new raspberry; �HATES technological I am sick to death of erectile dysfunction, pass the tampons please |
A Day In The Life A day in the life� 6:20 am � 12:00 pm The first of two alarms goes off. I am not a morning person. The first alarm is music, because god knows that if I was awakened by a buzzer I would spend the first hour of my day killing anyone I came in contact with. After ten minutes of music, the buzzer kicks in. This is my final warning to get up and make sure The Kid is up and getting ready for school. He�s really good about being up and about, but if I recall the hazy, drug-addled days that were my teenage years correctly, there will come a time when dynamite will be required to separate him from his bed. Then again, maybe not. Gently shuffling my way to the kitchen, I pour the first of many cups of coffee, which is ready for me thanks to the miracle of automatic timers. Lotsa 2% milk, lotsa sugar in the first, but I switch to artificial sweetener for subsequent cups. I must smell the aroma of coffee when that buzzer goes off or I will spend the first hour of my day killing anyone I come in contact with. Like most recovering alcoholics, I�ve traded the alcohol jones for a coffee jones. Now it�s time to check the weather. If it�s nasty out, The Kid already has a full report for me of which schools are open, which are closed, and who might be closing any second now so we can all go back to bed. Our district is always the last to call a snow day. No wimpy, pampered school kids in our neck of the woods. By god, we�re like the post office�s motto when it comes to teaching the three R�s. I switch back and forth between two weather guys. One is all doom and gloom, gleefully outlining the worst case scenarios we can expect in the day ahead. The other guy is so low key in his forecast delivery I sometimes think he�s about two seconds shy of dropping dead right there on the set in front of the FutureCast�s � multicolored graphics. Today it is in the 20�s, cloudy and it will be snowing within the hour. They�re already talking about the possibility of dismissing school early if we get it in any sort of quantity. Scary weather guy says 3 � 6 inches; the cadaver says 2 � 5. After everyone is gone, it�s time for me to have a smoke break or three, I mean get to work. If I have appointments outside the house in the morning, this is the point at which I will take a shower. If not maybe I�ll throw in a load of laundry, or clean one thing or another. Today I�ve got a load of laundry in and am considering running the vacuum. Five animals manage to deposit a lot of hair/fur around this house so the vacuum runs quite frequently. I do my first check of email and see what Outlook has on my To Do list for the day. I have 82 emails. My dad�s friend Richard must be forwarding like mad today and I see I have some uncompleted tasks from yesterday which Outlook gently reminds me of by highlighting them in a not-so-subtle shade of red. I�m also writing this document and catching up on someone else�s diary. There�s the laundry to move to the dryer, then fold/hang and put away. Pretty soon the morning is almost gone and it�s time to feed the dogs, put on some clothes and go out in a snowstorm so the dogs can pee and poop. Oh, and to maybe pick up some of the birds that have crashed into the picture windows and broken their little necks as the snowstorm has turned the windows into mirrors and they don�t seem to connect the dead bodies on the ground with the danger presented by said windows. 12:01 pm � 6:00 pm You probably noticed that I didn�t include eat breakfast in the morning section. That�s because usually I don�t and today is no exception, but I do plan to have a big bowl of Frosted Flakes for lunch. Later Well I finally got to the vacuuming. It seems like I always have a case of butt first. I went to do the vacuuming, but first there was something that needed dusting. I headed for the closet where the vacuum is, but first I had to scoop out the litter box. I don�t know where the hours in the day go to; I just know I am always doing something. And when you are a stay-at-home, the job never ends. It�s always staring you in the face when something needs to be done and type-A personality that I am, it requires super-human effort to not do what needs to be done. Dr. Phil told me the other day that stay-at-home mom�s work the equivalent of two full time jobs. And he�s right. I am at �the office� 24/7. My day starts at 6:30 am and I am doing my job right up until I hit the sack at midnight or, god forbid, 1:00 am. There is no walking out to your car at 5:00 pm and driving away from it. There�s homework to monitor after school, there�s after school sports, after school activities. All this parent shit that I never intended to have to go through. I can�t even go out and get a job to get away from it because all this will still be here waiting for me at the end of the day. So I try to take spaces during the day (like right now) where I play on the computer. I have my �public consumption� website that I maintain for the folks back where I used to live so they can see what we are up to. I have a photo blog at fotopages.com. In fact, I have two. I started the first one because when I got my digital camera, I started filling up the web space I pay for very quickly and so I was looking for some free photo hosting and for the most part, I�ve been happy with fotopages. I �hang out� with a core group of fellow photographers there and we view each other�s pictures and comment about the pictures, our lives, whatever. It�s like a coffee klatch online. Then I started a photo meme in which I post a photograph and people have a week to look at it and make their best guess as to what it is. After a week I post the solution, make smart-ass comments about the guesses people have left and post a new photo. Depending on how many people participate in a given week, it can take a little or a lot of time to respond to the comments. I used to participate in three different artsy-fartsy photo memes, but I just don�t have the time to anymore and most of them are so overrun with participants that my stuff just gets lost in the crowd. And then there�s this page that you are reading right now and y�all know how often I update this. I make no promises other than to say I will try to do better. See, the thing is I like reading your stuff too and sometimes I get so involved in reading there is no time left for my own updates. The Kid gets walks in the door at 4:00 pm. We play catch-up on each other�s day, he does chores, any homework that needs to be done and I get started cooking dinner. This is where I�m off to now. Pork roast, mashed potatoes and corn are calling my name. 6:01 pm � bedtime Today is a Wednesday so I have an AA meeting to attend. I go to a Monday night Women�s group which is an hour long discussion group, one that�s small enough that it�s almost impossible to get through without having to participate and that�s probably a good thing. Through listening to the other�s, I usually find something that�s bugging me that I didn�t know was bugging me. The Wednesday night group is also an hour long, and changes format depending on which week of the month it is. Most of the time it�s discussion participation, but it�s such a big group that it�s really a crap shoot whether we get everyone to throw in their two cents before we run out of time. Then Friday night is a Speaker meeting that lasts an hour and a half. It's also a big group. Later After my meeting is the time that Ms., aka my better half and I would spend catching each other up on our respective days if a) she was speaking to me and b)she was in town. Neither of which is a true statement today. I think she�s waiting for me to apologize for what I said, but I wasn�t wrong to speak my mind honestly, in fact my therapist agrees that it was a humongous step for me to be able to do that. In fact, the consensus among people that I�ve discussed it with is that she is wrong and I am right. Since I am not doing what I would normally be doing, I am finishing this entry and posting it. Then I will go read some blogs I like to read and probably play a game or two on the computer. So there you have it, a day in the life. Pretty average, eh?
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secrets pondering: Why the right wingers who want to keep the government out of their business insist on putting the government in my bedroom laughing about: It gets lost in translation crying about: bad habits: smoking totally ballistic about: amen sister: someone else�s take on childlessness regular reads: cactustree must see tv: |