The kids go back to school tomorrow. If they chose to, they could email the school today to find out which classes they were in or they could just wait and pick up their schedules in the morning.

Hannah is very excited about returning to a new semester with new electives. She emailed the school last night and found out this morning that she got into the ones that she had chosen: speech, yoga and drivers ed. I’m excited about the drivers ed because I was the one that was going to be doing the parent based course and now that’s out of my hands, except for practicing. Huge relief.

Jack, my more laid back go with the flow kid, said “eh, I want to be surprised”.

All I know is that I have been waiting for this semester to start since they began at East Texas Charter because now they both will get out at 2 pm instead of Hannah at 12:10 and Jack at 1:05. We live on the very northwest side of Longview and their school is at the very northeast side. There were days when I was driving to the school 5 times on the days that Hannah had after school activities. I was an unpaid uber driver. My day was so chopped up and I felt line all I did was drive. I ever looked into getting advertisements put on my car. Hey, at least that I’d get paid something for all the driving

When the weather was nice Hannah and I would walk the school’s trails instead of driving all the way back home.

Since they’ve had a nice long Christmas break I needed to start getting everything prepped for the week ahead. They do not have an actual lunch at school. There is a big room with tables, chairs and couches. They can order food at the snack spot, but it’s microwavable junk food. There are vending machines with snacks, coffee, juice and sodas, but since they got out early they just hung out and talked to their friends.Now they HAVE to eat breakfast and take a snack. This meant a trip to aldi to stock up. I do not like grocery shopping that’s why I do 90% of it at Aldi. It’s small and I can be in and out in a flash.

I also has to finish all the laundry. I’ll admit, I was a total laundry slacker during break. That bit me in the butt, but it’s finally all finished.

There wasn’t a lot to do, but what there was, was time consuming.

Hannah and her friends had a end of holiday dinner tonight before school and studying takes over. This meant a quick dinner for Jack, Donny and myself so we could go retrieve Hannah from her friend’s house and she’d still have time to get her things ready for in the morning.

We rarely eat out. I can count on one hand the times we’ve gone to a restaurant or gotten fast food in the last year. That has been a huge money saver and we feel better not eating fast food. I have several meals that are quick and healthy that are my go tos when time is precious.

The one I made tonight was instant pot shredded chicken, sauteed onions and peppers, homemade tortillas and grapes. I always make extra chicken that Donny can take for lunch or we can throw it in a salad or wrap.

Now it’s 10:20. 5 am is going to come really early. Let’s hope we don’t get a tardy the first day back.