I love the day in the life of a blogger posts that I read from time to time on other blogs – it’s fun to get a glimpse into the regular life. Not the instagram life, or the blog life, just the typical everyday. Curious to know what a day might look like at casa sweetest digs? I documented one of our regular weekdays here:
6:55am >> Start to hear little sounds coming out of the nursery.
7:00am >> Major chatter happening now. I can hear her talking about her “boo-boo” (she got a mosquito sting on the weekend that swelled up and is very proud of her war wounds).
7:15am >> After a few “Dada!!!”s, Dan goes in to get her, changes her out of her diaper, and brings her into our room. We let her stomp around our room getting into all kinds of things as we lay in bed and slowly wake up. She gets up into our bed and gets tons of hugs and tickles as a result. I love this part of the morning when we just get to hang together.
7:30am >> We finally get ourselves out of bed and I hop in the shower, while Dan and Maya brush their teeth. Once I get out, we rotate and Dan jumps in. Maya keeps herself more or less entertained with various things in the bathroom (hair bows, brushes, mummy’s makeup, etc) but does often want “up” to see herself in the mirror and get at mummy and daddy level.
7:55am >> We have made it downstairs and I start putting together Maya’s oatmeal and our smoothies. I buy plain quick oats for her (the Organics line from PC/Shoppers) and put some in a bowl with water and microwave for 1.5 minutes. Once they come out, we add some milk, cinnamon, and applesauce (unsweetened) and she LOVES it. I also make our 3 smoothies. We all have more or less the same thing, but Maya’s is a smaller quantity, and mine and Dan’s have some protein powder. I have become super fast at these, so it only takes me about 5 minutes tops. Today’s variety: hemp seed, flax seed, baby spinach, banana, frozen fruit (mixed bag: pineapple, peach, strawberry, grape), protein powder, and a bit of mango juice.
8:15am >> Breakfasts are done and we get Maya out of her high chair to get dressed. We get her dressed after breakfast because inevitably oatmeal ends up on whatever she is wearing. This morning goes easily – she lets me help her put on her teeshirt and pants without fuss – just some silly songs and faces. Some mornings are a doozy where she wants to do everything herself (“Maya do!!!”) and putting on a pair of pants can take 20 minutes. Luckily this is not one of those mornings.
8:20am >> All head out the door to hop in the car. Whoops, spoke too soon on this one not being a doozy. Tantrum over getting in the carseat. We try counting to 5, but ultimately Dan has to wrangle her into her seat while arched back and tears are happening. I take a picture with my cell because I figure we want to remember ALL the toddler stuff – good and bad. Taking the picture seems to distract her somewhat and the tantrum is over (note to self: remember that trick). Haven’t included that photo here, because really, it’s probably not what Maya wants out in the universe, you know? 
8:23am >> We are at Maya’s daycare. It’s so ridiculously close that we should really walk, but we are in the routine of driving from winter. Need to get out of that habit. We bring Maya in, change her shoes and drop off clean clothes, and she runs in to see all of her friends. Not even a look back or wave at us. She is thrilled to be there!
8:30am >> I drop Dan off at his bus stop so he can head downtown to work. Now that the weather is nice, he is going to start biking to work, but he forgot to plan ahead the night before with getting his bag ready. Tomorrow!
8:40am >> I’m back at home now. Put the kettle on and the dishes away while I’m waiting for it to boil. Finish up making my two-shot americano with cream and sugar, and turn on the computer to get to work.
8:50am until 12:45pm >> Solidly into work this morning. I have various things on the go: finishing the edits on a report that is due to the organization I’m currently doing a contract for, emails, responding to some messages on Etsy, writing up a blog post for publishing later in the week, and doing some research on what wordpress theme to use for a website I’m building for a family friend/client. This is often how my work goes – so all over the place, jumping from one type of work to another. I’m finding lately that balancing work commitments can be tricky, but ultimately I’m super happy doing what I’m doing. It never *feels* like work, which is the best.
12:45am >> Realize my tummy is grumling pretty hard. I had grabbed a handful of almonds earlier in the morning as a snack, and have been drinking lemon water all morning, but I’m ready for lunch. I tend to stick to two lunches throughout the week. The first is scrambled eggs with veggies and cheese. The second, which I’m having today, is muesli.
I mix together:
– muesli
– Nordica 1% cottage cheese (1% is the sweet spot for me – the skim is too watery)
– plain greek yoghurt
– fruit (today all I had in the fridge were raspberries)
– cinnamon
– maple syrup
Dump it all into a bowl and mix. It is seriously delish. The cinnamon and little bit of maple syrup make it feel like a total treat.
What I love about this lunch is that it is super quick to put together, and packs a bunch of low-fat protein, vitamin D, and calcium with the cottage cheese. Cottage cheese can get such a bad rap because it looks kind of weird, but man, it’s awesome. I throw it in eggs, and have seen lots of people use it in smoothies and pasta too.
I check my etsy shop and then catch up on some fave blogs while I eat.
I’m missing veggies in this meal, so I try make sure that my afternoon snack that day is something like carrot sticks or a green juice if I’m on the run (I like the cold pressed juices that are full of veggies from either Bridgehead or Pure Kitchen).
1:15pm >> Done lunch. I can’t quite get myself back on the computer as my bum is sore from sitting all morning and barely moving. I am still dealing with an SI joint issue from pregnancy, and although it isn’t too bad, if I sit for any length of time without moving around, it gets locked and ache-y. I need to get some photographs done for an upcoming blog post, so figure now is the right time. I head up to the second floor family room where all of my craft stuff is everywhere (it’s a HUGE mess in there), setup a little vignette, and get to shooting. I have to say, photography is probably my least favourite part of blogging. I enjoy making things and I enjoy writing about them, but actually taking the photos for the post isn’t my cuppa tea.
Want a sneak peak at that project?
2:30pm >> Done photography. Head back onto my computer to do some more emailing. I also put together some coupons to go into a swag bag for my upcoming craft fair, Handmade Harvest. Finish the editing on those, and then send them in to get printed.
4:00pm >> Can’t really believe where the day has gone. I feel like I have barely moved. I could go to the gym, but it’s a beautiful day and I’d love to get outside. We need a few groceries to keep us going this week, so I figure I’ll walk over to Shoppers to pick them up. It’s about a 15 minute walk there and 15 minute walk back, so not much, but still nice to get outside.
4:45pm >> Put away the couple of groceries I grabbed and look in the fridge to figure out what I can do for dinner. Should have thought about this earlier and pulled something out from the freezer. We have the makings for black bean burritos, so that’s what we’re going with. I stop to admire my orchid for a sec. This guy was on its last legs about a month ago, and now there are 5 blooms. I can barely believe I have kept this plant alive so long.
4:55pm >> Walk over to daycare to pick up Maya. She is all smiles and has had a great day. There is a paper heart in her cubby that says she has “success on the toilet!”. We have just recently started to toilet train and she wore underwear all day, with only one accident. On our walk home I ask Maya about how her day was, and she points out all the buses as they go by (“bus!!!!!”).
5:15pm >> We’re home. I put the black beans on with some taco seasoning, and also throw in red peppers, onions, and mushrooms. I try to distract Maya by having her take the lettuce out of the bag and put it into the bowl. We go put her “success with toilet!” up on her art board.
5:25pm >> Dan gets home. Maya runs over to the door, super excitedly. Man that kid loves her Dad like nothing else. He throws her up in the air and they do their usual horsing around for 15 minutes while I get the rest of dinner organized.
5:40pm >> We sit down to dinner. We like to eat all together as a family for dinner and since Maya goes to bed at 7pm, it tends to be pretty early. Dinner goes over well, although Maya makes a huge mess. Man on man, the girl is not a clean eater, that’s for sure. Milk also gets spilled. This is why I will not have a rug under our dining room table for a long time to come.
6:20pm >> Dinner finished. We wipe Maya down and she runs around a bit while Dan and I clear up the table.
6:35pm >> We are actually finished dinner early enough that we can do a bath tonight. The whole bath thing has gotten pretty lax around here lately. Maya loves it though – total water baby – so she is thrilled when we say bath and starts climbing up the stairs in a hurry.
6:55pm >> Done bath. Time for PJs, stories, a few songs, and then into bed. Our routine is pretty regular and Maya doesn’t make much of a fuss about going to bed. We leave the room and she protests a bit, but after about 4 minutes is quiet.
7:10pm >> Dan puts all the dishes into the dishwasher and cleans the kitchen. I grab some laundry from the dryer that I forgot about a few days ago (whoops) and bring it upstairs. Our tenants for the basement apartment are moving in soon, so after Dan is done in the kitchen he heads down there to do some of the final touches (fixing some trim, putting down floor thresholds, etc.). I close down my computer, tidy up a little, and then grab a craft project I’m working on. I watch an episode of “Call the Midwife” while DIY’ing. Once Dan finishes up downstairs, he goes over onto his computer for a bit.
9:15pm >> We head to bed. Yep, just after 9pm. Even if we want to watch a show together, we have a TV up in our room so we’ll watch up there. We are pretty much never up downstairs past 9pm these days. Exciting life we lead, huh?
Zzzzzz….
And that’s it! Just a day in the life. My days can vary hugely. This one happened to be very much home-based, but lots of days I have client meetings, am running around doing various errands, sometimes I go work at a coffee shop. I also usually aim to get more exercise than I did on this particular day, but that’s just how it goes. If I can’t make it to the gym, I have some Tracy Anderson videos at home that I can do. I like them because they are short (in 15 minute sections), so I can do just one or two and still feel like I have done *something*.
What does a day in your life look like?
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