the cracks? Ergo… all that stuff that I thought I don’t have time to do back in paragraph 1 of this ramble? Maybe there’s another way to approach it!

I’ll be updating my To Be Read 2025 post with these tidbits so that you can find my mini reviews, but you can shop the list too.

I’ve got ELEVEN other books started, so I’m going to try to get those finished by Valentine’s Day. Ambitious? We’ll see. I’m really enjoying the three I’m focusing on this week: Keeping House, The Hobbit (reread), and How Then Shall We Worship.

As for the actual doing of good work…. I try to spend a few hours Monday on laundry and deeper cleaning projects. After fiddling to get the extra lint out of the dryer with a chopstick and a fly swatter (yes, really), I asked Bryan to find me some better tools.

He ordered me this kit with all the adapters. I will report back later this month what I think of it.

I tackled all the Amazon returns as well as paying bills and doing the banking.

I also put the finishing touches on a new meal plan, Good Cheap Eats Meatless Meals. It’s free to members of the Good Cheap Eats Club this month.

I’m sure I did more things than just this, but nothing really jumps out at me.