5:15 a.m.: My alarm goes off, I snooze it. Lila and Eloise jump on the bed for morning cuddles.
5:25 a.m.: Second alarm goes off and I’m up. I get dressed, brush my teeth, pull my hair into a bun, and fill up my water bottle.
5:40 a.m.: Drive to the gym.
6:00 a.m.: Spin class! My first one in over a month, so I wasn’t sure how my hips would respond. Unfortunately, things were not as easy as HIIT class yesterday. It didn’t feel good to cycle out of the saddle, so I either stayed in my seat or went verrrry slowly. This instructor also likes “jumps” where we sit, then stand, then hover, then sit, then stand, then hover, in quick succession, and I was unable to do those movements. But I still got a great workout! Slow and steady, as I ease back into my exercise routine.
6:50 a.m.: Drive home. I’m tempted to stop at Starbucks for a peppermint mocha (I am soooo sleepy), but I tell myself I have coffee and peppermint mocha creamer at home.
7:10 a.m.: I’m home. I feed the cats and take a shower. But before I step into the shower, I spend far too long scrolling on Instagram, oops.
7:45 a.m.: I make coffee and oatmeal for breakfast and work on yesterday’s blog post.
8:15 a.m.: Quick morning routine.
8:35 a.m.: Morning working block. Except the Cloudflare outage means Salesforce is down for me, which is where I do the majority of my work. Wah! I chat with the other managers about it. I’m able to do some contractor editing, but I’m just so sleepy and this outage is ruining my normal morning work routine, so I decide to take a nap.
9:10 a.m.: NAP TIIIIIIME!
10:00 a.m.: My alarm goes off. Sad! I scroll on my phone and work on a graphic for the podcast episode that was released today. It takes longer than I expected because I paused my Canva premium subscription, and have to update our podcast logo on the post, since it has premium-level graphics. Ugh.
10:20 a.m.: I should do some work, right? Right. Saleforce is working for me again, yay! I work through my morning tasks and then realize I’m getting hungry and need to prep dinner in the Crock-Pot so I take a break. Lolz.
11:15 a.m.: I start prepping dinner, which is going to be hamburger stew in the Crock-Pot. I like my Crock-Pot meals to be super easy – basically just adding everything into the pot, mixing it up, and letting it cook on its own. But this recipe had so many extra steps, and it took me forever to do them: peeling and dicing the potatoes, peeling and dicing the carrots, browning ground beef on the stove. (And that’s with me buying precut onions and using jarred minced garlic—there was more prep!) Halfway through, I tried ordering lunch through Ubereats but the app wouldn’t work. LOVELY.
I need to figure out something to have for lunch at home because my blood sugar is dropping quickly. I can feel the symptoms of a hypoglycemia episode coming on (overheating, shakiness), and all I want right now is sugar. I have healthier snacks available, but once I’m in this state, my brain shuts down and I reach for the quickest way to boost my blood sugar, and today, that’s chocolate chips. Yep. I start gobbling down handful after handful of chocolate chips as I continue dinner prep. It is not my finest hour.
(Mom also calls me when I’m nearly done with the prep to see how my body is doing after spin class. So sweet! Luckily, no aches or pains.)
12:15 p.m.: I am finally done prepping this stupid Crock-Pot meal, and the best I can do for lunch is fish sticks, rice, and green beans. Semi-healthy? Ish? Whatever. It’s food. While it’s cooking, I clean up the kitchen because it’s a mess from all the food prep.
12:45 p.m.: Time for lunch! I eat while working on blog posts and fiddling with some Apple Health stuff.
1:30 p.m.: Okay, serious working block commence! (I love that my job is flexible in that I don’t have to be in front of my computer from 8 a.m. to 5 p.m. every day—I can take these long breaks when needed, but it also means I’ll be working late today.) Here’s what I get done:
- content edits
- posting QAs
- back-to-back 1:1s (same as yesterday – 4 in a row – but most are 15 minutes or less)
- clearing out my email inbox
3:45 p.m.: I take a short break because four meetings in a row are very draining. I put up some travel photos on one of my walls. I’m still deciding if it’s the right layout. I want it to be a little asymmetrical.
Then, I poke around Wayfair, looking at nightstands (the one I bought is smaller than I expected, and I’m going to need something bigger at some point). I add some more Christmas decor to the apartment. I give the girls some treats when Lila starts meowing at me. And I call my mom, but she doesn’t answer.
4:30 p.m.: Another working block! I do more content editing and work on December assignments for our content team. I also work on some boring Salesforce report things (it’s a part of my job that I love, but I recognize it’s hella boring to most people). My mom calls me back at some point, and we chat!
6:00 p.m.: Dinner time! Even though the Crock-Pot meal took forever to prep, at least it’s easy to dish out. I give myself a big bowl of stew and eat it while watching a few episodes of Friends. I also eat ice cream straight from the carton because hey, I live alone and I can do things like that.
7:00 p.m.: I set a timer for 30 minutes and do some blogging work! I finish writing yesterday’s post and start working on inserting photos. I also read and comment on blogs. (I am so behind, you guys. So behind.)
7:30 p.m.: Back in my office to get some work done. Mostly content editing and posting.
8:00 p.m.: I scoop the litter boxes (I’m very excited that my new Litter Genie has arrived so now I have one in each litter box location—in the previous apartment, both litter boxes were in my bedroom walk-in closet. In the new place, one is in the walk-in closet and one is in the living room, so I decided to treat myself to a second Litter Genie so I don’t have to keep lugging the one I have from the bedroom to the living room every night.) I also start my nighttime routine, going to do the full skincare routine tonight!
Cleanser, liquid exfoliant, toner, niacinamide, and moisturizer. (I need to add retinol back into my skincare routine; I can’t remember why I stopped.)
8:30 p.m.: More blogging work. I get my blog post scheduled for tomorrow morning and then read some blogs.
9:00 p.m.: Baaaaack to the office for one last working sprint. More boring work stuff happens, but I feel like I’m in a good spot to shut things down after 45 minutes.
9:45 p.m.: I finish my nighttime routine, clean the kitchen, and set up my new silverware organizer. (It’s so pretty!)
10:05 p.m.: I sit on the couch with a heating pad that I use on both hips/IT bands. While I’m doing that, I call my mom on Facetime and we chat for a while.
10:35 p.m.: I use my new massage stick on my glutes, hips, and IT band. I feel a lot of tenderness right below my hip (Google tells me it’s the “tensor fasciae latae” muscle), which makes sense with all the hip and IT band pain I’ve been having. It feels good to massage it. Afterward, I do my PT stretches in bed, which also feels really good.
10:50 p.m.: It’s so late. I want to read my book, but I am so tired. I play Happy Color for a few minutes and can barely keep my eyes open. I ask Alexa to turn off my light, as I make sure my alarm is set, put on my CPAP mask, and turn on an ASMR video.
END NOTES //
- Sleep score: 84 (high) <– I don’t trust this new Apple watch sleep score
- Apnea score: 3.4 per hour
- Sleep duration: 5 hrs, 51 min
- Podcast episodes: 5 (Oh God It’s Friday, Maintenance Phase, Faith Adjacent, Stuff You Should Know, and Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet)
- TV episodes: 2 (Friends)
- Facetimes with mom: 3
- Reading time: 1 hour, 44 minutes (Generations – audiobook)
tuesday in the life: 2024, 2023, 2022, 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, and 2014
I love drawer organizers! We got some when we moved into our house in 2019 and they are so pleasing to the eye! We had so many crate and barrel gift cards from our wedding so I bought so many drawer organizers and bins for our pantry and they help so much!
Now I am curious how many days a week you do early classes at the gym! I am impressed!! I wish I could do a 6 am class. But that is when we are getting the boys up and out the door so I can’t be gone. But someday that will change!
I was going 4 days a week before my injury, but I eased back in with 2 days a week and now I’m up to 3!
OMG I haven’t listened to Beach Too Sandy Water Too Wet in years, I must download an episode! I forgot all about that podcast!
I hate it when a crockpot/instapot recipe has so many prep steps like that. Oh well, at least it’s hands off once you get all of the prep done.
Woof on back to back meetings! That’s a rough life!
I hope you have leftovers of the stew for more meals, since the prep was so lengthy! That sounds tedious (but worth it, especially if you get more meals out of it).
I’m intrigued that you don’t feed the cats right when you get up??? How are they letting you get away with that? I must be doing it wrong.
Yes, it’s nice that your work day is flexible. It seems like it would be great to take breaks and get things done around the house, even if it means working in the evening sometimes.
I got four meals (probably could have stretched it to five, but I knew I didn’t want four days of leftovers lol) out of it!
I do not know how I got these magical cats but they do not scream at me for breakfast! I don’t understand it at all. I didn’t train them to be like this… it’s just how they are!
The Hamburger stew sounds like a lot of steps, but I love when I can do a make ahead dinner like that because it’s less mess at the end of the day when I have no energy.
Hot tip. Wash the carrots really well. Chop them up. Skip peeling them. I’d probably skip peeling the potatoes, too. I don’t peel unless it’s absolutely necessary. (Lazy chef over here!)
Honestly, it’s not the peeling that is time-consuming. My peeler works great! It’s all the chopping. I HATE THE CHOPPING.
My kids would love that stew! I am adding to to the list, even though I resent slow cooker meals that need work– I like to just dump stuff in and walk away. You should think about making a batch of Gimme Some Oven energy bites to have on hand for those low blood sugar moments. They are delicious (esp with choc chips) and perfect for snacking (and have a bit of fiber and protein, so they are really filling). https://www.gimmesomeoven.com/no-bake-energy-bites/
I love crockpot recipes, but OMG they must be easy. I buy bags of baby carrots and use those in crockpot recipes. I do not do spin classes. I tried once. Um, no thanks. I felt silly. I don’t mind riding our stationary bike but not in a class.
Girl, you gotta get some sleep… I don’t trust that sleep score either LOL (but I get it, I always feel like the day doesn’t have enough hours for all the things I want to do, esp. not during NaBloPoMo). As you can tell, I am also catching up on blogs right now.
My sleep has been terrible this week! I need to figure out if it’s a function of longer blog posts due to WITL or if I really need to overhaul my nightly routine. Probably a bit of both!
Drives me nuts when you have to cook something (like browning meat) before you put it in the crockpot. That eliminates at least half of the convenience of using the crockpot in the first place.
So many one-on-one meetings! Do you find them draining? I feel like meeting-heavy days were so soul sucking!
it is so fun to follow you through a day.
Eating ice cream straight from the carton isn’t that the norm? I always do. Might be the problem why I also eat the whole damn things. Sigh.
I have a question about your work. Do you have a certain amount of hours a day week you need to work? How is that contracted?
I’m a salaried worker so I don’t work a set amount of hours – some weeks I work way more. This was just a week where I worked a little less than usual.