Painting, planning, and a patient

A few updates for Friday. I'm writing this next to a sleeping, sick 5 year old (more on that later).

Painting. Last weekend we painted O's bedroom. This is the second room of the house we've transformed from the previous yellow and red/brown colour palate, to bright white. We did the Master bedroom in late November/early December, and now have tackled a second bedroom. E's bedroom will be next, but probably not for another month or two. Because even it looks so much better, honestly, it is SO disruptive to our already busy lives! After Saturday morning sports, Al dropped the kids at his parents for the night (so grateful this is an option for us), and we moved all the furniture out of O's room and started prepping the walls. This step always takes so long, and is so boring. It was wet and humid on the weekend, with no cooling in that room, so I we were sweating almost immediately! Cleaning the walls, filling any dents or gaps, waiting for the plaster to dry, sanding the walls. Finally, the walls were ready to paint, by the time we were ready to stop for the evening! Oh well. Al visited a friend in the evening (long overdue and couldn't be cancelled), and my parents came over for takeaway Thai. It was a nice evening, but it wasn't until Sunday morning at 9am that the first coat of paint went on. Al and I painted all morning, finishing around midday. Then after a short break, back onto the second coat. Al picked up the kids mid afternoon, but I kept painting until dinner. Monday evening was the third coat on parts of the walls that needed it, plus all the edges. We were out at my parents on Tuesday evening (seeing them before they went away for a few days), so we couldn't move the furniture back into O's bedroom until Wednesday. It looks really good now, very glad we did it. But it meant a lot of other normal household tasks did not get done. So the laundry has been behind, the house is messy, the dinners haven't been as planned, as they would normally be. I've been trying to be patient with this situation, but its frustrating, and I'm looking forward to a "catch up" weekend this weekend. Oh, and one other thing, all that painting seemed to have given me some carpal tunnel syndrome symptoms, waking me up overnight with numbness, tingling and aching in my right hand. Hopefully that will resolve in a few more days.

In progress

Planning. I got a new little daily planner this week. I have an Erin Condren vertical hourly weekly planner, which runs from mid 2025 - mid 2026, which I use and find very helpful. But now we have moved into the busiest part of the year, I've been feeling like a really need a daily planner as well. I find it helpful to write out a plan every morning, and although I can do it in a blank notebook, I prefer it on a more structured page. And because I already carry around a weekly planner, I don't want a thick book, but rather a shorter term booklet. I've used EC petite planner before and loved it, but the shipping is exorbitant for a small book like that. Instead, I found the Australian Curation 90 day undated daily planner which looked perfect! It even has a little page for planning the week (not the calendar, that will stay in my EC, but general goals, tasks and routines instead). They were discounted, so I bought two! Anyway, it was a little thrill when they arrived on Monday, and I've been enjoying starting to use one this week. I haven't worked out exactly the best way to use the page yet, but definitely a nice addition to my planner stack.

Front cover of my little book

This is the example page in the front of the planner

A patient. Last night O went straight to sleep at bedtime instead of asking for a story, which was a bit unusual. Sure enough, at around midnight, he came into bed and was burning up. I gave him some Panadol, and he eventually went back to sleep, but by morning he had a high fever again (around 39-40 C). Then he started vomiting. Poor little guy. Luckily I was already planning to work from home, and only had two online meetings planned that i was able to reschedule. It's been hard to keep his fever down because of the vomiting, but the last few hours theres been no more vomiting, so he's been able to have water, juice and medicine. So relieved to feel his temperature come down and see him sleeping soundly. I've been able to do some work from the couch while he watched some TV earlier, but lets just say today has NOT been productive. Sigh. Luckily there are much fewer of these kind of days now the kids are older. I do not miss trying to juggle sick kids and work tasks in the early days of daycare.

Poor little man

So now we head into the weekend, hoping that O recovers quickly, and no one else gets sick. Looking forward to a fairly quiet weekend, with just rockclimbing in the morning, but otherwise a chance to catch up chores, rest and relax.

Did anyone have any challenges this week? Weekend plans?