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Day in the Life of


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Weekdays:

 

8:30ish to 9:30ish - wake up, Noah wakes up, make/eat breakfast, I check internet while Noah watches TV and/or plays video games

11ish-5ish - errands, home school, field trips, more TV/video games/internet, chores, etc. We don't have much of a routine yet. We just do stuff as it pops up.

5ish - start making dinner, spend time chatting with neighbors, neighbor kids usually come over and make a mess of the house

6:30ish - husband comes home, we eat dinner & talk about our day

7:30ish - family movie/TV/game time

8:30ish - tell kiddo to take bath, clean up after dinner, evening chores, more TV

10ish - husband goes to bed, Noah goes to bed, MOMMY TIME!! more internet, budget/bill time, misc. prep for next day, homework/reading/studying

11ish - kid falls asleep watching movie, turn off his TV, head to bed and internet on phone while watching TV or read book while TV is on

midnightish - finally fall asleep

 

On Mondays we generally do all the grocery shopping which can involve going to 4 or more stores.

On Wednesdays we go to the park with the home school group from 1-3, then Noah goes to Awanas at church from 5-8pm.

On Thursdays we have Cub Scout meetings from 2-3:30pm and then probably the library.

 

 

Saturday: (fill in empty slots with doing very little)

8ish-10ish - wake up, breakfast

noonish - family errands (if any), family time, play time, TV/internet/videogames, family chores/projects

6ish - dinner prep

7ish - dinner

11ish - bedtime

 

Sunday:

9-10ish - wake up, breakfast

10:55 - leave for church

11 AM - church

12:30 - try to break away from all the people wanting to chit-chat after church

12:45-2ish - lunch with grandparents

2ish - come home, change clothes

2:30ish - laundry, more chores, more family time,

5-6ish - dinner prep

6-7ish - dinner

after dinner - dishes, begin prep for next week - check calendars (yes, plural) for appointments/meetings/field trips/events, meal plan & coupon, file paperwork from Sunday Tray (a paper tray where I deposit everything throughout the week), plan out home school lessons and activities, budget money for the upcoming week

10 PM - everybody goes to bed

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Weekdays:

6:00 AM Alarm

6:02 AM Curse myself for not leaving cane close enough to the bed to just grab

6:10 AM Get in the shower

6:20 AM Finish shower, get dressed

6:45 AM Pack lunch

6:50 AM Realize I forgot wallet/work ID/shoes upstairs. Go back up and get it

6:55 AM Eat breakfast quickly

7:05 AM Get in the car and drive to work

7:40 AM Arrive at work, park car and walk to desk

8:00 AM Start working - right now I'm in training, so that means doing online training or going to a classroom

12:00 PM Lunch time - normally leftovers from the night before or maybe a salad from the cafeteria.

1:00 PM Back to work

4:30 PM Leave work, drive home

5:10 PM Get home

5:11 PM Start playing with son because he's mad that Daddy's been home for a whole minute and isn't with him yet. Try not to pee my pants.

6:30 PM Eat dinner

7:00 PM Finally get to pee

7:02 PM Take son outside to play in the backyard

7:45 PM Come in and brush my son's teeth

8:00 PM Change my son into pajamas

8:05 PM Have my son help clean up his toys

8:25 PM Wife leaves the room, I read books and rock my son for a few minutes

8:35 PM Put son in his crib. Note: He isn't asleep, but he'll talk to himself quietly for 30 minutes.

8:40 PM Lay on the couch and do ankle exercises - my wife is normally on her iPad.

10:00 PM Get ready for bed

10:10 PM Wife finally wants to talk

11:15 PM Go to sleep

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I forgot I did not do weekends.

 

Saturdays up at 7 a.m. You can pretty much set your watch to me. I might feel like making an elaborate breakfast - bacon, sausage, french toast etc.

 

Lounge around - read in the bath, internet, dragon age until about 3:30 or so. Then it's get the kids to my mom's, who'll have them for the night typically. Before that I might take my mom shopping - she doesn't drive any more.

 

Five to six I tear my hair out trying to think of where me and wife should go to eat.

 

Eight or nine I tear my hair out trying to think of something on Netflix to watch that we both might like.

 

Eleven to one a.m: adult activities not suited to description on a P.G internet site. Far and away the most exhausting and taxing part of the week.

 

Sundays up at 7. 8 maybe. Kids aren't around but dogs do a good job standing in to wake me up. Make coffee and hop in the bath. Then it's a bit more internet or gaming before it's off to get the kids at 11:30 a.m sharp. You can set your watch to my mom. She should have worked for transit.

 

Home and then it's either shopping or laundry or a family outing. Around 5 or so it's off to the in-laws for dinner, or else fire up either the BBQ or the Foreman grill for dinner.

 

Clean up or get home about 7. Kids to bed around 9:30. Around 10:30 or 11 a civil conversation with the wife about how male hormones don't work at age 41 quite like they do at 19. Once that's done I'm in the bath. Youtube or internet until 1 and it's off to bed.

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I feel bad for all you early riser people-- but then I see how early in the day you're done with being responsible.

 

I was doing a mostly work from home job last year, I kind of miss it. But it did a number on me in how unorganized I eventually got. I still was productive for work stuff, but being out of a routine really killed the rest of my life. I miss being able to bum around and play video games amidst work, but I don't miss how much of a slouch it made me.

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Mon/Tues/Thurs/Fri:

 

7 a.m.: Bedroom alarm clock goes off. Switch to living room couch; turn on local news.

7:30 a.m.: Living room alarm clock goes off.

8:20 a.m.- 6 p.m.: Work work work work work. Includes half-hour lunch for non-internet reading, and two 10-minutes breaks for Twitter headline catchup.

6:30 p.m.: Dinner. The wife always cooks because she's home by 5 every night.

7 p.m.-9 p.m.: Some combination of prime-time TV, Frasier on Netflix (our current marathon project), Chopped reruns, and/or adult homeowner chores. Reading is crammed in between the cracks. We have company every other Friday night, so those are movie nights.

9 p.m. - ?? a.m.: Internet and writing. I try to hold fast to a 1 a.m. deadline, but if that evening's writing wraps up quickly enough, I might treat myself to an early bedtime. Once I unplug, it takes another 30-45 minutes for my brain to shut down.

 

Wed:

 

circa 6 a.m.: Rise early, shuffle into work early. Pick up quick breakfast on the way in.

7 a.m. - 3 p.m. (approx.): Work work work work work. Includes 20-minute break for New Comics Day. Eat lunch while on the clock.

3:30 p.m. - 9 p.m.: One-Man Movie Night. This used to be Guy Night, when my son and I would video-game all night long, but he went to college and took all the consoles except my old NES. So now Wednesdays are me hogging the TV to plow through my DVD backlog or catch up on the past week's shows, if any.

9 p.m. - ?? a.m.: Internet and writing.

 

Saturdays: wild-card day. I put in extra overtime at work, or attend the occasional convention, or have family outings 'n' errands, or some TV when my wife's not using it, or whatever. Worst-case scenario: my body forces me to nap. At no point in life do I have an 8-to-10-hour stretch to indulge in the kind of TV marathons I hear other people hold nine times a week. And then, 9 p.m. - ?? a.m.: Internet and writing. Deadline extended to 2 a.m., but I never have the energy to last that long anymore.

 

Sun:

 

9:15 - 10:35: Church.

10:45 - 11:50: One-man Bible-study brunch at Panera Bread. Our church used to have study classes this hour, but that's not exactly how things work there anymore.

Noon - 9 p.m.: Some combination of recuperation, TV, bonus internet, relative gathering, and/or the Sunday edition of the Indianapolis Star, which I try to flip through since it's paid for.

9 p.m. - ?? a.m.: Internet and writing. (I take at least one night off every week from writing, but I prefer to let it vary instead of scheduling a fixed day off. Flexibility is a virtue.)

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Okay, here's a good example of a slice from my day.

 

3:30 AM - 4:00 AM - Go to bed.

6:00 AM - Wake up, check Facebook. Go back to sleep.

7:30 AM - Wake up, check Facebook. Go back to sleep, sort of doze because I can't.

9:40 AM - Boss calls me, pull out computer, help diagnose an Excel problem she was having.

9:50 AM - Reluctantly admit I need to start the day, scramble to ensure my 11:00 AM report is out on time. Commence working, intermittently checking other internet sites. Text a few friends. Eat a cucumber sandwich and cantaloupe

2:20 PM - Get a shower and get dressed. Then leave to go pick up my friend.

3:20 PM - Pick up two friends, go out for coffee, run to grocery store, do some miscellaneous shopping. Computer is with me in case anything disastrous needs immediate attention and I check my email a couple of times while out.

6:30 PM - Arrive back home. Commence working and smoking cigarettes. Intermittently browse other sites.

8:30 PM - ? 2:00 AM ? - Keep repeating the above. Do work, browse internet. Maybe crash by 3:00 if I'm lucky.

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typical day! Ha! Lately, there is no typical.

 

6:30- wake up. This part is easy.

6:35- stop internetting from tablet in bed

6:40-brush teeths, feed kitties, put on deodorant, wonder how the hell my hair got crazy, ignore it, pet the stupid cat while she sticks her feet in the wet bathroom sink.

6:48- let Eve and Willow outside, Willow just to pee, Eve to do cat things (KILL KILL?), fill Willow's food dish.

6:50- Make Willow sit, shake, wait and then allow her to eat. Depending on how she's feeling (she's been pouting because she has an injured toenail, so no fetch) she either scarfs it or has to be cajoled.

6:55- frantically search fridge for likely trader joe ready meals to take to work with me

6:56- kiss the Willow on her fuzzy forehead, tell her not to torment the stupid cat, leave the house.

7:10- Starbucks for a chai tea latte, or an iced coffee and sometimes a breakfast sandwich

7:30- barely make it to work on time

7:30-12 is working which consists of any manner of odd tasks that fall on park rangers. There is a lot of bitching about the boss, and the park district as a whole.

12-12:30 is lunch. Sweet blessed lunch.

12-30-5 work some more. Some disaster will have happened and the boss will have spun into a tail spin.

5:01- Tires squealing around the hairpin turns of the road outta work

5:20- home. Play with the Willow. Feed the birds. Chat with the roommate who will always be sitting on the couch with his laptop either watching movies, playing FB games, or sending out applications for work.

5:40- snack, usually fruit and cheese

5:45- Go upstairs, take off pants and socks and marvel at the line of clean skin vs. completely brown skin on my legs. That brown is fine powdery dust. it flies up my pants legs and attaches itself to my skin- If I'm working a lot on trails it will sometimes also be on my stomach, back etc. Hop in shower. Try not to die because it is seriously the most slippery shower floor in the existence of slippery shower floors. Temperature of the shower is completely dependent on ambient temperature and how much time I spent in the sun.

6- Leave the house, go to Mom's house. Ensure she has dinner, make her do her physical therapy, tiptoe around my drunk stepdad's ego, make mom do her inhalers, take her blood pressure, show her at least one funny youtube video, hugs, kisses and goodbye

7- home again. Go outside with the dog, play fetch, watch the cat roll in the dirt and stretch in the last bits of the sunset. Water the vegetable garden and the roses. Tell myself I'm going to work in the yard on the weekend even while I know that I won't.

7:30- feed the dog, feed myself something. Who knows what. Probably a can of soup. Or another Trader Joe's thing. Or burritos. I make a lot of burritos.

8- read a book for awhile, or mess around on fb/twitter/instagram

9:30- In bed watching something on the tablet. Usually I fall asleep at 11 to the sound of some comforting old procedural cop show.

11-6:30 sleep, but wake up an average of 6 times. I have been so horribly restless lately.

 

Weekends are always incredibly different- the only constant is the pets and the taking care of Mom in some fashion, though typically I do mornings on weekends because my sister is NOT a morning person and I like to let her sleep in.

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Guest El Chalupacabra

Jesus, after reading a lot of these posts, I made the right call never having kids. I couldn't handle the responsibility.

 

 

Here's mine:

 

*I was going to lie and say how glamorous my job is (sh*t, this is the internet, you ain't gonna know!), but eff it. I'll tell the truth. Tech support in higher education isn't glamorous, not that anyone would ever think it was. Just confirming the rumor is all. In fact it is soul-stealing, and you are considered "the help." Ever watch IT Crowd? That's it to a f*cking T. Imagine a job where you have to fix your grandma's computer, then explain to her what you did to fix her computer (and what virus or pop up not to click on next time) over, and over, and over, and over, all day, every day. What's more, the people I work with, have several letters behind their names, so obviously they walk on water, too, and couldn't be more condescending. That is the Hell that is my life.

 

Even though the money is pretty good, actually, I have never been less proud of a job that I have done since cleaning carpet back in college. In fact, I think of myself as a technology janitor, and I am still trying to figure out why I haven't sucked on the business end of a Mossberg Model 500 security pump action, yet. All I do is hate my job and the people I work with (and sometimes myself) a little more each day. One day, I will finally smarten up and quit.

 

Mon-Fri

 

Supposed to be at work by 7AM, technically. I am lucky to be there by 8:30AM

My boss is supposed to be there by 8AM, most days he doesn't get there until 930ish. He's usually nursing a hangover. Some days, so am I.

When my boss shows up, I lie, and say I've been there since 7AM

All day: Listen to people whine all day and whom would rather pick up the phone and call me about trivial technical issues that they could figure out for themselves, if they just put a couple brain cells together for a couple nanoseconds.

Throughout the day, in between actual work, I check websites for other jobs I seldom actually apply for and troll this dump.

I leave by 4 to 5 pm.

 

Tuesdays & Thursdays, Call my dad and GF while fighting rush hour to get to graduate class to work on a useless MA that will probably never make me any money EVER (it's free to me so I guess that's why I do it...tuition reimbursement), which is 6-845PM, hang out with the GF until bed time...varies from 10-midnight.

 

Mon-Wed-Fri, fight rush hour to check on my dad. He's alone now, and disabled. Do shopping or whatever he needs around the house. Usually there from 5-7PM, study from 7-8. Hang out with the GF until bed time...varies from 10-midnight.

 

Saturday 8AM-4PM, internship. On drive home, call to check on my Dad, to see if I need to stop by. 5PM to whenever go out with GF or friends, get drunk and make a fool of myself.

 

Sunday, sleep until 10AM, catch up on homework as needed, do grocery shopping, call to check on dad, vow this is the last week I will work in that Hell-hole as I drift off/cry myself to sleep

 

Monday morning, it starts all over.

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My workout time is my me time. The kids can scream their heads off in the stroller for all I care. Just wait until it gets too cold to do the stroller and my husband has to watch them for an hour. He's in for a rude awakening. I do a monthly mom's night out, too.

 

Right now we're having a hard time because my husband is working way too hard AND we have a baby. He'll get easier soon. Sitting up on their own is some sort of magic milestone where they can somewhat entertain themselves and not have to be held ALL THE TIME. For me, the first 6 months are always the worst part of kids. I'll even take terrible twos/threenagers over newborns. Supposedly there's an end to this madness with my husband's obscene work schedule shortly. I told him that the people responsible for the work can stay up until midnight and deal with it, and that he needs to stop covering for them. Supposedly Thursday is the big change-over, but I'm going to have to put my foot down shortly, too, because he won't let go unless I make him. Terrified of failure and all that.

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My only real me-time is my commute, and recently with my injury some time when I've been doing rehab exercises or unable to do other things. But in general, the "me" time would involve cleaning, packing or working on something else for the family. And yet, oddly, I'm more energized and happier than ever. Your experiences may vary, but the most upset, angry, depressed people I know are the ones who have the ability to focus more heavily on themselves.

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Yeah if you know me on FB you know I'm all about my kid-- but he's barely on my schedule cause at 9 he's pretty independent. We do stuff on the weekends and evenings, but All I have to do in the morning is make sure he's awake-- he can get dressed and get himself breakfast. Similarly, after school/early evening he's more interested in doing his own things-- reading, video games, skating, etc-- stuff he just does in his room or the yard.

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Dude, Chalupa. That sucks hard. I mean in October I've got to start gearing my lessons to teach to the test but right now at least we're doing fun stuff like watching clouds and learning about weather or making volcanos to show how some rocks are formed - today we talked about meteorites and they got to touch samples I have. I have something to look forward to. Also I have information for you about Living Trusts. I will PM to you tonight.

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Jesus, after reading a lot of these posts, I made the right call never having kids. I couldn't handle the responsibility.

And reading yours, I'm glad I didn't get into IT. Guys I know who did tell similar stories. Are kids really any worse than this?

 

If half a lifetime has taught me anything, it's that life is too short for crappy jobs and crappy relationships. Get out before this really does steal your soul.

 

Yeah if you know me on FB you know I'm all about my kid-- but he's barely on my schedule cause at 9 he's pretty independent. We do stuff on the weekends and evenings, but All I have to do in the morning is make sure he's awake-- he can get dressed and get himself breakfast. Similarly, after school/early evening he's more interested in doing his own things-- reading, video games, skating, etc-- stuff he just does in his room or the yard.

This. A thousand times this. You'll actually get nostalgic about the time you had to put in when they were babies and toddlers. Of course you'll be glad they're growing and becoming more independent. As a parent that's what you want to have happen. But there's always a part of you that kind of misses how it was when they were just brand new, as it were, no matter how maddening it can be at the time. Just about any interaction with my 12 year old son now cuts into minecraft time, and we can't have that.

 

My workout time is my me time. The kids can scream their heads off in the stroller for all I care. Just wait until it gets too cold to do the stroller and my husband has to watch them for an hour. He's in for a rude awakening. I do a monthly mom's night out, too.

 

Right now we're having a hard time because my husband is working way too hard AND we have a baby. He'll get easier soon. Sitting up on their own is some sort of magic milestone where they can somewhat entertain themselves and not have to be held ALL THE TIME. For me, the first 6 months are always the worst part of kids. I'll even take terrible twos/threenagers over newborns. Supposedly there's an end to this madness with my husband's obscene work schedule shortly. I told him that the people responsible for the work can stay up until midnight and deal with it, and that he needs to stop covering for them. Supposedly Thursday is the big change-over, but I'm going to have to put my foot down shortly, too, because he won't let go unless I make him. Terrified of failure and all that.

I heard somewhere that if you're too busy to be your family, you're too busy. Hopefully your hubby catches on soon.

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