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Erin Franco

8pm Shutdown…I really wrote that? :)

Humble Handmaid· Interior Life

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2012 23 May

Oh, how I laugh at myself sometimes in looking back on my old posts. Like this one.

Oh how logical and balanced and revolutionary I thought I was when I wrote this:

“Because spending 14 hours per day taking care of my home, work and family is enough.” 

Oh how much I’ve learned since then. Giving isn’t about hours. I thought I was giving so much then…and yet I feel as if I’m giving so more of myself now…another baby and a baby business have come into my life and responsibility since then. 
A peek into my life: Most nights, I’m just finishing cleaning up the house for the night at 8pm (if we successfully managed to put the kids to bed on time). 
We actually started putting the kids down at 7pm about a month or so ago. Which has been amazing. I don’t know why we had them on an 8pm bedtime for so long. They still both sleep until 6:30-7am the majority of the time, even going to bed an hour earlier. They seem perfectly happy. Michael and I are perfectly happy. An entire extra hour to work–or spend time together–at night still feels like Christmas. 🙂

Anyway, after the kitchen and living room are picked up, I’m on to things like: 
-Making the next day’s to-do list
-Scrubbing the Dr. Pepper stain out of the dining room carpet (Gabe spilled an entire cup of it on the carpet yesterday)
-Helping Michael with invoicing and estimates for CrossCutt
-Paying bills
-A shower (if I’m lucky. And determined enough.)
-Preparing deposits for a bank run the next day
-Running laundry
Sometimes I sit on the couch with Michael and watch a movie or simply hang out. But not often enough. Sort of working on that, although we could both put more heart into it. 🙂
Maybe we will spend more time hanging out though now, since Michael won’t be working 32 hours per week at NASA. His last day of work happens to be tomorrow. Oh happy day. Oh scary day…
We are at the point where we’ve discerned we really think this is what we are supposed to be doing, and we’ve set up things financially and personally to support that as best as we can, and we are offering up everything to the Lord. 
I definitely work more than 14 hours per day. I don’t go to bed at 9 o’clock. Or 10 o’clock usually. 
But I do usually get a 15-20min cat nap in every day though. 🙂 
My life is a blessing. My life is abundant. There are so many reasons I can’t complain. 

This is the day the LORD has made, let us rejoice and be glad! -Psalm 118:24

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Hi there!

I'm a south Louisiana girl, Catholic wife, writer, speaker, and mother of six. Since I started my blog way back in 2009, life has been a roller coaster of babies, plot twists and a plane crash or two. I've been chronicling things here as I've been learning to love and suffer and laugh and trust in the goodness of God in the ordinary and the extraordinary--with a little espresso and a lot of Divine Mercy. Read More…

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