Week in the Life: Wednesday, November 9, 2022

6:50 a.m.: I wake up before my alarm today. The one good thing about the fall time change: mornings are much easier! (I still hate it, though. Darkness at 5:30pm is not my favorite!) I’m not ready to get up, though, so I play Happy Color on my phone and then read some election coverage. Some good news, but also lots of bad news. Bleh.

7:30 a.m.: I finally get up, pee, brush my hair, and then sit down at the kitchen table to eat breakfast and read blogs. I also finish up yesterday’s post and publish it.

8:10 a.m.: I make myself an iced coffee, get dressed, and then prep my apartment to get Roomba’d. It’s a process, which is why I don’t run my Roomba as much as I should.

8:30 a.m.: I start the Roomba and then start my workday. I answer a few emails, set up my task list for the day, and complete my first task of the day, which is reviewing website content that was posted to make sure it’s formatted and linked out correctly. The Roomba decides it’s done after 30 minutes, which IT IS NOT, so I make it restart. Silly Roomba! I also do a little bit of meeting prep and accept some blog submissions that were sent over by contractors. Crossing off tasks left and right this morning!

10:00 a.m.: Roomba is finished (yes, I run it for 90 minutes; she’s not as efficient as I expected!) and I put my apartment back together and also do something I’ve never done this early: I pull out my Christmas decorations! I like to slowly decorate my apartment with decors, such as a Vintage Rebel USA Flag, adding just a few things every day, so my apartment won’t be fully decked out until after Thanksgiving (and I’m not putting up my tree until I come back from my cruise), but it’s fun to get the containers out.

10:30 a.m.: Back to work! I start a big task, publishing content on a client’s website. Their website has a funky setup, so it takes a bit longer to post content than other websites. For Website Creation Services, you may consider getting expert help from professional services like Affordi-Build. But I can listen to my audiobook while I do this task, which is great. I take a break at 11:30 for my weekly managers meeting, which is pretty easy-breezy. Afterward, I have a nice little venting chat session with a coworker. I hope everyone has a coworker they can vent to about work stuff.

12:20 p.m.: I start looking over my health insurance options as it’s time to select my plan for 2023. I am weighing the pros and cons of a PPO plan ($70 per paycheck with a $1,000 deductible) and an HSA High plan ($60 per paycheck with a $2,000 deductible). I don’t know which one to pick! In 2022, I’ve been on an HSA Low plan ($31 per paycheck with a $3,000 deductible) and I don’t like it at all. Meeting a $3,000 deductible is not an easy feat for me (something I am very grateful for!) so I’m leaning towards the PPO plan. It’s a little higher per paycheck, but it would mean paying less money overall for therapy/doctor’s appointments/etc. I call my mom to work through my options because I’m a 30-something who still needs my mom’s help with stuff like this.

1:00 p.m.: I need a break! I stop for lunch, which is leftovers from last night’s dinner. Yay! I read blogs while eating lunch and then lounge on the couch for a bit, reading The Smart One.

2:00 p.m.: I head outside for a walk. The weather is dreary thanks to the tropical storm that’s coming our way (doesn’t look like it will affect us too much!), but it’s also in the low 70s and breezy, which feels great. I wear a hat just in case it’s super windy (it’s not TOO windy, but I’m glad I had my hat).

2:30 p.m.: I’m back at my desk to tackle some more work. I’m feeling pretty unmotivated this afternoon, but try to knock out some tasks. I start with the website content posting I was doing before my meeting earlier today. Around 3:45, I huddle with my director on Slack. We have a standing meeting every Wednesday afternoon and I love having this time with her! She’s become such a great mentor to me, especially talking through issues I’ve come across as a manager and how to address them. Plus, we’re both readers so sometimes, if we don’t have much to talk about, we wind up talking about what we’ve been reading lately. This week’s meeting is pretty easy: I tell her about the issue I came across yesterday and the solution I implemented and then bring up an issue that one of my writers has talked to me about before that I wanted to get her feedback on. All in all, an easy meeting! Afterward, I take care of some follow-up tasks from that meeting and then decide I need a little break.

4:30 p.m.: I take a half-hour to myself to wrap Olive’s presents, tidy up the apartment, and make myself presentable for tonight. I also poke through my Christmas boxes and pick out a few things to put out. DON’T JUDGE ME.

5:00 p.m.: Back to work for a bit. I answer a few emails and Slack messages that have come through and then finish up the content posting task I had started so much earlier in the day. (I told you this one takes a long time to post!)

5:40 p.m.: I wrap up work for the day, shut down my laptop, and getting all of my stuff together to head over to Mikaela’s house for the night.

6:20 p.m.: I arrive at Mikaela’s house and her daughter, Olive, is excited to see me. Since there are some new people reading my blog, a little background on Olive: When she was 14 months old, she was diagnosed with a rare, aggressive form of liver cancer. Only a few people in the entire world have ever had this cancer, and none as young as Olive. She was given a 9% chance of survival. She needed surgery to remove the tumor in her liver but most pediatric surgeons weren’t comfortable doing the surgery. However, thanks to a family friend (actually, the woman Mikaela’s father dated before marrying her mom!), they found a surgeon in Boston who was confident he could do the surgery and it would be a success. And it was! She got through the surgery and many rounds of chemotherapy afterward and is a true warrior baby. She finished treatment in July 2021 and has had clean scans ever since, and she gets to have her port removed next week. Today is her third birthday and it’s just such a miracle that she is celebrating her birthday when we didn’t know if she’d be here. And not only is she here, but her cancer treatment didn’t slow her down at all. She’s above average developmentally and might be the smartest 3-year-old I’ve met.

Anyway, it was fun to see Olive and surprise her with some birthday gifts. I haven’t seen her in a while so I was worried she’d be shy around me, but this kid is the opposite of shy. She was bubbly and fun and gave me a big hug when I arrived. She was so cute opening her presents, gasping with pleasure and saying “Thank you, Aunty Steph!” after each one. We had dinner together, I gave Eleni a bottle while Olive took a bath, and then we read from the book I got her before it was time for bed. It was such a lovely little night!

7:50 p.m.: I leave Mikaela’s house so that she can get the kiddos to bed and drive home. And here’s some real talk for you: I had a lot of anxiety after leaving Mikaela’s. I’m a naturally quiet and reserved person, and sometimes I feel like that leads to being boring when I’m with other people. I started getting into my head that I wasn’t as bubbly and fun as I wanted to be, which lead me down a spiral that I’m just not a fun person to be around. All lies, I know! But I think it’s helpful for others to know that if you also spiral after fun nights like this, you’re not alone!

8:15 p.m.: I get home and the girls are snuggled together on the couch! I nearly die from the cute, as my cats aren’t big cuddlers together. But sometimes they surprise me! I start a bubble bath after giving them a treat and play games on my phone, which feels very relaxing to me.

8:45 p.m.: I work on this post for a bit and then it’s time for The Amazing Race! It’s a very good episode and I’m thrilled with the team that got first place this episode. Yay! I eat some ice cream while I watch and do a little tidying up, but mostly, I lay on the couch.

10:00 p.m.: I Facetime my mom to discuss our thoughts on The Amazing Race (we both watch), but she’s not answering. Annnnd here is the second anxiety spiral of today, wheeee. She should have answered the call but she doesn’t, so I figure: maybe she’s putting the dogs to bed or is in the bathroom or something. But when she hasn’t returned my call after 5 minutes, I try her again. No answer. So I send her a text, but it doesn’t deliver correctly so I figure something must be up with my phone. I restart it, call her again (we’re now 9 minutes into the spiral). Nothing. She FINALLY calls me back at 10:10 and asks why I haven’t called her. ACK. Phones, man. AND BRAINS. Why does my brain automatically shift into fight-or-flight mode when I don’t hear from my mom immediately? Why can’t it be normal?! Argh. Anyway, we have a very good conversation about the show and Olive and our days.

10:35 p.m.: I continue to work on this post, edit some pictures, and insert them into the post. I decide I’m going to be very lazy and not tidy up my whole apartment before I go to bed. I brush my teeth, but skip my skincare routine.

11:10 p.m.: I get into bed with my book (The Bodyguard, tonight) but I’m very tired so I only read a chapter before turning on Youtube to watch ASMR videos.

11:30 p.m.: Lights out!

Have you put any Christmas decorations out yet?

wednesday in the life: 2020, 2017, 2016, 2015, 2014