A Day in My Life

At the request of the nice lady at Paper Napkin, I am documenting my life for one day. Don't get excited folks, this is nothing to write home about.

I would also like to preface this post by saying that this week at work is pretty slow. Since it is a holiday week, and because it is the middle of summer, I am between projects and not that busy. After re-reading the account of my day, I did not want y'all to get the wrong impression!

5:55 a.m.

We live in a pretty quite neighborhood. Since we are unincorporated San Mateo County, the parking restrictions are pretty nonexistant. A new neighbor moved in a couple months ago, and has a ton of cars. The new pain my neck is where they chose to park these cars. At 5:55am, I hear one of them park in front of my house. Not a good way to start the day.

6:15 a.m.

My alarm goes off - it is my day to get up early and go in to work. My husband and I share days. M/W/F, he gets up early and goes to work; T/Th are my days. Whoever stays home is responsible for getting the kids breakfasted, make their lunches and then drop them off at summer camp. We have been doing this since I went back to work 3 years ago, it saves me.

6:31 a.m.

Actually get out of bed.

6:55 a.m.

Leave for work on my bike. Notice that at the house across the street (the one with a lot of cars) there are no cars parked in their driveway or in front of their house, only in front of mine. I get more annoyed. I spend the ride to work strategizing how I can get them to stop parking in front of my house. It makes me feel clausterphobic.

7:25 a.m.

Arrive at work (ok, so I ride slowly!). Read my email. See comments from my fellow nursery school auction chairs that say that we should in fact accept a Phil Mickelson signed picture, even though I have pointed out to them that he recently lost a major. They are going for quantity not quality.

I continue to answer email and listen to my iPod. I love my pink iPod. Right now, I am listening to Jake Shimabukuro, Allison Krauss and the Cool Crooners of Bulawayo. I also use my iPod for occasional morning meditation, although lately I have been tired in the morning to take the time.

I will check email until 8am, and then I think I better go shower and put on work clothes. My cute biking skort can only be worn so long!

9:15 a.m.

Had a call with my new career coach. In May, I had a realization that I either need to get my butt in gear and get a career going, or stop thinking about a career and focus on a job that allows me to concentrate on my family. I feel as though I am getting to be of a certain age where if I am going to have a career, now would be the time to figure it out. Otherwise, I need to come to some peace with myself over the idea that my family comes first and what I do during the day is a job, not a career. Today's phone call was mostly an in-take assessment, with lots of questions about who I am, my family life, my personality and values. BTW, if you are interested, I am an INTJ.

10:12 a.m.

Met a friend/colleague for coffee - discussed my call with the career coach. Friend indicated she has the same feelings about her career; maybe I am not totally alone.

11:00 a.m.

Did real work - had a meeting with the head of the department that has taken over a part of my job function. We discussed ways to move our database system to a new platform.

11:46 a.m.

Came back to my office to blog about the last 2 hours....

12:05 p.m.

Eat my lunch that I brought from home - leftover orzo spinach salad, yogurt, tomatoes and apricots. While eating, I research some options for using the big box of nectarines I bought at CostCo last week. I am thinking some sort of jam, possibly with the apricots I bought, also in a huge quantity. I have found an interesting jam idea with fresh ginger. One the way home, I will stop and get the ingredients. This past weekend, I made plum jam, about 24 jars worth....

12:55 p.m.

Have a brief conversation with my manager on the way out the door - we agree to meet tomorrow so she can hand some stuff off to me....

1:10 - 2:10 p.m.

Exercise class! I am taking a circuit weight training class twice a week. For the month of July, if I went to all my scheduled work outs (weight training, Master's swimming 3x a week, and one day in the rock climbing gym) and rode my bike to work, I would be pretty buff. I don't think it is going to happen.

2:35 p.m.

Get home from work, greet the dog. She is so happy to see me. Always. Everyday.

3:00 p.m.

Hop in the car to seek out the ingredients for the nectarine plum ginger ham I have decided to make. Normally, I get home early on Thursdays to take my daughter to gymnastics, but the gym is closed for a couple weeks for cleaning, so I find myself with a free afternoon. Did you think I was going to spoil it by picking up my kids early? Hah! Remember how I said my dog is happy to see me all the time - not always so with the two kiddies.

4:00 p.m.

Three stores later I am now in the possession of 2 boxes of 1/2 pint wide-mouth canning jars and a 10lb bag of sugar. Almost forgot that last part.

I get home and start chopping and measuring like a mad woman. I have also decided to make a torta for dinner (you know, the Spanish dish with potatoes and eggs - we will have it with a salad - hope the kids like - too bad if not) so I get that started too.

5:17 p.m.

Stop making jam long enough to go pick up the kids from camp - son is on his bike today, daughter has her scooter. Son rides his bike home quickly, daughter decides half way home that she is tired of scootering and wants me to carry the scooter and all the accoutrement. Figures.

5:46 p.m.

Finally get home (camp is 5 minutes from the house, as I walk; 30 minutes with two kids and their wheeled vehicles). Put the finishing touches on the torta, just as husband walks in door. He works on the salad.

Tonight my son is supposed to set the table. These are new "chores" we instituted. One kid feeds the dog and one kid sets the table and we trade off every day. Tonight, my son decides that he wants to rearrange the seating pattern. Daughter gets upset. I send my husband in to mediate while I get dinner finished. BTW, I am still working on a batch of jam (my third so far), and so have a couple pots boiling on the stove.

6:10 p.m.

We sit down to dinner. Daughter throws a fit about where she is sitting. Insists she sit where I am
sitting.

Rather than being a good adult, I stoop to her level and whine about not wanting to move and how much she is hurting my feelings by making me move. Then I pick up my stuff in a huff and move to the other side of the table. My 4 year old daughter then proceeds to tell me I am awful and says I have to go on a time-out. That sounds great to me, so I grab my dinner, my glass of wine and head to my bedroom. Wonder when I can come out of my time-out.

6:47 p.m.

I am released from my time-out.

7:00 p.m.

While my husband puts the kids to bed, I finish up the jam making. I also manage to empty the dishwasher, load the dishwasher, unpack the kid's lunch boxes, make 3 more batches of jam, and wipe down the counters with Windex. Windex is my favorite cleaning product. Oh, and while I am doing dishes, I also play one of my favorite games - seeing how high I can stack the dish drainer before things start falling off.

8:10 p.m.

Jam is done - total count, 4 batches of Nectarine-Plum-Ginger Jam and 1 batch of Apricot-Nectarine Jam, from Freezing & Canning, from the Food Editors of Farm Journal, dated 1963. Inside the front cover, I found a voided check from what looks to be my Mom's first checking account as a married woman. Cool. Mostly cool because my Mom died in 1991, and finding these little reminders of her life are super important to me.

8:15 - 9:45 p.m.

Husband and I watch the rest of Ray and the latest Entourage.

9:57 p.m.

I finish up my day of blogging, and after I shut down the computer, I will get my jammies on, go kiss the kids one more time, read a couple pages of Bee Season, and its lights out by 10:20pm.

10:03 p.m.

Computer is put to sleep, ah......