7:37 a.m.: I’m snuggled up in bed with the girls, trying to summon the energy to get up. The girls never pester me about breakfast – they’ll give me some meows from time to time, but they’re very patient with me. I appreciate it!
8:41 a.m.: On my way to my writing date with Mikaela! You can see the album I’m listening to for the month of March in this picture!
9:21 a.m.: I’m at Starbucks with Mikaela and working on my podcast outlines for later today. I like to write out full paragraphs of what I’m going to say while Bri just uses our original short, bullet-point outlines. Another way we’re different!
10:51 a.m.: At the end of our writing date, I requested a photo with Mikaela. She wanted to pose with her drink container like this. Heh. We had a good writing date! I was able to get my podcast outlines done and Mikaela wrote a good amount of words in her memoir. She read a few pages to me at the end of our time together and they were so good, like all her pages are.
11:30 a.m.: It’s podcasting time! Bri and I have a quick catch-up and then we get down to business. Tessie, Bri’s adorable greyhound, snoozes next to us the whole time.
12:24 p.m.: First episode down! We take a quick break before we record the second episode and I use the time to take a selfie. Our second episode was a really fun one to record and I’m excited for you guys to hear it next month!
No photo for the 1:00 hour – completely forgot! We finished recording our second episode of the day and then broke down our recording “studio.” And then we scheduled some lady dates/recording dates for April and May!
2:31 p.m.: A quick snack break before heading over to my mom’s house for the rest of the day. Typically, the snack I would pick up would be chocolate + a soda—delicious? yes. filling? not so much. So I tried to find something that would have a bit more protein, like these pepperoni-wrapped cheese sticks. And I got seltzer water instead of a soda. Would it have been okay if I had gotten a Dr. Pepper and M&Ms? Absolutely. I’m allowed to eat whatever I want! But I chose something different this time to boost my blood sugar, and it definitely hit the spot.
3:05 p.m.: Chippy! Today is Chip’s 6th birthday so I wanted to spend some time with him today to celebrate. I shared some videos of puppy Chip on Instagram Stories on Saturday. He was such a cute puppy, but omg, he had so much energy! He never settled down unless he was in his crate. He’s mellowed out a LOT since then! I got to have some snuggle time with him on Saturday, which was very fun.
4:26 p.m.: My mom and I went on a little shopping spree at PetSmart and Target to find some fun birthday presents for Chip. He is remarkably hard to buy gifts for because he derives joy not in having toys but in destroying them. Even toys designed for “monster chewers” can be destroyed by him. So we searched far and wide for toys that will maybe last more than 5 minutes with him! He was very happy to get some fun toys to destroy.
5:41 p.m.: You can see in this picture that Chip has already almost torn one of the fins off the fish, so I call BS on how tough this toy supposedly is. But I always buy toys for Chip knowing he’s going to destroy them, and that’s what he loves. So I’m not too bothered by it. I spend the next hour or so just sitting on the couch, playing games on my phone. It’s been a busy day and I need some disassociating activities.
6:33 p.m.: It’s game night, baby! My brother and younger nephew come over for a good night of games and pizza. I win the first game we played, which is called Blank Slate. It’s the first time we’ve played with Dominic who just turned 9, and he managed to score some points but it was definitely harder for him than us. (Premise of the game is that there are a deck of cards and mini dry erase boards for each participant. One person draws a card that has a blank and then a common word, like “____ wash” or “prime ____ .” Everyone writes down what should go in that blank and you’re trying to match other people. If you match with one other person, you get three points. If you match with more than one person, you get one point. If you don’t match with anyone, you don’t get any points.)
7:18 p.m.: We took a pizza break after playing Blank Slate and now we’re onto our second game of the night: Five Second Rule. The premise of this game is that you have 5 seconds to name three things in any random category. If you can’t name them, then the person next to you gets a chance to name them but you cannot include anything already named. For example, if the category is “name 3 reindeer” and one person says Rudolph and Blitzen… the person who is trying to steal can say any reindeer except for Rudolph and Blitzen. It’s a game where you have to think on your toes! Funny story in this one is that I confidently named 3 types of insurances as: homeowner’s, car, and auto… until my mom said car and auto were the same thing. Dangit!
8:28 p.m.: We’re still playing Five Second Rule! In case you think this evening is going perfectly, there was a bit of attitude over using a phone and not paying attention to the game. I’ll let you deduce who was involved in that.
9:51 p.m.: Finally snuggled in bed! I got home a little after 9 pm, gave the girls some attention (and treats, as Lila demanded), and then took a relaxing bubble bath. At that point, I should have done my skincare routine, tidied up the apartment, unpacked all my stuff from earlier today… but instead, I put on my pajamas and got right into bed. I was tuckered out! (And I wasn’t feeling great, either. My sciatica has been really bad the past few days and my back was hurting a lot, and I was dealing with some odd pelvic pain, so all I wanted to do was lay down.)
10:46 p.m.: I’m cheating a little with two photos at the 10:00 hour. I was reading my book and the cats were snuggled up on either side of me: Lila on my left and Eloise on my right. Whenever all of us are on the bed together, I exclaim, “We’re having family time!” I love this little family of mine. <3 I went to sleep a little after I took these photos, and I was apparently very tired because I slept until 11:30 a.m. the next day! I can’t remember a time when I’ve slept so late!
What’s something you did on Saturday?
I do enjoy this kind of peek into life posting! On Saturday I went on a trip to Sarasota with friends, and it was great fun but I too was tuckered out at the end of the day!
Ooh, a trip to Sarasota sounds like a lot of fun! I’m always tuckered out after being out and about on the weekend, haha. I feel you!
Yay! It looks like it was a really fun Saturday – dogs, cats, podcasts, and games. What more could you ask for?
I have done a photo every hour only twice before and it’s so hard to remember to take a photo every hour! This is particularly challenging for me when I’m at work – pictures of my computer just aren’t going to do it, are they?!
It’s very hard for me to do photo-an-hour on a typical workday. There’s not too much excitement happening from hour to hour when I’m just staring at my computer screen!
Go Chip go! I laughed when I saw what he did to Nemo, because that is exactly what is happening in my house right now. It took our puppy 5 weeks to figure out how to tear open her toys to remove the squeakers, and now that she’s figured it out there is no stopping her. Thank goodness for chew toys!
Chip is a straight-up monster when it comes to toys. He’s all, “What else am I supposed to do with this thing?!” HA.
Chippy is so cute and I like your piercing! It looks good!
I am so impressed that you are doing so well with the podcast and have a studio, even if it is a makeshift one. I think those kinds of things are hard to get started, and I have always thought it would be fun, but don’t have the gumption to get it going.
It helps that I’m doing the podcast with someone else, so we keep each other honest! I really struggle with getting things off the ground and launched, but then I can keep up the momentum once things get going. And Bri is the opposite – she can get things going, but can struggle with momentum. So we balance each other out really well in that aspect!
The game night sounds SO FUN! I haven’t played either of those games but they both sound great. I can’t wait for Paul to be able to play more games! He can do more every year, though. It’s a nice way to spend quality time after taco has gone to bed.
On Saturday we went to the library in the morning and then Paul had his friend birthday party in the afternoon. It was kind of chaotic and loud so I was very glad when the kids left. Ha. But he had a great time which is what mattered. And then we cuddled up on the couch after dinner and watched a movie until Phil and taco got home so that offset some of the insanity of having 5 5-6 year olds in my house!
It’s been really fun to get the nephews involved in family game night, especially now that Dom is 9 and can play a lot more games than he used to! One of his favorites is Scattegories – I think they made a kids’ version? Paul may be too young for that right now, but when Dom was maybe a year older, we’d just pair up and he’d tell us what answers he wanted to give, so that may be an option for Paul very soon!
Kids’ birthday parties are so exhausting for ME… I can’t imagine how parents get through them!
Aww! Family time! I need to text you a pic of how I woke up from my Monday lunch time nap. You’ll appreciate it!
I LOVE Five Second Rule. Car and auto, lol *snickering!
What a full, fun day!
Last Saturday I took an amazing nap but then I couldn’t sleep that night! Doh!
I was SO very confident in my answer, sigh! Naps = amazing, but not being able to sleep later that night = not so amazing!
Omg what a fun day! But I can see why you were tired out- that was a LOT of social interaction! I like that 5 Second Rule game, and I might get it. It sounds like fun because it’s challenging, but also no one ends up feeling stupid (I don’t like games where I’m put on the spot and my ignorance over something is exposed!) This way if you don’t know something you can just “run out of time”. I like it.
Btw I live that Polar seltzer. It’s ALMOST as good as soda (almost…)
YES! It’s a challenging game but also so very easy to get tripped up on a very easy category because you have to be QUICK with your answers!
What a fun way to share your day.
Game night sounds fun. And you know I am a fan of your writing date.
I used to write these kind of posts too. Maybe I should sprinkle one in.
OMG, games! I would be running out the door like my hair was on fire! (Not a game person, LOL.) I’m glad your family loves them, though – those who do, really do. 🙂 My days are so boring, you would NOT want hourly photos. Thanks for taking us through your day. 🙂