A Day in the Life – May 2021 Edition

It’s finally SPRING y’all! Winter is ovah … maybe … sort-of … I live in the mid-West so you never know! Winter fights hard to stick around – so one day it’s 70F … the next day can be in the 30s. Here’s a look at a day in my life – early-Spring edition.

>TANYA PATRICE<

7:00 AM // Up and At ’em. I usually I’m awake around 6AM (no alarm clock), but I don’t leave bed until 7 – ahhh, that’s what you have to look forward to when you don’t have young kids, and you don’t care to exercise early in the AM. Just to contrast – when I check Strava – my fit friends have already been out for their 5:30AM 10 miler or 20+ mile bike rides!

But – let me not get ahead of myself! The first thing I usually do before I get out of bed is check my calendar for the day – work and personal. I keep them separate and have the widgets on my phone, so I just swipe to see personal calendar, and swipe again to see work calendar. Today I want to do a treadmill Zwift Run event at 9:30 AM so I plan to start work at 7:30AM.

So out of bed at 7AM and head downstairs to make a cuppa tea (Trader Joe’s Moroccan Mint Green Tea) and head to the kitchen garden flower bed to water it. We plan on extending our patio and covering this area next year, so I haven’t done much to it except add hostas – but this area grows waist high weeds if it’s left unattended. Just last week I pulled all the weeds, added mulch + some creeping phlox and hardy geraniums. Then I added some Annabelle hydrangeas I found on 50% clearance a few days ago … unfortunately, I had left them out for a few days and they were looking so sad because they dried out, so I planted them last night. So I need to water this area every morning – which is why I’m headed out now.

I’m going to add some sunflowers and zinnias in a few weeks that I’m growing from seed – first time ever that I’m growing anything from seed!

While I’m out watering this spot, I listen to the audiobook of The Nine, C.G. Harris. I’m almost finished – such an enjoyable book – the main character is so witty and funny. This is really my zen time and the way I wish every morning could be easy like this – just me, a cuppa and a little me time outside.

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7:45AM – Work! This year, I was trying to set top 3 priorities every day like I’ve read about, but the priorities would keep going into the next day and the next … until I figured that with my job, I need to set the top 3 priorities for the week because there’s usually multiple steps involved with each. Today I’m working on a project having to do with complaints and I get quite a bit done during this focused time with no meetings.

9:15 Run! One of my favorite things about using Zwift is participating in the events. The run today is a series in honor of the Asian American and Pacific Islander Heritage Month – May. Since I’m on a run/walk program, I use one of the workouts on FitRadio for this 5K – a run/walk interval called “Pain is Temporary” – basically 4, 3, 2, 1 min runs with walking intervals of 1-2 mins. It was challenging but quite fun, and it helped the time pass by quickly.

10 -10:30AM – Break. I take a quick shower and make a little breakfast and take what I term my “energy cocktail”. I’ve been feeling really low energy lately and what’s been helping is taking Centrum Multivitamin+Energy and Iron.

10:30 – 12:30 – WORK. Emails, conference calls, spreadsheets – the usual. I am happy to be working from home during the pandemic and that my job hasn’t been impacted (yet). I DESPERATELY need to clean off my desk though – it is SO cluttered with months of working from home … and I’d like to set-up my home office to look Pinterest-cute … oh why is there so much junk on my desk – no pictures can be shared.

12:30 – 2:30 – Meeting. We have a 2 hour long quarterly department meeting. This is a great time to hear what’s happening in the rest of this large organization. While listening, I make and eat lunch – tuna + chips + a side salad. I also take the time to season the chicken thighs to cook for dinner tonight “Jerk BBQ Chicken Thighs”. For this, I season boneless chicken thighs with salt, Walkers Wood Jerk Seasoning (this is the BEST) and BBQ sauce.

2:30PM – BREAK. With the call done, I take a break to walk around a bit / talk to the fam and go outside to set the sprinkler for the front & side flower beds. Can you tell Spring is all about the outside yard?! Lest you think I’m the only one working – my husband and sons are opening the pool today – they took the pool cover off, started filling it up with water, adding chemicals etc. – it’s a whole week long process it seems.

3 – 5PM – Work / work / work. I actually move my laptop and shift to working downstairs at the dining room table. It’s at the front of the house, has big windows, and overlooks the front and side yards – so it’s really light and bright. Sometimes I just need to break up the location – instead of sitting in one place all day long. Plus, it’s easier to remember to turn off the sprinklers this way (the pic below is a view of the side flower bed in July – I love the wild floppy look of the hydrangeas).

5PM- DINNER. It’s fairly quick to cook the chicken thighs on the stove-top – and I pop a bag of green beans into the microwave to eat with it. Everybody is doing their own thing – my husband went out to meet friends earlier, my youngest had a school band meeting and swim practice – so he’s also out and although my oldest is home – he’s holed up in his room. So I eat dinner while getting in some more time with the audiobook of The Nine. Does anyone listen to music or audiobooks while they work? I can’t – I also don’t have the television or anything else on – it seems distracting to me.

7PM – I had really wanted to do the Zwift ride event for Asian American and Pacific Islander Month ride but I’m feeling tired … I could ride it now, or just do something later OR start this blog post and get a little bit of reading in … I opt NOT to ride. So I clean up the kitchen, and head to the shower.

8PM – Showered – I side-eye the pile of laundry that needs to be folded in our room, and side-eye the pile of laundry that needs to go in the washer. Those are not getting done today! Instead, I get into bed and start on this blog post.

9PM – I’m done on the computer. I find it hard to be on the computer all day for work – and then be on it for a long time in the evening … but before I shut it down, I place an order at Bath & Body Works for hand soaps and lotions. There is a promo code for free shipping – otherwise I would just go to the store tomorrow.

I want to say that I read until I fell asleep – especially since I have some overdue advance reader copies on Netgalley …. BUT instead, I turn to gardening videos on Youtube. I really want to re-do the front garden flower bed so I’ve been looking for inspiration. Some of my favorite gardening channels – Linda Vater … Garden Addictz … HortTube … Northlawn Flower Farm.

10PM – SLEEP. I generally go to bed between 10 and 12. The last thing I usually do is check my phone – again, to see what meetings are happening tomorrow and also Zwift Facebook groups – yes, I will admit to being obsessed! And then … sleep.

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My weekday mornings have been the same for the last few days and I’m hoping it will be that way for the rest of Spring. How does your morning start? Kim will take over next month with our Day in the Life series.