Oh Monday, there you are

For Alyce, Valentine's Day is a two-day event. She doesn't have school tomorrow (the actual Valentine's Day), so today is the day of her Valentine's party and card exchange at school. And the day she dresses up in hearts and brings her new favourite princess to school. Belle was a gift from her Nana this weekend and the two are fast friends. I am exceptionally tired of sharing my house with Disney princesses, but I am awfully fond of her smiling face.

And what plans do we have for day two of Valentine's? We baked chocolate heart cookies on the weekend (which, I must confess, were a bit of a disaster. Martha's cookies never fail, but these ones, I'm afraid, just didn't work--it was like trying to roll out fudge, not cookie dough) and tomorrow we will cover them with icing and sprinkles. I'm thinking of trying out some icing paint, found here. Alyce has also declared that the house needs decorating, so I guess we have work to do. I'd also like Alyce to help me to make a nice dinner for Matt (I like to delegate), so I'll likely be asking her to help me roast a chicken. It's never too early to learn how to blend rosemary and lemon.

But today. Today is Monday! It's been too long since I've properly taken advantage of the Monday momentum and I need to fix that.  Lately I've had tough time staying positive, or even just staying focused.  I need to regroup, and what better way to regroup then with a list!

• I'm in the middle of designing the new course I'll begin teaching this summer. I'm grateful to have been given the time and money to redesign the course, but it's no easy task. When given the opportunity to start from scratch, I sometimes struggle with keeping my project small enough. I think it's part of what made me a good researcher (because I think big), but at some point decisions need to be made. So this week I want to finish putting together my course reader and complete the first few weeks of lecture notes.

• I would like to spend some time thinking about what I write here on this blog, about how I might structure things a bit differently. When I started writing here and was unsure about what would become the focus of my writing, I figured I would just start writing what came naturally and see where it takes me. Now it's been year and a half, and I'm still not sure. I don't think it's necessarily a negative, but reassessment is good. Sharing these little details from my life has become so important to me. 

• At home this week I would like to do some early spring cleaning, tiny steps at a time. As Matt suggested to me earlier this week, it's time for toy purge. We like to keep half of their toys hidden so we can bring them out later (hey look, new toys!). We brought so little with us home from Delaware and already I feel as though we are buried in toys. It's also time to go through their clothes again, because against my wishes, The Children keep growing.

• I am also trying me hand at some gluten-free cooking this week. I thinking of trying some gluten-free cranberry-orange bread.

What do you have planned for the week? Do you write Monday lists, too? Am I obsessed with lists? Probably.