A Day in the Life – April Edition

In March, Tanya published her Day in the Life post which I lovingly dub the ‘bad-ass edition!’ I seriously need to take a cue from her and get back to a regular work out routine. Cycling sounds really fun! Now we’re back here in April with a look at typical mid-week DITL for me. I recorded this from a week or two ago…

♥ KIM ♥

6:15 AM | Wake Up Call. My youngest is up and asking for help in the bathroom (he’s just under 4 yr old.) After helping him, I tuck him back into our bed with my husband while I head to the shower. Then it’s into the kitchen to make coffee and breakfast for the kiddos. Everyone else starts to slowly roll out of bed by around 6:45 am. Hubs is off to work by 7am and we start the ‘get ready for school’ routine. 

While my two boys eat breakfast I check email and social media. Reply to a couple of messages from students, send a Marco Polo to my sisters, and update Goodreads. Kids are clearing the table and I finish cleaning up breakfast. Then it’s off to get myself dressed, help kids get dressed, comb hair, and put backpacks together. 

8:15 AM | School Drop Off. 15 minutes before we need to leave for school my oldest decides he’s still hungry. I rush to heat him up a bowl of oatmeal which he wolfs down in three bites. We check the lunch menu and he decides he wants to bring his own lunch. We normally do school lunch so this doesn’t happen very often. I throw a sandwich and some sides in his lunch bag and we load up the car to drive him over to the elementary school. He’s in first grade.

8:50 AM | Get Ready. We’re back home and my youngest is playing. Another cup of coffee. I blow dry my wet hair and try to brush it out a bit.  Then it’s a couple of chores. Feed the cats, scoop litter boxes, make beds, sort mail, load/unload the dishwasher, and rotate/fold the laundry. I’ve had to learn how to be a master speed cleaner. After I finish I play a quick board game with my son. 

10:00 AM | Volunteer. Back at the elementary school for our weekly volunteer appointment. Last year I read with the kids. This year I help my sons 1st grade teacher file paperwork and put together weekly folders for the kids. I miss reading with the kids but doing this makes it a lot easier to have my youngest hang out with me while I work. He typically brings an Eye Spy sticker book or I give him my phone to play Kahn Academy Kids on. 

10:30 AM – The school has an earthquake drill while we’re there. Lucky us – we get to participate in the whole thing. After hiding under a table we follow everyone outside to the big field. Finally we’re allowed to go back in. I finish up filing some papers and then stop by the work room to turn in a reimbursement form for the PTA. I’m not on the board but I was in charge of the Reflections contest last fall. 

11:00 AM | Lunch. Back home and I’m starving. Breakfast on weekdays is a struggle for me so I haven’t eaten yet. I make mac ‘n’ cheese for my youngest and heat myself up some leftover vegetarian chili. After lunch my son helps me mix up some guacamole and then we sit down to work on his worksheet for preschool. 

12:15 PM | Preschool Drop Off. I drive my youngest over to preschool and drop him off. He has preschool three afternoons a week. Then it’s back home for a couple of hours of no kids time. Hubs is home for lunch. We chat a bit and then he heads back to work. We’re lucky that he only works about ten minutes from home. 

1:00 PM | To Do List. Now it’s time to tackle as much as I can while I have the chance. First, I finish some more chores. I usually try to listen to my audiobook while I do housework. This time I rotate the laundry again, vacuum all the floors and then run the Swiffer mop over the tile. I love my Steamfast steam cleaner but the Swiffer makes it easy to do a quick clean. I finish cleaning up lunch and then sit down at my laptop to work. 

1:30 PM | Work. I open up Canvas and get to work grading the assignments that came in over the last couple of days. I work as an Adjunct Professor at a local University. I teach research methods courses online. I love my job and am so grateful for it! I finish up by sending my classes a reminder email about an upcoming deadline and an opportunity for extra credit.

Then I take a couple of minutes to check email again and watch a Kahn Academy lesson on the Hittite Empire. Lastly I cook up some taco meat for dinner and throw it in the fridge. While it’s cooking I browse Target for birthday gift ideas for my youngest, and look at prices on hedge trimmers. I’ve decided that trimming the boxwoods by hand is the last thing I want to do this Spring. 

2:40 PM | A Small Window. I don’t have to pick up my youngest until 3 pm but I head to a park near his school and read in my car for 20 minutes. At 3 pm I swing over and pick him up. Then we immediately head over to the elementary school to pick up my oldest. I hate the school pick up and drop off. They do their best to keep it orderly but it’s still crowded and chaotic. Gives me anxiety!

3:45 PM | After School. Back home we unload backpacks and the boys tell me about their days. Then they grab a snack and head outside to ride bikes with the neighbor boys. I can see my neighbor outside with them so I change into my dance clothes and pull out my choreography notebook. I review the final choreography for the hip hop routine I’ve been working on and make sure it fits with the music. I also review my lesson plan and other routines for that night and then head outside to watch the boys and chat with the neighbor. 

4:45 PM | Changing of the Guard. Hubs is home early from work so that I can leave for work. We basically high five in the driveway. I shout a few dinner instructions to him, wave bye to the boys and I’m off to the studio. (I teach dance two nights a week.) I get to the studio a few minutes early and review my dance notes in the car before heading in. 

5:15 PM | Let’s Dance. My first class is a group of 13-16 year olds. It’s a beginner combination jazz, contemporary, and hip hop class. We stretch and warm up in Studio B. The girls are chatty today and telling me all about track tryouts at school. At 5:30 Studio C has opened up so we move over there to have a bit more room to move. I run center technique with them and then we do ‘across-the-floors’. This is where they do technique moving across the floor- leaps and such. After tech I teach them the final part of their hip hop choreography. We spend the last part of class reviewing recital routines. Recital is in 6 weeks! 

6:30 PM | Round Two. My second class is a group of 9-10 year olds. It’s a beginner combination jazz and tap class. I have an assistant for this class and she is great! She starts their stretching while I take roll and then run to the bathroom. The drill is much the same in this class just with a different age skill set. We start with a ballet barre warmup, run center and across-the-floor technique, and then move onto choreography. We’re finishing up their tap routine and working a particularly tricky transition over and over again until we get it right. At the end of class we let the girls play a round of Freeze Dance to reward them for working hard without complaining. 

7:30 PM | Loose Ends. After class my assistant and I head over to Studio A to watch the last part of Boys Hip Hop. (Her 5 year old is in the class.) I stick around to chat with the other teachers for a bit before heading to my car. I check in with my husband via text and find that he’s started baths and bedtime routine with the boys. (We’ve realized that it’s best if I don’t come home and interrupt bedtime routine. If you’re a parent, you know bedtime is a process. So I typically stay away until I know they’re asleep.)

8:00 PM | Library. I head over to the library to pick up a hold- The Sanitorium, Sarah Pearse. I’m incredibly lucky to have library cards with both of our adjacent county library systems so library trips happen every couple of days. I sit at the library for a bit to do some more grading for my class then I check in with the blog. I start a new blog post and leave a few ideas on our editorial calendar.  After leaving I run through the drive thru and grab myself a hamburger for dinner. 

9:00 PM | Home Again. Back home and I’m exhausted. Both boys are asleep. I quietly move around the kitchen cleaning up the rest of the dinner, feeding the cats, and making sure the house is locked up for the night. Hubs comes out and we chat about our days. I head into the bathroom to wash my face and brush my teeth. 

9:15 PM | Winding Down. Hubs and I surf channels a bit before deciding there’s nothing we’re interested in watching and turn it off. We don’t really watch that much TV but occasionally turn it on to see if there’s anything we want to binge. The last show we made it through was The Mandalorian. I’m looking forward to watching Shadow and Bone when it comes out. Hubs listens to his audiobook while playing on his phone and I pull out my book to read in bed. I’m tired enough to sleep now but I want to make some more progress on my book- A Good Girl’s Guide to Murder, Holly Jackson.

10:15 PM | Lights Out.  Off to sleep, ready to do it all over again tomorrow!

Today was a busy one and my brain has a hard time shutting down at night. I’m very much looking forward to a bit of a slow down over the summer. What’s your busiest day of the week? How do you unwind?