a walk in my shoes

Topic:

A Day in The Life:  What is a typical day in your life?  How do weekdays differ from weekends?  How do you balance out life's "chores" from the better more enticing things such as spending time with friends, family, hobbies or recreation?  How do you fit it all in to make sure everything gets done (get up early, stay up late, recruit help from hubby/other family, hire it out, etc.)?  At the end of the day do you go to bed feeling like you accomplished the majority of what needed to be done or do you think of all the things you've had to let roll over to be done another day?

Hmmm…where do I begin? What is a typical day in my life? Weekday, we’ll start there.  I hear the alarm clock go off at 5:00 am every morning, but I usually don’t move and hope that Gabe will get up and turn it off (which he usually does). I lie in bed another five minutes thinking about everything I have to do that day and then finally make myself get up. I peek into the pack n play at my little angel, Kaylin (6 months old and the youngest of my 3 under 3) to see if she’s sleeping or smiling up at me. If she’s doing the latter, then I go to the kitchen and make her a bottle, come back and have some quality time talking to her and giving her some breakfast…then it’s off to eat breakfast myself (I give myself about two minutes for this task as I always eat a packet of instant oatmeal and a glass of orange juice), then it’s back to put Kaylin in her bouncy seat so she can visit with Daddy and I’m off to the shower, get dressed, make myself presentable. I think I usually feed the dog and let him out to do his business sometime in there too.  If Kaylin is still sleeping when I get up, this is the time that I feed her and have my time with her…then I get Zoe up and get her a sippy cup of milk…we talk back and forth for a little bit, but she really just wants to watch Nick Jr. Around this time, Gabe is getting Caleb up and dressed. He too will have some milk before I leave. I make one more round through the house and make sure I’ve got my laptop, purse, lunch (which I always make the night before…) and my iced latte (I buy it in the dairy section so I don’t spend so much at Starbucks). Oh yeah, just so you don’t think we’re awful parents, our kids eat breakfast at ‘school’…they do eat breakfast J  I give everybody kisses and tell them to have a great day or to be good at ‘school’, and then I’m off to work. I do the car dance and think about what I have to do for the next 35-40 minutes and am finally at work.  I get there every day between 6:30 and 6:50, so I can actually get a parking spot (they are doing construction there right now and it’s a pain).

Anyhow, I have a pretty interesting job and would love to go into details, but due to propriety reasons, I can’t really-let’s just say I do very early pharmaceutical discovery research J Every day is a little different from the day before and before I know it, it’s 3:45 pm and it’s time to roll out…which I do happily because that means I get to go get my kiddos. I pick them up around 4:25 or so and we head home…once home, it’s more running, running, running…we have to have dinner, get everything ready for the next day and have some time together too…oh yeah, did I mention we are in the process of selling our house? Well, we have sold it, although we were supposed to close today and we’re delayed-hopefully it will happen tomorrow. I didn’t waste today though-our house is packed up and ready.

Back on topic, so we get the kids in bed by 8:30 pm every night and then we usually go to bed by 9:30 pm. The time between kids going to bed and us going to bed is spent doing whatever we want to do.

Ok, how do weekends differ from week days? Well, for starters, I usually get to sleep until 6:00 am! WOW! We usually do something as a family on Saturdays, then do church in the morning on Sunday and hang out at home together for the rest of the day-lately though, we’ve been really busy…

How do you balance out life's "chores" from the better more enticing things such as spending time with friends, family, hobbies or recreation?  I try to do a good job at work every day, but not spend too much time working at home-that is, my house is not the cleanest house ever-it is clean enough and that’s all that matters. I want to spend time with my kids and do things that are fun for them because they are all so little-we are going to Connersville on Sunday for ‘a day out with Thomas’-Caleb’s favorite…he’s going to be sooo excited! I do make time for my buddies and we do ‘girl’s night’ maybe once every other month these days. I don’t read, run, or do anything ‘hobby’ related that I used to prior to having kids-my hobby time now is my kids and what they like to do.

How do you fit it all in to make sure everything gets done (get up early, stay up late, recruit help from hubby/other family, hire it out, etc.)? This is all about time management-you do what HAS to be done and nothing extra-make sure your kids get to spend some time with you and that you eat together as a family every night…chores can wait until they are sleeping.

At the end of the day do you go to bed feeling like you accomplished the majority of what needed to be done or do you think of all the things you've had to let roll over to be done another day?  Heck, nobody accomplishes the majority of what they set out to do every day, although I don’t do too shabby of a job  of it at work. I make lists…I cross things off the list as they are completed and then I feel like I’ve accomplished something. I do this at home sometimes too (especially when the house was on the market and we were trying to get everything done).

I guess the typical day for me isn’t really typical-I run around like a chicken with my head cut off until it’s time to be with my kids and husband and then I spend the time we have together every afternoon/evening and I start again. I love the weekends because that means I really get to spend time with them and I get to slow down.  I really like to slow down and try to enjoy the little things in life-two lessons I learned from my Dad: 1. Learn all you can-this is always true-no matter the situation, if you’re learning, you’re living. 2. There is no someday-don’t put things off-do them now.