My Day - Wishing for a Maid

I stated in an earlier post how I have been watching episodes of the BBC series Downton Abbey.  In the series they have valets, lady's maids, butlers, scullery maids, cooks, a housekeeper, maids to clean, chauffers, footmen and perhaps a few more servants.  The whole time I was doing my "chores" today I kept wondering what it would be like to sit around and read while someone else does everything.  Then I found myself wishing that a maid would show up to help me. 

I did several loads of laundry.  The loads consisted of my husband's dress shirts and pants, my son's dress shirts and pants (for work), polo shirts, whites, darks, towels, cold wash, warm wash, drying on low and drying on medium.  It took most of the day to wash the loads, hang things up immediately from the dryer and to fold everything. 

There is something about folding laundry that I don't mind.  I usually do this at the dining room table and watch the piles of neatly folded laundry collect during the day.  Then I put them on the beds and warn everyone when they come in the door that their clean clothes must be put away. 

While doing the laundry I cleaned up the mess I left in my kitchen last night.  We provided hot dogs and baked beans for our youth group last night.  Others provided the buns, chips and dessert.  I volunteered for the hot dogs and baked beans as I am the only one of the volunteers that doesn't work outside of the home so I knew it would be easier for me to do the hot food.  The Oscar Meyer hot dogs were bought last fall on sale and after using a coupon, they cost me anywhere from 25 cents to 50 cents a package.

I bought 2 large institutional sized cans of Bush's baked beans as they have the brown sugar and bacon already in them.  I put the beans in two crockpots and then I skillet fried the hot dogs (70 of them) til browned and put them in another crockpot.  It was easy and it was also the last time I will have to do this as my son graduates from high school this year.

For supper tonight we had oven barbecued chicken with my homemade barbecue sauce.  I posted the recipe for the sauce here.   I served cornbread and leftover baked beans with this humble meal.  It was very filling and good.  For dessert we had homemade oatmeal cookies.

There were other things that I accomplished today but I felt like I was spinning my wheels a lot.  The reason is that last night I stayed up too late and didn't make up a plan for today.  I have been doing this recently.  I have an 8 1/2 by 11 wire  bound weekly calendar that I have been using this year to keep myself organized.  On Sunday evenings I write down what I want to accomplish each day of the week and then I review the list each evening to update or make changes. 

It is something as simple as having a plan that has helped me to get more done in my day than I ever have gotten done before.  So in a few minutes I will get that calendar out and make sure I have a plan for tomorrow.  It's funny but I never needed to plan so much when I worked full time.  Now that I am home I have to plan my day or time gets away from me and I won't get anything done.