I’ve done multiple Day-in-the-Life posts over the years on my blog, so I thought it would be fun to document things before we head out on our Big Adventure. Of course, life at the moment isn’t fully typical, as we are mad scrambling to be ready to fly out in less than two weeks. But it’s at least representative of the reality we’re navigating as we wind down this chapter of life, so here goes.
The Scene:
Date: Monday, October 23, 2023
Location: “Home” (CA)
S: 13.5 (8th grade)
N: Almost 11.5 (6th grade)
The grownups: Still under 50!
The Details:
3:XXam: I wake up and go to the bathroom. I’m always awake at some point in the middle of the night these days. Joy. At least this time I’m able to go back to sleep. (That’s often not the case.)
5:45am: I wake up to what sounds like a thud. Maybe a door slamming? N must be awake; it sounds like she’s in a mood. Now I’m going to be in a mood. I had finally fallen back asleep from being awake earlier and really needed to sleep till 6:30am. Sigh. I refuse to get up and I roll over in bed. I hear more thuds. Good gravy.
6:XXam: I give up. I get up and head to the kitchen to make coffee. S is in there making her lunch. I ask her what all the noise was and she blames her sister. She’s already given the cat treats, so Squeakers doesn’t rub against my leg like she usually does.
6:30am: I pop my head into N’s room to ask what the thudding was about. She tells me there was an earwig in her shoe that terrified her and she was trying to kill it. Ok, that’s fair. At least she hadn’t directly woken me up asking me to kill it. That’s progress. C is up and gives us all hugs and kisses before disappearing upstairs.
7:00am: I take the girls out to the bus stop. I can’t believe this is the last week of school for them! I tell their bus driver when she pulls up that we wrap on Friday and she gives me a sad face. The girls have had the best school bus drivers; I’m grateful for them. It has definitely been worth the money to send them to school this way. They’ve gotten to have autonomy and the parents haven’t had to sit in traffic. Winning!
7:10am: More coffee, stat. I also make fried eggs and sourdough toast, and I let Squeakers outside for some fresh air. I decide to take photos of the various items I want to post on our local Buy Nothing group. I need to get this stuff out of the house! We’ve made multiple trips to Goodwill at this point, but some of these items I know I can send to good homes; it just requires an investment of time—something I’m starting to run short on. Turns out the lighting at this hour of the morning is terrible, but c’est la vie. I manage to take all the photos and then get a couple of posts up. This takes longer than I anticipate (as so many things do). I’ll have to do the rest later. I want to go for a run before I start my work day. (I’m working 50% time this week—my last week.)
8:30am: I change out of pjs and into running clothes and get Squeakers back in the house, then head out for a short run. I listen to this podcast. It’s muggy out compared to normal since it rained yesterday. (But it’s nothing like real humidity, which I know we’ll definitely experience over the next year!) My right knee is bothering me again; it’s no surprise, since I stopped doing my physical therapy exercises. Whoops! At least I know what I need to work on.
9:30am: I hop into the shower and then start a load of laundry. I swear, laundry never ends. That said, I’m grateful for the large washing machine and dryer we use on a constant basis. I know doing laundry will look different as soon as we leave.
10:00am: I boot up my work laptop for the first time in a week and go through email. Since I’ve transitioned most everything, I can delete or archive lots of messages knowing they’ve been taken care of. I eat a small container of yogurt and decide I’m still hungry. I’ve been craving comfort foods and I really want some sort of baked good.
10:30am: I find a recipe in my Pinterest archive for pumpkin-banana bread and modify it, grinding oats in the coffee grinder to make flour, as we’re out and I’m not buying more. I’m famous for modifying recipes; they usually turn out, though sometimes they’re epic flops. I get the muffins in the oven 30 seconds before I need to be on a work call. I set the timer and run off to join.
11:05am: I hop on my only scheduled call of the day. Prior to transitioning most of my work, I would spend the majority of my day on calls, so this feels like a luxury. Naturally, C pops his head in after I’m on the call; he’s running off to Costco. He says it’s his final trip, but we’ll see. Anyway, it’s great to see the team and we work through some outstanding questions and next steps. The timer for the muffins goes off in the middle and I listen to it beep repeatedly until I can find a point to take myself off camera and run to the kitchen to turn the oven off and pull the muffins out. They smell good, so I assume they’re done. No time to check! I run back to the call.
11:45am: The call is over and I head back to the kitchen to eat a muffin. Yum! May as well have two. I’m hungry. Does this count as lunch?
Noon-3:30pm: The hours go by in a bit of a blur while I work. C comes home from Costco with salads; I grab one for actual lunch. I have an impromptu call to help resolve something. And I work on some documentation, plus prep for part of the program that will launch after I’m gone. Part of me is sad I won’t see it to fruition, but I know it’s in good hands. C pops his head in and says, “I have good news and bad news; which do you want first?” Oy. I assume it’s about the state of the world; it is. Naturally, we’re set to leave in under two weeks and are questioning our decision to go to Europe right now. No, it’s not the Middle East (which I learned recently is more appropriately referred to as SWANA), but the world is a tinder box and perhaps something farther away would be better as a starting point. C and I discuss the costs that are sunk at this point (only our airfare to Europe and even that might not be totally sunk). In the end we decided to stay the course, for now.
3:30pm-4:30pm: The girls are home from school. I can hear some sort of grumbling at the other end of the house and then N walks down the hall and closes her bedroom door with purpose (i.e., not quite a slam, but not gentle either). I pop out to see what’s transpired. Apparently, N has a zit and there was some conversation about this that made her self-conscious. Understood; no one likes zits and yet pretty much everyone gets them and feels icky about them. N and I had plans to go run some errands, so I check in with her and see when she wants to go. We negotiate and I go eat a snack, as well as change the laundry.
4:30pm -7:30pm: N and I head to Target, Goodwill, DSW, and Rite Aid. Neither of us particularly likes to shop, so this is pushing the outer limits of our patience, but time is running out to get what we “need,” so we suck it up. Though we spend the most time in Target, we don’t find what we went for: Clothes for N. Well, she finds socks. And I finally find a pair of soft yoga pants with side pockets. For good measure we pick up some laundry detergent and dryer sheets (ridiculous since we’re leaving, but we’re out and will keep doing loads till the end), plus a few other things. At Goodwill N finds a black dress to wear under her witch cloak for Halloween; perfect. At DSW she finds a pair of waterproof Birkenstocks, which she wanted over some other options we previously considered. No, she won’t need those in the first few months but will down the road; she sized up accordingly since her feet are still growing (though they’re almost as big as mine!). And at the drug store she got part two of a present for a friend; they’re doing an early Secret Santa exchange since N won’t be here for Christmas. How sweet is that?
7:30pm: We’re home and C has made burgers for dinner. We put our purchases away and I decide burgers sound too heavy, so I throw a pot of water on to boil while N makes lunch for tomorrow and then her burger for dinner. C heads back up to watch Monday night football; the Niners are playing. I make pasta and zucchini and add Trader Joe’s Autumnal Harvest sauce—so good. I sit down and decide to work on more posts for the Buy Nothing group. I’ve got to get everything up! While in there I see a post about running shoe donations; yes, we have some to donate! So I go collect those and put them in a box by the door where I can’t miss them. This reminds me that I still have some running items to offer up, so I take photos and share them in my running friends’ text thread. This brings joy and sadness; we have a “see you soon—we’re not saying goodbye” gathering this Friday and I agree to bring the items then. Meanwhile, I get responses to my Buy Nothing posts and work to coordinate pickups. I also decide to start this post or it simply won’t happen.
8:45pm: N is ready for bed. Naturally, S has started to play the piano. She’s been teaching herself to play a K-pop song with an app. Tonight she wants to know what the middle piano pedal does. Heck if I remember; my last piano lesson was in 4th grade! Isn’t that what the Internet is for?
(For those inquiring minds, here’s what I found: “Sostenuto: On grand pianos, the middle pedal is used to sustain only certain notes - the ones that were pressed down while you pushed the pedal. These notes remain sustained until you let go of the pedal.”)
9:00pm-11:20pm: I mean to stop documenting much earlier so I can get to bed “on time,” but that doesn’t happen. I leave the kitchen looking like a disaster and will add photos on a subsequent day before posting. Here’s hoping I can get a good night of sleep and not be awoken by N killing an earwig again!
11:20pm: I brush teeth, take my various pills (mostly supplements, but also the reduced dose of the sleep med I’m weaning off of), and pick a meditation to listen to.
11:30pm: Lights out!