Oh, that Trish. She comes up with the neatest stuff. The other day she invited us to document a typical day and then to share them all on March 27. I joked with her that she’d fall asleep if she read about mine so jab jab, don’t fall asleep! Okay? Ready?
Wednesday, March 25, 2015
4:20 – I wake. Shower. Get dressed. My in real life friends are so glad that I shower!
4:30-4:45 – Go downstairs. Pop a piece of toast in the toaster. Turn on the morning news. Do make-up while listening. As you can see from the time used, my routine is minimal at best. A quick swipe of lipstick and some eye shadow and I am good to go. Unless I wake up looking dead, then I use some BB Blur cream. Today, the cream got used.
4:45-4:50 – The Otter Pup staggers down for her morning treat which happens to be a sweet potato stick from Trader Joe’s. After her treat, I give her snuggles and then tuck her into her downstairs bed. Pink blanket and all. She is a crazy little sleep head in this pic!
4:50-5:00 – Fix hair. This consists of some styling cream, a brush, safety goggles to prevent a repeat of the eye stabbing that took place several weeks ago and hair spray.
5:00-5:05 – Prepare breakfast for The Girl. Today, it’s a bowl of cereal. Sometimes it’s toast with PB. Breakfast MUST be ready when I wake her up because the Otter Pup and I do not like loud slamming and screaming in the morning. Also, toss some food into my lunch box to eat later. Today, it’s an egg salad sandwich made the night before.
5:05 – Run upstairs to get The Girl up. She groans. I toss stuff into the laundry basket. I then return and tell her that breakfast is on the table. She groans. The Otter Pup comes up to get her moving. Today it’s loud barking. Some days, it’s a nip to the butt. I run back downstairs.
5:10-5:15 – Get my bag ready for work. Grab toast that I forgot about. Make an iced coffee. Blowing kisses at The Girl, who is still half asleep but eating, I run out the door. Her brother is still asleep but The Hub and Pup take it from here. Run back to write out check to the gardener. Almost forgot. Also leave a note for The Teen to remember his SAT workbook for class tonight.
5:15-5:55 – Jump in the car. Turn on radio. Drive, drive, drive 25 miles to campus. At this hour, the traffic is not bad. Pull into favorite parking spot. Make the short walk to my building, seen below. I work in the basement (garden level but there is no garden) of the library. No windows down there.
6:00 – The Girl calls me. Wants to know what time I am picking her up. The same time as always, 4:50 p.m. She says, “Okay” and then tells me what the pup is doing. I tell her to have a good day. I ask her if her brother is up. She says “sort of” and then I tell her I love her and to have a good day and remind her to do her homework at daycare. She groans at me. I say goodbye.
6:05-6:45 – Say “hi” to custodian in the hallway. She doesn’t speak any English but always smiles really big. I really have to go to the ladies room but she just mopped so I skip it. Arrive at office. I keep the door locked because weirdos hang out on campus in the wee morning hours. Make tea. Pull Kindle out. Get comfy in shameless reading spot. Read a little. Check phone a little.
6:45-7:15 – Check work email. Update some webpages. Glance at Facebook to see what the heck has gone on since the night before. Spend a few minutes in Feedly catching up on blogs. Check and answer personal emails.
7:15-9:00 – More work stuff. Emails. I can’t seem to get through them. One has to do with troubleshooting an issue but the person doesn’t give me any info to go on. Freshen up tea. Search for content for some news articles I need to draft.
9:00-9:20 – Run to next building to attend a change management meeting. This is where everyone decides what services will be maintained and when, to not cause problems with multiple outages going on at the same time.
9:25-10:00 – Answer more emails. Write-up some survey answers for a web discovery project. Pop a cup of tea into the microwave.
10:05-12:00 – Grab tea. Head to training lab to assist co-worker with a training session on our web content management system. While there, answer work emails, write-up outage notification, draft some news items, check personal email. Help participants with class exercises. Answer questions.
12:05-1:10 – Return to office to grab lunch. Head back to empty lab to catch Breaking Bad on Netflix. I am on Season 4, episode 10. Of course, one this posts I will be done with season four.
1:15-2:00 – Answer more web discovery survey questions. Not sure how to answer these. Review webpages for old content and broken links. Contact appropriate areas for any outages taking place this weekend. Publish news items sent to me by the student.
2:00-3:10 – Pull some images for a design project I am working on. It’s for an event in May but probably needs to be done soon for marketing purposes.
3:15-3:30 – Took a break. Contacted junior high about choir auditions for The Girl and then chatted it up with another blogger in chat.
3:30-4:00 – Attempting to troubleshoot an issue that really doesn’t belong to me but no one seems to be helping her so I shall. It would help if I had the access to actually look something up.
4:00-4:55 – Leave work. Cannot leave fast enough. Head to car. Turn on radio. Drive home. Traffic is okay. Not too bad. I take this road over a mountain to avoid the freeway, which is packed at this time. As you can see, others have the same idea.
4:55-5:05 – Pick up The Girl at daycare/school. Ask her if she has her sweater, homework, etc. She gets upset because she made “food craft” which is a pretzel and it’s not done cooking so we wait for the damn pretzel.
5:05 – Head home, which is just down the street.
5:10-5:15 – Arrive home. Call out for The Teen. Forgot he is at his SAT prep class. Get The Girl to unpack her backpack. Make her a snack before track practice (fruit, cheese, crackers & pretzel). Open mail, get bags ready for the next day. Dinner?
5:15 – Hub calls and says he is stuck at work with Time Warner and an internet issue. Can I take The Girl to track practice? I guess. I wander around kitchen and throw a tuna casserole together with the meager items found in the pantry. Pop in the oven to cook.
5:45 – I take The Girl to track practice. Come home. The Teen calls me and wants to know who is picking him up at 7. I was JUST there. Geesh! Told him that hopefully his dad will.
6:15 – Dinner is a mess. Gluten free pasta does not bake up well in the oven. Tossed it into the trash as I cannot salvage it. No dinner and the entire house smells fishy. Grilled cheese?
6:30 – Throw a load of laundry in. Open mail. Hub calls and says he is finally on his way home. I tell him to pick up The Teen.
7:20-7:50 – Go to high school/track to wait for The Girl’s practice to be over. Chat with another mom.
7:50 – Get The Girl. She wants jelly beans. They hand out jelly beans after practice so I wait for her and then drive her home. I do a lot of waiting around, don’t I? Take laundry out and throw it into dryer.
8:05-8:30 – Late dinner. Kids eat cereal and waffles. Hub comes home.
8:30-9:00 – Get The Girl to shower and put her stuff out for tomorrow. Tuck her in. We say goodnight which the Otter Pup “helps” with, knee nip included.
9:00-9:45 – Watch a little TV. Too tired to stay up long. I introduce The Teen to season one, episode one of The Walking Dead. He watches the show with me now but has never seen episode one. Imagine! During he show, I fold the laundry.
9:45-10:15 – Go upstairs and get ready for bed. Read for about fifteen minutes. My current night-time read is In Defense of Food by Michael Pollan. Sometimes I will read a little of the Bible from an app but my eyes are bugging me so I skip this. The Otter Pup jumps on my back and falls asleep.
10:20 – The Hub comes up and makes a bunch of noise which of course wakes the pup up.
10:20-10:45 – I prattle on about the day, what’s coming up this week, etc. Hub is already out and yet I am wide awake. I probably fall asleep somewhere about 11:20.
Thoughts:
Kind of exhausting, isn’t it? And this day didn’t even include play rehearsal which is usually squeezed in between practice and dinner. Since The Girl didn’t get a big part, she doesn’t have as many Wednesday night rehearsals and since The Teen had SAT prep, he didn’t go to rehearsal either.
I realized after I wrote this up that I never had dinner that night.
Documenting all of this was really hard to do. I find that a lot of the time I am on auto-pilot with all the kid stuff but putting it in writing really makes me wonder how I make it through the week. Most of my days have more stuff going on and then the weekends are not used for rest, which is a problem for me.
I suppose I should use this as a reason to change things up but there really isn’t much I can change with the kids being where they are right now. They’ve given up activities too and yet, the day is still full.
I have to ponder this some more as the process of documenting it all has left me a tad depressed. No time for fun carved out in any of this. I am just a bucket full of sadness today!
Have you ever documented an entire day?
Book Chatter 
Give me a moment while I take a deep breath here. I always knew you did a lot in a day but seeing it here gives it volume. I now wish I did this too, but my day is very uneventful in comparison – no kids, just a high-maintenance dog, so I have bigger blocks of time during which I am doing the same thing. Kudos to you! It sure is amazing how when you start tracking your day, you see all these pockets of time that you watch to make more productive. With my little one coming, I better get ready for things to change drastically over here as well.
I don’t want to glorify busy because I hate busy but putting this all out there makes me a little sick. My life. Ugh. I mean it’s good, I have great kids, hub, good job but I don’t get to spend much time with the fam do I?
Up at 4 something..bedtime close to 11 with no nap or dinner?! Bless you my child.
I’ll take your blessing. Thank you. I don’t sleep all that well either. I do try to make it up on the weekend but this weekend we have an all day track meet so it won’t happen on Saturday.
That was exhausting. But I was exhausted for you from the beginning – 4:20am wakeup! I got up at 7am today. Lol.
I’ve experimented with wake-up times. I can get up a little later but it doesn’t help me. If I leave just 30 min later for work, I am stuff in traffic for over an hour not going anywhere. So I have to get up and over the hill by a certain time or I’m toast.
I’m tired just reading about it.
No kidding. It just about did me in to write it up.
You’re amazing, Ti. Be careful you don’t burn out!
Who am I kidding? I am totally burned out. I need a break. I think I look okay most of the time but by the end of the week, like today, I am really counting the minutes.
Hmmm…well, it’s a lot. But, you have a long commute to work and you do make a priority to have your “secret” reading before work. That probably keep you sane. Honestly, your kids are at the place – the one where there is just so, so much. I remember that time and I only had one. Truly exhausting. This too shall pass, eventually. It will. I like hearing that you take yourself away at your lunch, before work, and a bit at the end of the day. Hang onto those times. 🙂
Yes! I do try to keep my lunch, my own. I get roped into meetings once in a great while but typically, I will block out my lunch on my work calendar so no one invites me to any. Most of the time it works.
How do you live?!?! 4 a.m.?! Sorry, I saw that and had to comment. Oh my goodness. But I guess you’re also building yourself in down time. Reading in the morning and then a little break at lunch. I don’t really have any of that until I get home. But still! And Otter Pup is too cute. Mine is a huge sleepyhead too, so I totally get tucking her back in. 🙂
And on the weekends that I don’t get to rest, like tomorrow’s all day track meet, I just about fall apart come Monday. I need a nap. Seriously. It does catch up with me.
Duuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuude, how do you function on so little sleep?! I need a nap after reading this!
Woah! Your workday sure starts early! I am amazed by your day!
I really should do this for myself. Your schedule is crazy. I get up early but not that early. I remember when I worked it was like this and at the time my kids were little and not in extracurricular activities. And now I guess it hasn’t gotten less busy except that I’m busy doing home stuff, and not trying to squeeze that into nights and weekends. All I will say is that once they start driving, it gets so much easier. Before my daughter got her license, I spent at least 4 hours in the car.
I did end up depressing myself a little writing up this post but the flip side, is that I now know that I MUST carve in family time on the weekend. Must. We have family days but not every week and yes, I will be at an all day track meet tomorrow with 3/4 of the fam, but that’s not the same thing.
THAT is an early day. I think I’d be comatose most of the time.
Who says I’m not? LOL.
That sounds exhausting but I know what you mean about not being able to change things with the kids. My older ones are driving which has made my schedule more manageable which almost makes up for all the extra worry! I think getting up that early would make me cry though!
Exhausting day, but on the other hand, you are truly amazing getting through it all like that – and every day, too! Soon enough The Teen will be driving himself and possibly even dropping off or picking up The Girl and you’ll have more time and it will be so awesome. Until then, I’m taking deep breaths with you.
Yes, he will be driving by May. He has until that long to finish his last lesson.
I don’t want to make you sad.but wow…that was exhausting…it’s probably easier when you are just doing it because you don’t really think about it…and it seems that you get just a little more free time at work…or at least you can stop moving for a bit. I don’t have children so when I taught and was at home…I could really do whatever I wanted which was mostly not moving!
The comments don’t make me sad. I know it’s exhausting and ridiculous in many ways but it’s my life at the moment. The Teen has one more year of high school and he is insistent on moving out for college so I know things will changeat some point but now The Girl is getting more active. Wanting to be in middle school choir, etc.
Unbelievable….That commute sounds terrible and you really don’t get enough sleep!
I try to think back when I was a single parent of 2 teens and worked fulltime, I guess I was that busy, but those years went by in a blur.
That’s it exactly. A blur. You put yourself on auto pilot to get through it. And you were a single parent. Must have been so much harder for you. I can’t even imagine because The Hub does a lot too.
I get the early wakeup call for the long commute, because I do the same thing–but your day starts earlier, ends later, and is way more packed than mine usually is. Thanks for some perspective…and try to get in some rest this weekend! 😀
I have no idea how you last until 10:20pm never mind actually falling asleep at 11:20. I would be dead at work if i did that, and we wake up at the same hour.
I am good until around this time (2 ish) and I go downhill from there.
I remember days like that when my kids were home. It probably doesn’t help for me to say this, but it went really fast. Now I have lots of time to myself and I miss them.
Oh, I know it. I am dreading, DREADING when The Teen ups and leaves me. I don’t mind the kid stuff. I don’t even mind the waiting around because I’ll read or whatever. I just mind the lack of sleep but that’s my issue. I can’t seem to shut it all down soon enough. Brain goes into overdrive.
It’s amazing how much you get done in a day, and yet when you are in the middle of it, I’m sure it doesn’t quite register how impossible it might seem to someone on the outside. I realized as I re-read mine just how little time I spend with my husband. I mean, I knoew we didn’t spend much time together–but we really don’t see each other much, especially not without Mouse. I see so little of her during the week too . . Makes me sad to think about. 😦
I know. My hub is in there somewhere but usually he is leaving and I am coming home. Two ships passing in the night.
I hate that this left you a bucket of sadness!! It’s hard when there are so many activities and your kiddos get up so early! When I was younger I went to seminary at 6 am (does the Teen do this?) but I would come back home and fall asleep for a few minutes before I had to go to school. I dread when my kids are involved in activities–I really cherish our “quiet” evenings at home.
I wonder if journaling would help your mind from going into overdrive? Although…that’s just one more thing, too!
The Teen wants to do seminary but I leave at 5:10 or so and my hub leaves at 6:30 or so so he’d need a right to get there by 6am.
::knock:knock:: Is this thing on? I do not look forward to the days where things get more busy. I’m hoping for at least a couple years of gold where they are less needy than now, but the crazy hasn’t started. Wishful thinking? I can see glimpses of it, but Lauren is just flat incapable of playing alone without needing our running commentary. The boys can.
Just wait till all three of them are in sports. Whoopie doo. You will have fun! And yay! You can comment.
Definitely exhausting! I found In Defense of Food helpful, but not exactly a way of life that makes time management easier.
You and Michelle need more sleep. That is all.
Not “that is all” as in that solves everything, but “that is all” as in that’s all I got to say about that (Forrest Gump style).
Damn and I was feeling sorry for myself because I get up at 5! My husband is pushing me to read In Defense of Food right now.
Yours is the most interesting Day In The Life I’ve read so far. Most of us just joke about the busy and the blur and the tiredness… like some of the other commenters this make me very scared for when my kids are older and in a bunch of activities!
I’m with Jill. Somehow you need to get more sleep, even if it’s only an hour more. On the positive side, I’m glad you’re here on your blog and truly feel honored that you take the time to comment on my blog when you do. You don’t really have the time, and I will do better to make the time to comment on yours.
I do try to make up on sleep once the weekends hit but with track meets going on, the sleep has to happen late afternoon or it doesn’t happen at all. I could maybe take a nap at work but that would cut into my TV/reading time. I just need to get more. I agree.
Don’t want to sound like a broken record, but yeah, that’s a long commute! You need a driver so you can have a nap. If I had a fairy godmother, I’d send you one.
A driver! That would be the life. I’d take the train is it wasn’t so expensive and dropped off close to my work.
Whew! That is a long, long day. I don’t know if I’d be functioning that well at 5 a.m. But I think it’s great you get some time with your kids during the day, even if a lot of is it between rides, and I hope there’s time for yourself too. Thanks for sharing your day!
That is a good point. I do spend a lot of time with them in the car. Some of our best conversations are had in the car.
uh WOW! are you super woman? Hearing you say this is not even the worst day of the week probably made me tired!
Oh my, just reading about the pace of your day is exhausting. 😀 Terrific post! I am glad you’re introducing your teen to The Walking Dead.
I can’t believe you get up so early AND are able to stay awake past 10pm!! Also…the back and forth…how I can relate and I know it will only get worse as my kids get older (only 10 & 6). We have just started watching Breaking Bad, just started Season 2 last night so a ways to go yet but enjoying it so far.
We live at the top of a steep hill so although the high school is just at the bottom of the hill, it’s not easy for a kid to walk up with a full backpack in this heat. I told them the other day that a shuttle back and forth would be great.
Whew…you get so much into the day! And I thought *I* got up early (5:45 most days)…
I’ve never documented my day — I found out about Trish’s event too late to take part, and I’ve never really thought to do it before. Right now, things are pretty laid back, but I’ve had periods when they’ve been crazier. I like that you added a few notes reflecting on the day overall, though I’m sorry the project left you feeling sad! I hope you figure out some time for fun for yourself 🙂
P.S. My husband just got into Breaking Bad. He seems totally hooked 🙂
I never thought I’d like Breaking Bad because I have no interest in the drug dealing plot, but man… what a show! Probably one of the best ones I’ve ever seen.
I just cannot believe you wake up at 4:20 am!!
Great post! As I am reading these I am seeing how we all have these crazy busy lives – how do we blog at all? LOL. I laughed when you said damn pretzel, I remember those days all too well.
Oh, girl! {{{{hugs}}}} I know how difficult it is and still your post exhausted me. Please make sure you schedule in another break or three or take a day off each month to get some me time. You definitely deserve it!
I think most of the time I can handle these days of mine but since November I just seem to be hit with weird stuff that throws me off my game. This weekend I re injured my eye which is why my commenting is down. Oh, and also due to WP including my personal email header in all comments. I sure wish they’d fix it. I have to manually correct each comment.
HUGS! and yay for little assistant Otter Pup! she cracks me up. Soak it up, I think you are doing great. I just responded to your question about my latest post and wondering if I should send you an email but nah, not that important to interrupt you for! ha (Did you get any mail from me?)
Dear god, woman, do seriously get that little sleep every night?? It’s amazing how much we do when you really stop and think about every single thing, isn’t it, especially when there are kids in school.