A Case of the Mondays

Are we on vacation? Or is this real life? Perhaps we’re somewhere in the middle?

After a fun February weekend experiencing small town Texas at the Rosenberg Train Museum, buying riding boots for me, having the most amazing beef brisket smoked for us (thank you, Tio and Tia!), campfires, fishing, playing with cousins and new and old friends, attending a horse show at our local stable (where we happen to be taking authentic Texas horseback riding lessons thank you very much), and watching kids compete in Western Trail competitions, we were pooped. Here is a mini-collage of our weekend:

Weekend in Review

And so, on that note, we began our Monday.

I will spare you the details, but it was not seamless, needless to say. A chilly, drizzly (or just 100% humidity?) morning got us all off to the expected start. (For myself, I took a solitary and grounding walk in the fog and enjoyed the fresh air before making myself a delightful cup of french press coffee in our well appointed outdoor kitchen. I at least know how to start a day right!) Refusals to get out of bed, then into clothing, much less to put on their proverbial education pants, made our morning less than delightful. The kids didn’t want to go outside in the “weather,” so we spent the morning tripping all over each other and generally being cranky (I am included in this). Our morning culminated in refusals to eat our thrown-together lunch of bologna sandwiches (I never thought I’d feed my kids bologna, but they were recently introduced to it and love it — unless you buy the wrong kind and they refuse to eat it… sigh…) and really reached its zenith when one of my three delightful offspring was 5 minutes from not getting his - er, their - work done to attend said horseback riding lessons and the screaming began.

We overcame. Our riding lessons were delightful as we learned to tightly circle barrels and trot. We stopped at home after the stables and picked up Aaron to head to the local Walmart (As an aside, I hate Walmart. I am embarrassed to be writing that that was our destination, but there it is.) for a few RV items. Among a few other things, we came home with a new bike for Hope, cowboy boots for the girls, books for the kids (this deserves a whole post, but I’ll whet your appetite — I miss our Rochester Hills Public library! — and I am more sure now that technology, even book apps, cannot take the place of print books… especially for our children) and a combination air fryer/oven for our outdoor kitchen (I am more excited about this than I should be).

Real life. Homeschooling woes. But we got to wear cowboy boots and ride horses around barrels. We still have our cases of the Mondays, because for us, this is real life. I just happens to be in Texas right now.

Our Current Homestead.