Day in the Life - Spring 2013
I'm jumping on board the "Day in the Life" train that Navigating the Mothership is promoting this week. I find it interesting to read about other people's day-to-day lives and thought I would participate for once. I won't make promises that you'll be entertained by my day, as it was about as ordinary as it can get. But here it is, for what it's worth.
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
4:45am: Wake up to husband gently (but annoyingly) snoring and give him a gentle shove. That doesn’t work, so I shove him a little harder. He stops snoring momentarily but starts up again. Sigh. I grab at his opposite shoulder to try to rotate him onto his stomach, and it works! Quiet again, and I drift back to sleep.
5:40am: Alarm goes off, and I wake from a dream. Of course I don’t remember it, but I know it was a doosy. I roll out of bed immediately, as I always do, and stumble into the bathroom.
Shower, dressed, makeup, teeth, and hair – in that order – and I’m all set for the day. I think. Fortunately my office has gone away with business casual unless clients are in, so I wear jeans almost every day.
6:35am: Ready to head out the door for my lovely 45 minute commute. I realize that I hadn’t moved my stuff from this tote to my now-dry purse and am too lazy to do so at this point so the big tote goes with me again.
(I had genially put my water bottle in my purse after my first zumba class Monday, only to find out while trudging through the ridiculous snow to my car that the cap wasn’t tight and my purse was now filled with water. Not my finest move, and I think was caused by distraction as I was too busy scanning the gym while we walked out for one last look at hot Kirk from the Bachelorette).
7:15am: The commute is surprisingly fast today, so I make it in 40 minutes – SCORE. My gas light goes on and I drive right past the turn to the gas station, so I make a mental note to stop during lunch.
Hello office! I'm so excited to be here. NOT.
I immediately head into the breakroom for coffee, and no surprise find the decaf hasn’t been made yet. I question why I stopped drinking regular coffee while I start the pot of decaf (like I do just about every other day).
Back at my desk, I devour this most delicious gigantic banana chocolate chip muffin that I brought from home in seconds while I play a few Words with Friends.
I only have 1 muffin of the 6 left and am beating my husband with his blueberry muffin count big time. This is nothing to be proud of, however, as I am supposedly watching what I eat to lose weight. I check out some blogs and FB as well, and run back to the breakroom for my coffee that's now ready, thanks to me.
7:40am rolls around and I figure I’d better get started with work. Email, spreadsheets, contracts, more email, more spreadsheets, some deciphering of who is who in my ever-growing list of client contacts… it’s a typical morning for the most part.
One project that has taken over my cube and has been staring at me for days finally gets my attention, and so I spend an hour packaging up some posters and promotional products to new clients in the Middle East. My two college degrees are hard at work here.
12:00pm: Lunch! I realize that I made it through the morning without a single snack and take a moment to pat myself on the back. (I know snacking is totally acceptable and good for you if you’re snacking on the right things, but since I don’t have any more of my “healthy-ish” snacks in the office I would have been raiding the candy dishes by my buddy down the hall). I head out to my car and, like almost every day, sit for a few minutes and wonder what I should eat.
I don’t usually sit with my finger to my mouth like this, but the camera wouldn’t have caught my ponder otherwise so there you go.
I decide to go for a salad given my monster muffin in the morning and head to Lund’s. Loooove this salad bar so much, though I wish it was a smidge cheaper. I’m not made of money and hate spending more than $5 for lunch. I pile up some greens, veggies, Tuscan chicken, and a bit of shredded cheese and I’m on my way back to the office.
I sit and eat at my desk, reading more blogs (I’m reading a lot of them these days), type up some of my notes for this post, and listen to MyTalk. I’m really liking Colleen and Bradley. They are goofy and crazy, but watch tons of TV and always have wacko stories to talk about.
While eating/reading/listening, I get a text from the BFF that she has just discovered the amazingness of Jimmy Johns avocado spread. I’m happy for her – avocado is like the best thing in the entire world, which is no news to her, but now her Jimmy Johns is that much better.
12:45pm: Time to get back to work. More of the same from the morning. Nothing terribly exciting. I realize after I have saved a worksheet that I had worked hard on that I had been copying and pasting cells that were concatenated, thus the content changed as I pasted them elsewhere. Rookie mistake. And so, I had to start all over, which peeved me so.
1:45pm: I head out to the gas station and then the Post Office to ship off my mailing tubes to far off lands.
I have learned to avoid the lunch hour rush at the Post Office, not only because it saves me time, but because it takes them at least 5 minutes per package with all the international customs information they have to enter, and I don’t want to experience the glares from customers behind me in line like I have in the past. I got back in a half hour and one of my teammates was surprised I came back at all with this gorgeous weather. I wish I could play hooky!
3:20pm: Snack time! Apparently those greens didn’t hold me over quite enough, and I know that I will not make it home AND be able to work out if I’m already hungry now. So I have a Zone bar, which are my new faves. They are so good, and have a ton of protein.
3:35pm: Ready to scream after a client totally changes a project that I had just spent hours working on, per her original direction. Squeeze a stress ball that a teammate tossed to me instead. One final meeting and I’m outta here.
4:40pm: Pack up my laptop, set my call forwarding, and pin up my “Work from home” sign and head out. I am leaving 10 minutes late and I know I’ll probably pay for that on the road.
Yep, I quickly regret the late departure. Traffic is a brute. I take the 694 loop home because cutting through the cities is generally awful in the evenings. So is 694 today, but for no good reason. Fortunately, I call my sister and chat with her as I inch along in bumper to bumper traffic. Things speed up past 35W and at last I am flying. Of course, then it begins raining, which slowed people down again. Honestly, Minnesotans can’t drive in rain or snow (or know how to properly merge).
5:45pm: En casa, por fin! This adorable stinker beats me home yet again, and this time from Rochester no less. I honestly throw a bit of a tantrum when I get home and see him there already, as he leaves well after me in the morning. Jealousy at it's finest.
Almost immediately I head upstairs to change and work out. I don’t dare sit down or I know I won’t get up to work out. I should know, that happened last night. I put on Mr Selfridge Part 3 and hop on the treadmill. I was definitely feeling some soreness from Zumba a couple nights before, and realized that my shoes really are crap. I start feeling twinges of pain on the sides of my knees as I run, which is reminiscent of when I injured myself training for a half marathon in old shoes. My physical therapist friend had lectured me about the importance of solid treads and support - here I thought I was just being economical by using 3-year old shoese. So back to the present, I do a few sprints but mostly a careful jog as the last thing I want to do is injure myself again. To finish up the 50 minute show (which I am getting into and really enjoying), I do some pushups and crunches and squats. It feels good. And I won't hate Jillian Michels quite as much if I keep up on some of these things.
I’m too lazy to change out of my regular socks, but who said working out in argyle isn’t stylish?
7:00pm: Cleaned up and in my typical evening wear (sweats and slippers), I head downstairs to start dinner. Husband doesn't care what we have, as long as he doesn't have to make it. Grilled cheese and tomato basil soup it is! And how fortunate for me that on this very day I was taking so many photos I would make picture perfect sandwiches?
We sit at the coffee table and eat while watching Survivor. We rarely eat at our dining table. After all, then we’d have to clear off all the mail and papers and other crap that we’ve collected there. Last week’s episode of Survivor was amazingly incredible and shocking, so I figure this week couldn’t compare. And it doesn’t. But it is still entertaining, and new TV. I hate reruns!
8:15pm: Start researching car rentals for my sister and brother-in-law’s visit home in June. We’re taking a trip up north and would like to find something to fit all 6 of us, but it’s looking pretty expensive to rent a car so we’ll likely ride in two vehicles. No biggie.
Getting super excited for them to be home for awhile! I come across a CrowdCut deal for a scenic train ride up there, check with the family, and we all agree it'd be fun. So I booked that for us.
8:45pm: Check Facebook, Instagram, Blogger and read a few things. Then I start working more on my notes for this post. Hubby sits at the other end of the couch watching videos of old DMB concerts. He must be gearing up for their new tour. He soon starts quizzing me on the names of each song as they begin. I get 2 out of 4 correct, which isn’t my finest, but I was also multi-tasking so my attention was limited.
I also play a little Candy Crush, until I start cursing the stupid chocolate blocks and run out of lives.
9:30pm: Notice the time and wish it wasn’t so late so quickly. Hubby’s video is over so we browse for something to watch. We have 3% free space on our DVR, so I clean up a bunch of old stuff that we already watched or clearly never will. Notice we still have Argo that we purchased months ago – wonder how long they let us keep it? I never do find anything worth watching on our DVR so I flip to TLC and watch the last 10 minutes of My Crazy Obsession. The woman has thousands of wigs and wears one every day. And has a head full of real hair. Ok, weird definitely, but nothing like some of them that I’ve seen, like eating sand or licking their cat.
10:00pm: We turn on the news and my hubby drools at the sight of Julie Nelson, as always. Seriously, he is in love with her. We watch a little news but I’m exhausted and frankly don’t care all that much about the weather and sports. And the news has been so depressing lately. So I snuggle with hubby a little and then head up to bed. Contacts out, teeth brushed, fan on, and I snuggle into bed. We have these amazing Egyptian cotton 1600-threadcount sheets that we got at the State Fair last year that I just love, and makes climbing into bed all the better.
Night night!
There you have a day in my life. Exciting, wasn’t it?
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
4:45am: Wake up to husband gently (but annoyingly) snoring and give him a gentle shove. That doesn’t work, so I shove him a little harder. He stops snoring momentarily but starts up again. Sigh. I grab at his opposite shoulder to try to rotate him onto his stomach, and it works! Quiet again, and I drift back to sleep.
5:40am: Alarm goes off, and I wake from a dream. Of course I don’t remember it, but I know it was a doosy. I roll out of bed immediately, as I always do, and stumble into the bathroom.
Shower, dressed, makeup, teeth, and hair – in that order – and I’m all set for the day. I think. Fortunately my office has gone away with business casual unless clients are in, so I wear jeans almost every day.
6:35am: Ready to head out the door for my lovely 45 minute commute. I realize that I hadn’t moved my stuff from this tote to my now-dry purse and am too lazy to do so at this point so the big tote goes with me again.
(I had genially put my water bottle in my purse after my first zumba class Monday, only to find out while trudging through the ridiculous snow to my car that the cap wasn’t tight and my purse was now filled with water. Not my finest move, and I think was caused by distraction as I was too busy scanning the gym while we walked out for one last look at hot Kirk from the Bachelorette).
7:15am: The commute is surprisingly fast today, so I make it in 40 minutes – SCORE. My gas light goes on and I drive right past the turn to the gas station, so I make a mental note to stop during lunch.
Hello office! I'm so excited to be here. NOT.
I immediately head into the breakroom for coffee, and no surprise find the decaf hasn’t been made yet. I question why I stopped drinking regular coffee while I start the pot of decaf (like I do just about every other day).
Back at my desk, I devour this most delicious gigantic banana chocolate chip muffin that I brought from home in seconds while I play a few Words with Friends.
I only have 1 muffin of the 6 left and am beating my husband with his blueberry muffin count big time. This is nothing to be proud of, however, as I am supposedly watching what I eat to lose weight. I check out some blogs and FB as well, and run back to the breakroom for my coffee that's now ready, thanks to me.
7:40am rolls around and I figure I’d better get started with work. Email, spreadsheets, contracts, more email, more spreadsheets, some deciphering of who is who in my ever-growing list of client contacts… it’s a typical morning for the most part.
One project that has taken over my cube and has been staring at me for days finally gets my attention, and so I spend an hour packaging up some posters and promotional products to new clients in the Middle East. My two college degrees are hard at work here.
12:00pm: Lunch! I realize that I made it through the morning without a single snack and take a moment to pat myself on the back. (I know snacking is totally acceptable and good for you if you’re snacking on the right things, but since I don’t have any more of my “healthy-ish” snacks in the office I would have been raiding the candy dishes by my buddy down the hall). I head out to my car and, like almost every day, sit for a few minutes and wonder what I should eat.
I don’t usually sit with my finger to my mouth like this, but the camera wouldn’t have caught my ponder otherwise so there you go.
I decide to go for a salad given my monster muffin in the morning and head to Lund’s. Loooove this salad bar so much, though I wish it was a smidge cheaper. I’m not made of money and hate spending more than $5 for lunch. I pile up some greens, veggies, Tuscan chicken, and a bit of shredded cheese and I’m on my way back to the office.
I sit and eat at my desk, reading more blogs (I’m reading a lot of them these days), type up some of my notes for this post, and listen to MyTalk. I’m really liking Colleen and Bradley. They are goofy and crazy, but watch tons of TV and always have wacko stories to talk about.
While eating/reading/listening, I get a text from the BFF that she has just discovered the amazingness of Jimmy Johns avocado spread. I’m happy for her – avocado is like the best thing in the entire world, which is no news to her, but now her Jimmy Johns is that much better.
12:45pm: Time to get back to work. More of the same from the morning. Nothing terribly exciting. I realize after I have saved a worksheet that I had worked hard on that I had been copying and pasting cells that were concatenated, thus the content changed as I pasted them elsewhere. Rookie mistake. And so, I had to start all over, which peeved me so.
1:45pm: I head out to the gas station and then the Post Office to ship off my mailing tubes to far off lands.
I have learned to avoid the lunch hour rush at the Post Office, not only because it saves me time, but because it takes them at least 5 minutes per package with all the international customs information they have to enter, and I don’t want to experience the glares from customers behind me in line like I have in the past. I got back in a half hour and one of my teammates was surprised I came back at all with this gorgeous weather. I wish I could play hooky!
3:20pm: Snack time! Apparently those greens didn’t hold me over quite enough, and I know that I will not make it home AND be able to work out if I’m already hungry now. So I have a Zone bar, which are my new faves. They are so good, and have a ton of protein.
3:35pm: Ready to scream after a client totally changes a project that I had just spent hours working on, per her original direction. Squeeze a stress ball that a teammate tossed to me instead. One final meeting and I’m outta here.
4:40pm: Pack up my laptop, set my call forwarding, and pin up my “Work from home” sign and head out. I am leaving 10 minutes late and I know I’ll probably pay for that on the road.
Yep, I quickly regret the late departure. Traffic is a brute. I take the 694 loop home because cutting through the cities is generally awful in the evenings. So is 694 today, but for no good reason. Fortunately, I call my sister and chat with her as I inch along in bumper to bumper traffic. Things speed up past 35W and at last I am flying. Of course, then it begins raining, which slowed people down again. Honestly, Minnesotans can’t drive in rain or snow (or know how to properly merge).
5:45pm: En casa, por fin! This adorable stinker beats me home yet again, and this time from Rochester no less. I honestly throw a bit of a tantrum when I get home and see him there already, as he leaves well after me in the morning. Jealousy at it's finest.
Almost immediately I head upstairs to change and work out. I don’t dare sit down or I know I won’t get up to work out. I should know, that happened last night. I put on Mr Selfridge Part 3 and hop on the treadmill. I was definitely feeling some soreness from Zumba a couple nights before, and realized that my shoes really are crap. I start feeling twinges of pain on the sides of my knees as I run, which is reminiscent of when I injured myself training for a half marathon in old shoes. My physical therapist friend had lectured me about the importance of solid treads and support - here I thought I was just being economical by using 3-year old shoese. So back to the present, I do a few sprints but mostly a careful jog as the last thing I want to do is injure myself again. To finish up the 50 minute show (which I am getting into and really enjoying), I do some pushups and crunches and squats. It feels good. And I won't hate Jillian Michels quite as much if I keep up on some of these things.
I’m too lazy to change out of my regular socks, but who said working out in argyle isn’t stylish?
7:00pm: Cleaned up and in my typical evening wear (sweats and slippers), I head downstairs to start dinner. Husband doesn't care what we have, as long as he doesn't have to make it. Grilled cheese and tomato basil soup it is! And how fortunate for me that on this very day I was taking so many photos I would make picture perfect sandwiches?
We sit at the coffee table and eat while watching Survivor. We rarely eat at our dining table. After all, then we’d have to clear off all the mail and papers and other crap that we’ve collected there. Last week’s episode of Survivor was amazingly incredible and shocking, so I figure this week couldn’t compare. And it doesn’t. But it is still entertaining, and new TV. I hate reruns!
8:15pm: Start researching car rentals for my sister and brother-in-law’s visit home in June. We’re taking a trip up north and would like to find something to fit all 6 of us, but it’s looking pretty expensive to rent a car so we’ll likely ride in two vehicles. No biggie.
Getting super excited for them to be home for awhile! I come across a CrowdCut deal for a scenic train ride up there, check with the family, and we all agree it'd be fun. So I booked that for us.
8:45pm: Check Facebook, Instagram, Blogger and read a few things. Then I start working more on my notes for this post. Hubby sits at the other end of the couch watching videos of old DMB concerts. He must be gearing up for their new tour. He soon starts quizzing me on the names of each song as they begin. I get 2 out of 4 correct, which isn’t my finest, but I was also multi-tasking so my attention was limited.
I also play a little Candy Crush, until I start cursing the stupid chocolate blocks and run out of lives.
9:30pm: Notice the time and wish it wasn’t so late so quickly. Hubby’s video is over so we browse for something to watch. We have 3% free space on our DVR, so I clean up a bunch of old stuff that we already watched or clearly never will. Notice we still have Argo that we purchased months ago – wonder how long they let us keep it? I never do find anything worth watching on our DVR so I flip to TLC and watch the last 10 minutes of My Crazy Obsession. The woman has thousands of wigs and wears one every day. And has a head full of real hair. Ok, weird definitely, but nothing like some of them that I’ve seen, like eating sand or licking their cat.
10:00pm: We turn on the news and my hubby drools at the sight of Julie Nelson, as always. Seriously, he is in love with her. We watch a little news but I’m exhausted and frankly don’t care all that much about the weather and sports. And the news has been so depressing lately. So I snuggle with hubby a little and then head up to bed. Contacts out, teeth brushed, fan on, and I snuggle into bed. We have these amazing Egyptian cotton 1600-threadcount sheets that we got at the State Fair last year that I just love, and makes climbing into bed all the better.
Night night!
There you have a day in my life. Exciting, wasn’t it?
Awesome post! I also love reading about other people's lives but haven't tried one of these myself yet. Someday. Those muffins look pretty amazing. I hate those stupid chocolate blocks too!
ReplyDeleteYou should do one of these! It would be sooo interesting to read about one of your days, even if you skip over your actual work stuff. Plus they are really fun to look back on later.
DeleteThat was fun reading about your day! Especially since I don't get to see you often! I have been meaning to do this too, but always seem to be just too busy. I'll try.
ReplyDeleteYou should do it! It's super fun to look back on too. Just take pictures one day of everything you're doing, then you can write about it and put it together later when you have time.
DeleteI do not even like banana and that muffin looks good! Also I am taking a road trip with my family this year and I swear we need to rent a bigger car but no one will listen to me!
ReplyDeleteI do the #12 from JJs for the avocado spread alone. So good. I also require cheese on my sandwiches or it's just not worth it.
ReplyDeleteI get the #6 (veggie) sandwich just because it has cheese and avocado spread. I don't care about anything else. :)
DeleteAgree with Erin---Beach Club is the best JJ sandwich ever! Craving one now.
ReplyDeleteJimmy John's #13 all the way! Haha! Loved reading about your work day; it always makes me feel better when other people have blogs and iphone games snuck in there too :)
ReplyDeleteBeach Club #12 - the best. Oh, and love coming across stuff on blogs that answer a question I've been meaning to look into - The hubby and I were wanting to find a place for scenic train rides and lo and behold there is one in Duluth. Feel like I should've know that, but grateful that you mentioned it.
ReplyDeleteI do appreciate a good picture of someone pondering :)
ReplyDeleteI remember feeling nose-flaringly jealous when I would always end up working an hour or two more than my husband (or maybe he was just a boyf or fiance at the time). NOT FAIR.
Mmmmm...Jimmy Johns.
Yum... Beach club. And seriously we're from MN so shouldn't we know how to drive in bad weather?!?!
ReplyDelete