Everything I did on Friday, January 3, 2020
Location: Pasadena, CA
6:30am Gibson crawls in our bed and wakes me up
6:50am I get out of bed to cough and blow my nose for awhile. I've been battling a cold/laryngitis/possible bronchitis for a week. It's getting old.
7:00am Make a cup of tea. It does not taste like vinegar, thankfully. My electric kettle had a bunch of mineral deposits on it yesterday so I tried a vinegar soak. Now it's nice and clean. I find a package of Hawaiian hot dog buns in the cupboard that need to be used up so I toast two and add PB&J for breakfast.
7:15am Gibson comes into the kitchen pretending to be Gus because he wants the jelly bean Gus is owed from last night (our current bribe for using the bathroom by oneself). I feed them some generic Lucky Charms. They mainly eat the marshmallows.
7:30am the boys go back to bed to jump on Daddy. DF switched to a new job this year where the vacation time schedule is very flexible, and he was able to take two full weeks off for the holidays. We've definitely enjoyed having him home! I text our relatives in San Diego that we won't make it down to visit this weekend, since I'm still sick. We'll have to celebrate our belated Christmas even more belatedly, I guess.
7:50am Remember that it's the first Friday of the year and I need to start writing this list. DF and boys get up and play blocks in the playroom (Whomp Kings, a game they made up). I hang out with them for awhile.
8:15am Unload the dishwasher. It has been leaking lately. I clean out the "gunk" trap over the drain, which is super gross. Hopefully that will help. Wash dishes still hanging out in the sink from last year (ha ha). We had company for a week over New Years and we're still recovering. DF and kids are playing Lego Star Wars on Wii now. I take a long hot shower and inhale as much steam as I can before my California guilt kicks in about wasting water. I decide to be brave and wear contact lenses today. We had pink eye making the rounds here so I was wary of sticking my fingers in my eyes, but the kids seem to have recovered fully. Try to install the new phone screen protector I got for Christmas. Drat, it's the wrong size.
9:15am Gibson requests a cookie. More tea for me. Clean off the pile of stuff that has accumulated on the top of our dryer, the family temporary storage area. Send a Christmas card that got returned for an old address. Read the news about impending war with Iran. Try not to despair about the state of the world.
10:00am Time for more Mucinex. Watch the Wii game. Gibson is whining sooo much about the game my ears are about to explode. DF turns it off and takes a shower. The kids and I play "what animal am I thinking of?" and other pretending games.
11:00am I eat black eyed peas and greens for lunch. More good luck coming my way! The boys are playing Legos. They eat some beef jerky, apple slices, and corn muffins. Gus blows muffin crumbs all over the place. He informs me his New Year's resolution is to make more messes. <eyeroll> We have a discussion about death, the afterlife, and options for disposal of bodies. This is a fairly common topic of conversation.
11:30am DF takes the boys to a thrift store to look at toys because they want to spend their Christmas money. While they are out, I run the robot vacuum and do some laundry. I get deeply involved in making a "decade in review" post on Instagram, scouring my photo archives for images to represent the spectrum of my life for the last 10 years. I also reply to some messages that come in from a volunteer organization I work with. We are making plans for our 2020 fundraiser. Just as the boys come back, I field a call related to the fundraiser and croak out some words on the phone for 10 minutes. Doing so makes me feel like a productive member of society.
1:15pm Shoppers return home. They are loaded down with swords, light sabers, smash balls, Legos, and other things I don't recognize.
1:30pm Snack time - granola and frozen blueberries. We all play with the new toys. I trim my fingernails and convince the boys to sit on the front stoop so I can trim theirs, too. DF assembles 26 smash balls.
2:40pm all smash balls have been destroyed. They contain little rubber sports-themed figures. I drink more tea and do more laundry. The kids picked up some banks at the store and want to transfer all their coins from their previous banks to the new ones. We practice some Spanish - hola, adios, te amo - because we're planning to send the boys to a dual language Spanish program for elementary school. I send the robot vacuum to the back of the house.
3:40pm cracker snack. Watch Sponge Bob Square Pants. I install a new game on my phone because I recently got a new phone and am going crazy enjoying all the memory space, lol.
4:25pm load and run dishwasher. Fold laundry. The kids are watching Super Wings.
4:45pm turn off the TV. Attempt to get the kids out the door to a restaurant for dinner. They attack me with light sabers.
5:05pm They are finally dressed. (They had been wearing PJs all day. I let them wear PJs nearly whenever they want because soon enough they'll have to get dressed in a uniform for school every day. If they whine about it, I plan to say, "Remember when you were little and you used to wear your pajamas all day every day? That was nice, huh? Now you are big kids who go to school, so you need to wear your uniform.") We finally leave at 5:15. Stop by the UPS store to return my phone screen protector to Amazon. I don't even have to put it in a box. Whoa, such service. We eat dinner at our favorite diner that has a special with 3 hamburgers, 3 fries, and 3 drinks for $11.99. The boys share a burger (and don't even finish it) and I drink water, so it's a great deal for our family! On the way home, we try to pick up an item from our local Buy Nothing group but the family wasn't home.
6:40pm We're home. I unload the dishwasher, which did not leak on the floor. Yay! The kids are excited to see their toys again.
6:50pm Take anti-anxiety medicine, my current best friend. Drink more tea. Motivate the kids to clean up the playroom by rebuilding one smash ball for each small amount of cleaning effort.
7:45pm Snack time. Gibson requests peanut butter on a spoon. Gus ignores my repeated warnings of bedtime approaching.
8:00pm Time to get ready for bed. Gus, predictably, objects that he didn't get a snack. He scarfs down a few pretzels while Gibson brushes his teeth.
8:15pm DF tells them a bedtime story. It's still called a "Goldilocks" story and bears little resemblance to the traditional narrative. Usually, I do it but we've reached the point in the evening where my voice has faded and the coughing intensifies. I go to make a cup of (disgusting, licorice) Throat Coat tea. While I'm waiting for the water to boil, I read the ingredients and notice it has cinnamon bark. Whoops, I'm allergic to cinnamon! I'm off the hook and choose Sleepytime Vanilla instead. Write some Amazon product reviews while sipping tea.
8:35pm Children are loudly singing the rainbow song from their beds. I go in and tell them it's time to quiet down. After one last hug and drink of water, they go to sleep. DF and I watch a few episodes of Undone, a new Amazon show that is really trippy.
9:45pm I take Mucinex and vitamins and head to bed, propped up on 4 pillows.
Thanks for reading! You can check out previous days in the life here:
2019, 2018, 2017, 2016 <-- the most exhausting one
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