Day in the Life: Tuesdays and Wednesdays

Hi Guys. 

This post is a bit long-winded.  So if you have time to read and are on a transportation system where you don't have to fully focus, then happy reading.  To everyone else, I apologize in advance. I’ve been seeing these types of posts show up a lot lately on some of the blogs I read every day. Some bloggers have been very successful with their blogs and have the ability to make money from it and have a much more flexible schedule. Some of these women are single. Others are married and a few are married with fairly new babies.  And then there are some that work a full time job while married and with a new baby.

That’s me.

I’m not saying that these women with just their blogs don’t work full time. They totally do and then some.  It’s hard work managing a successful blog and writing for other companies or brands all while taking care of a kid.  The list goes on and on.  What I’m trying to say is, we all work hard and are crazy busy, but we always find time to instagram something or make those special muffins we've been wanting to make for two years and share with our readers. Some of these women are very successful in their careers as well as being bloggers and mommies and wives.  Some of my favorite bloggers include an art teacher, a professional chef, a nutritionist, a lawyer and a nurse.

They tend to keep me motivated and inspire me every single day.  Plus, they are pretty awesome!

As for my current situation, I go into the office twice a week and work remotely three times a week. I've been working as a construction administrator at an architectural/engineering firm for the past 4 1/2 years in Philadelphia.  My department basically does all of the "behind the scene" work that's involved in any kind of project. We take all of the contractors' "rough drafts" as I like to call them, and compile everything that we receive from the discipline/reviewer and return it back once all is finalized and complete.  Yes, that was all a fancy novel for "data entry" but the work is very detailed and tedious. Other than that, if you're not swamped, it's not too bad.

Do I like it? Eh. I could live without it but these days ya sort of need two incomes unless you're a well-known and smart celebrity like one of the Kardashians.

For now, it keeps me busy and it can be challenging at times but I don't want to do what I'm doing now, forever.  I still have yet to decide what I want to be when I "grow up."  I do know that the things I adore in my life right now are my baby girl, being a mom, being a wife, my hubby, and I adore cooking and blogging. Writing about food is a passion of mine and hopefully one day that can turn into something bigger than what it is now, which is pretty much just a hobby.  But I know I'm passionate about it.

So today, I thought I'd share what my day is like on Tuesdays, a day I go into the office and what my day is like on Wednesdays, one of the days I work from home.

Tuesday:

5:30am- alarm goes off. Try not to hit snooze but I can't help it sometimes. Check baby monitor just to make sure Claire is still sleeping.  Stretch and hop in shower. A little makeup, a weather-appropriate outfit, take my vitamins, and grab a snack or two or leftovers if we have some for lunch and I'm out the door by 6:30 if my husband does not go into the office.  If he does, I wait for my mom to get to the house by 6:45 and then I'm gone. 

7:15-ish- The train takes off. Lately their schedule is botched so it varies on times.

7:40am- arrive in Philly.  This is when I sort of "plan" my walking route if I'm not in zombie-form. My walk is about 8 blocks so I either power walk straight to the office or stop at Starbucks for a latte treat once in awhile.  

8:05am- arrive at work. Give social media one last glance; i.e. Facebook, twitter, instagram. And if I'm earlier or have some time, I try to catch up on some of my favorite blogs.  

 9am-Noon-ish- do actual work-work, catch up on work-related email, send emails. ya know, boring work stuff. 

12:30pm- Unless I'm beyond starving, I don't really do lunch.  So I'll eat some healthy snacks I pack like carrots and hummus, a yogurt, an apple or banana or cranberries and almonds.  And there's always some m&ms in our dept. thanks to my lovely co-workers!

1:00pm- Our weekly department meeting which usually lasts 45 minutes to an hour.  I may or may not be downing another cup of coffee at this time.

2:30-4:30pm- Check emails, finish certain projects that hold priority over others.

5:30pm- Leave for the day. Hopefully get on the train by 6pm and try to relax on the 30 min. ride home.

Dinner varies on Tuesdays as it just depends on how we feel, if one of us is going to the gym or if we are just relaxing.  Of course it depends on what baby is doing too.

7:30pm-8:30pm- Claire usually gets bath time then a bottle and then she goes down.  Some days she's fussier than others, ( we are teething lately).  If she's relentless, I usually get her ready for bed, give her teething tablets, few sips of bottle, final diaper change and she's out within 5 minutes.

9:00pm-11:00pm- Up for grabs! I could choose to go straight to bed ( rarely happens ), take a nice, hot shower, go to the gym, grab a small bite to eat, watch movies with Gary, cook or bake something, read a good book.  It all depends on what we have going on and how we are feeling.  Last night Gary was on "baby night duty". I got home a little later because of the train and was just exhausted so I chose to just lay in bed by 8:30pm.  I of course couldn't fall asleep until 11ish.  The baby decided to finally sleep a long stretch of 10:30-5:20.  That hasn't happened in about a month because of teething disturbing her. That or gas.  I swear she hates me and knows who holds 'duty' that night. 

 Hopefully that won't last.

Wednesday: 

5:30am- Alarm goes off aka Claire.  That happens on the days I go in the office as well but I always just keep my alarm set for 5:30 M-F.  Yes, I'm a nut.  I typically handle the "morning shift" with Claire on the days I work from home.  That's been the working system for us since Gary has been locked down with project deadlines pretty much since July.  We have more breathing room as of late so it's been kind of nice to both take more frequent breaks when we both work from home.


Side-note:  SOME mornings, Claire will wake up at 5am, have a few sips of the bottle and doze back off until 7:30-8am.  Those mornings rock!  Um, when will that happen again?!


 8:00am-???

That right there pretty much sums up my working from home days.  Once the baby is up, it's whatever will happen, happens.  I try to log online between 7-8am, quickly make a cup of coffee and I usually don't sit down until 8:30-9ish.  If I'm busy, (and no judgement please) I have to place Claire in a sturdy seat, I give her the bottle, and turn on cartoons to keep her attention for a while.  Some days it works, other days not as well.  Or I place her on the floor on her jungle play-mat. That works for a good half hour. I check if she needs to be changed and start my day.  

 I'm working from home so that means I have to simply do what I have to do. It's not always easy nor fun but it sure makes your day interesting and it's a total body workout!

Now once she starts becoming mobile...whole different ball game!  I'm up for the challenge though. :)

1:00pm-2:00pm-  Weather permitting, I try to go for a stroller walk and utilize my lunch break.  Claire loves the stroller and loves to look around at all the scenery and talk a lot.  If I'm lucky she'll take a mini snooze, too.

Nap time just varies on these days. ( I wish I was talking about me) She'll either do small dozes throughout the day or take a nice two hour nap.  So from 3-5pm, it's all up in the air.  If I'm super busy at the moment, it's TV and bottle again for a little bit.  And if Gary can take a twenty minute break and be with her, that helps too.

If I have some down time, I either throw a load of laundry in, play with Claire, unload the dishwasher, or catch up on some blogs.  

I usually log off around 6pm and again the night just varies.  So for example, at 7pm tonight, we have Sammy's yearly checkup at the vet.  Since the vet is located in our old hometown ( 20 minutes from where we live now) we will go together, pack up both kids and grab a bite out somewhere for dinner.  We like to multi-task. ;)  Or that might just be me.  We might drop the baby off with my inlaws since they live very close to our vet.  I'm a little ick-factor still and am not sure about my 6 month old hanging around for an hour among many different animals. I swear whenever we go to the vet, the entire Philadelphia zoo is there.

I must say since having Claire and starting back at work, it's certainly been a challenge. However,  I love how everyday truly is different and interesting.  Some days I feel like I have it all together and *wink* deserve a gold star.  And other days....you can forget it.  That would involve the staying in my pj's all damn day and not even having a moment to brush my teeth.  Yes, this shit is real and it's happening.

One of the many blogs I try to read everyday shared a great post about an overall crappy day she had.  It hit home for me for sure but I really liked the paragraph where she discusses readers only get a small glimpse of the blogger from what they actually blog about. Meaning, we only really write about stuff that we want you to see. I do think certain things should remain private, for obvious reasons.  But to sugar coat that you screamed out the F word in the car on a really shitty day, well, sometimes ya can't sugar coat that.  If we screamed, so be it.  If we cursed, so be it.  Why not talk about that?  That's real life shit, after all.

And for my own blog, I hope that I at least give you interesting enough material to want to come back and read some more and that you do feel I'm pretty honest in my writing.  I try to simply be myself but for some wacky reason, that seems difficult to do sometimes.  Even at my ( almost) tender young age of 32. And so as I mention above about no judging on how I have my own system with baby when working from home it's because some people ( parents especially) might scoff at that.  I'm just being honest in telling you what I have to do sometimes in order to get the job done. Literally.  I want to write honestly. I want to share good food. And I want to be myself.  I hope I deliver. :)

Oh, and if you haven't noticed by now, I tend to curse on here.  I curse in real life, too.  I'm just being myself and it works for me when necessary. And don't worry, I'll try to only curse when my daughter is not around.