A (Fairly) Typical Day

Every once in a while, my friend Amanda writes a "Day in the Life" post on her blog. And every time she does, I comment that I should try it one of these days. I love reading hers and those of all the other bloggers who post them.  

My struggle has been feeling like I don't really have typical days. There's a lot of variety in what I do day-by-day and I didn't want to select a day that wasn't representative of my real life. But when I thought about it, my day-to-day now in November 2013 is literally 100% different than it was in November 2003, for example. Years from now, it will be interesting to see what my life was like right now, so I decided to just pick a day and not worry about the things that might be somewhat atypical.   

Thursday, November 7, 2013

5:10 - I woke up at 5:10, which is pretty normal for me. Steve got up before me today. With all the traveling he's been doing to Akron, he's decided to stay on Eastern time after getting home from our Florida vacation until after his next business trip. The first thing I did was go downstairs to let Trouble out of his cage and to feed him. Then I headed back upstairs to answer emails, check Facebook, and do a little bit of work for Fun Family Crafts.

6:00 - I showered and got dressed (long-sleeved shirt and jeans) and headed back to the computer to read blogs. Many are for pleasure, but others are for my Fun Family Crafts job. I comment on some blogs, Pin some images to Pinterest for possible submission to Fun Family Crafts, and just scan through the vast majority.

7:00 - If Trevor isn't awake by 7:00 on a school day, I wake him. It's about 50/50 whether he wakes up on his own. Today I had to wake him. I'd seen an adorable rabbit video on my favorite rabbit blog earlier, so I showed it to him. I made his breakfast while he got ready for school. Today he had peanut butter toast and orange juice. While he ate, I packed his lunch (a cheese stick, raisins, pretzels, and some pistachios, plus a fun-size Milky Way from Halloween). After he ate and brushed his teeth, we had a few minutes to play together before we left for school.

7:40 - Time to take Trevor to school. His school is about 1.3 hilly miles from our house. While we technically could walk (it's too hilly for him to bike or use his scooter), instead we drive a little over halfway to the flat area and walk the rest of the way. School starts at 7:55. Once I see that his teacher has arrived to pick up the line of kids, I walk back to the car. If I have errands to run (groceries, Target, etc) I'll do those, but I took care of all that yesterday. Today I headed back home.

8:05 -  The moment I arrived home and put my purse down in the kitchen, Trouble started dancing around, as he has trained me that 8:00 is time for a morning treat. I gave him his favorite, a piece of broccoli.  

Then I made my own breakfast. Today I tried Blackberry Hills for the first time. I was hoping it would be an acceptable substitute for my beloved (and apparently discontinued) Strawberry Fields. Sadly, it was not.  

 

8:15 - I headed back upstairs. I answered a few final emails, scanned a few more blogs, wrote a blog post, and then got down to work. My main goal for the morning was to edit the last chunk of product description rewrites for my job with Scrapbook.com (which I started in September and have not blogged about yet).  

11:40 - I took a few minutes to update my journal about Trevor. Every day, I write anywhere from one sentence to multiple paragraphs about his day, new accomplishments or challenges, illnesses or symptoms, or anything else notable. It is now a 235-page document. It is amazingly awesome to look back on for scrapbook journaling, or if there's a medical concern, or to simply read and reminisce about his younger years.

11:55 - I went downstairs and put a load into the washing machine.

 

12:00 - Time to make lunch. Steve works from home, so we eat lunch together almost every day. Today we had peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (full sandwich for Steve, half for me), apple slices from last weekend's visit to Apple Hill, and Cheetos. While we ate, we watched part of the Face Off finale on the TiVo.

 

12:25 - As soon as I finished eating, I dug around in the freezer looking for potential soup ingredients for dinner, settling on ham, onions and celery. I put the ingredients for flaxseed bread into the bread machine (without starting it) and headed back upstairs.

12:40 - I turned on the latest episode of the Paperclipping Roundtable and went into the craft room... which required stepping over the mess from a bunch of previous projects. Being on vacation for two weeks in October meant that as I rushed to meet deadlines before we left, I didn't clean up after one project before starting the next.

 

1:10 - I make it a priority to have at least a little bit of creative time every day, so after cleaning for awhile I took some time to start working on a new layout. As you can see, there is quite a bit more cleaning that needs to be done, but that can wait.

 

1:25 - The Paperclipping Roundtable podcast was still going as I put away laundry. The topic ("Is Scrapbooking Dead?") was very interesting. After laundry, I did more chores upstairs (dusting, organizing, bathroom cleaning, etc).

 

2:20 - I started the bread machine and then it was time to leave to get Trevor from school. Just like in the morning, I drove partway and walked the rest of the way. I noticed that the sidewalk was freshly swept; just this morning, we'd crunched dozens of acorns as we walked.  

 

2:35 - Usually I meet Trevor at the front of the school, but today was unusual. It was his last day in his current classroom before transferring to another 2nd grade classroom. I met him by the new teacher's door so that we could meet her and make sure Trevor would feel comfortable on his first day. She showed him where he would sit and explained some procedures, asked him some questions, and answered some of his. She seemed absolutely wonderful and we both left excited that he would be in her class.

3:10 - Trevor and I headed directly to the library. On average, we go to the library once every two weeks (far more often during the summer). Trevor checked out 9 books, including four from the Weirder School series that we both love.

 

3:45 - When we got home, Trevor and I emptied his backpack together and went through his graded work. Steve came out of his office to say hi and to ask Trevor about his day. Trevor grabbed a sheet of paper to demonstrate something new he'd learned in math.

 

3:50 - Ordinarily, we'd work on homework next, but it was the last day before a 4-day weekend (Friday 11/8 was a teacher workday and Monday 11/11 was Veterans Day). Trevor chose to play with Legos. I sat on the couch nearby and read the newspaper.

 

4:00 - Time to start dinner. I headed outside to see what I could harvest to add to the soup ingredients I'd found in the freezer. I pulled out three carrots and cut them up -  green for Trouble and orange for the soup.  

 

5:30 - Dinner time! We had a version of Cheesy Beer Potato Soup and the homemade flaxseed bread.

 

6:00 - We usually have Cub Scouts on Thursday nights, but it was canceled this week. As much as we love Cub Scouts, it was nice to have an evening where we didn't have to go anywhere. We played a game together, then Steve and Trevor built Legos while I did the dishes. Then we prepped for our early morning ferry ride to San Francisco to visit the Exploratorium.  

7:30 - Trevor got into pajamas, then we started watching an episode of Cutthroat Kitchen.  

8:00 - When the show ended, Steve tucked Trevor into bed and reminded him that we'd be getting up very, very early the next morning. I cleaned Trouble's litterbox, fed him, and closed him in his cage for the night.  

8:15 - Steve and I finished watching the finale of Face Off that we'd started at lunchtime, then started an episode of Top Chef.  

9:00 - I've always been a morning person, ready for bed by about 9:00 pm. With Steve trying to stay on Eastern time, he now has no problem with my unusually early bedtime. I read for about 15 minutes before falling asleep.