Day in the Life - Spring 2013

With prompting from Navigating the Mothership, I present another Day in the Life - Spring 2013 edition.

Thursday, April 18, 2013
Riley - 3 years, 2.5 months

1:01 am - I wake up and head to the bathroom. I'm sort of surprised that I don't feel like lead since that's the way I often do when I take a sleeping pill. I have a chronic pain condition (Myofascial Pain Syndrome, Diffuse) and it was causing me a lot of discomfort on Wednesday. Normally, (if stretching/exercise doesn't help) I take a pain pill, but I also try to avoid taking the pain pills if I don't have to. So I thought I'd try a sleeping pill to see if that would at least help me get a good nights sleep without my discomfort getting in the way. And for good measure I fall asleep with the NatureSpace app playing 'Infinite Shoreline'... aka ocean sounds. I did wake at 10:30 when Jesse came to bed, but then was out again... until 1 am, that is.

It wouldn't be a day in the life if I didn't take a picture of my clock

2:08 - Up again. I go to the bathroom just in case that's why I am awake, and hop back into bed. Just like at 1:00 I fall back to sleep fast.

4:18 - What the hell. I TOOK A SLEEPING PILL! Why am I up again. Usually, when I take a sleeping pill I feel so heavy with sleep, but not really this time. I still wake up 1 - 2 times a night, but not nearly this much. Luckily, I fall right back to sleep after going to the bathroom again.

5:05 - You have got to be kidding me. This time it's a leg cramp that has me bolting out of bed.

I fall back to sleep and have a weird, disjointed dream that involves bad driving, unbuckled kids in the car (one was mine - not sure who the other was), driving through water, and sleeping over in a basement filled with partying young people. I've been having a ton of random dreams each night this week which does not contribute to a good, deep sleep so I am grateful I only remember this one dream.

6:00 - Alarm goes off, and I feel ok for waking up so many times during the night. I get up, get dressed, and head downstairs. I hear Riley making noises and Jesse gets up with her. We eat, brush our teeth, I put eye drops in, and we get ready to go.

Last clock picture, I swear.

Yuck, snow.

Eye drops and citrocel - morning ritual.

More snow on the way today.  What the heck.

6:50 - Jesse calls his mom so he, Riley and I can sing happy birthday to her, cause... it's her birthday. We get her voice mail and sing away. She usually does this for us on our birthday's so it seems only appropriate to do for her. Over the weekend we will see her and Riley will present her card and soap she made. Plus, we plan to hire a photographer to do a family photo shoot (as her birthday gift) when Jesse's brother is in town in July. I can't wait.

6:55 - Leave the house with Jesse and Riley. Jesse drops me off at the bus stop and the bus arrives around 7:04. I talk with a co-worker at the bus stop about this ridiculous weather we're having. It seems almost impossible to have a conversation with anyone in this state lately without talking about the weather. It's stupid - the weather, that is.

7:30 - Arrive at work and catch up with my co-worker and dive into emails, and various work stuff. I put more eye drops in. I've had dry eye for years, but it got waaay out of control 6 plus months ago. I now put eye drops in about 5 times a day and after 5 attempts to get punctal plugs to stay in my eyes they seem to be put. It's helping a little, but I have to stay on top of the eye drops and rest my eyes a fair amount.

9:00 - Text my friend, Joanna. Joanna found out just days after our girl's weekend that her dad has cancer. It's aggressive and he likely only has a couple weeks to live. She's leaving to go see her dad on Friday and I want to check in with her before she goes and see if she needs me to feed her cat. She doesn't, but is clearly hurting. I want to take my friend's pain away, but I know that's not possible. I pull up the Caring Bridge site her family created to keep us informed of how her dad's doing and I find myself getting really emotional at work. I can't help, but imagine myself in her position. I close out the Caring Bridge site and focus back on work.

11:30 - I have a one on one with my supervisor - basically a monthly check in. We talk about a number of things including my health issues. I'm a little uncomfortable sharing this sort of stuff as I don't want to be identified by it, but it's important to our conversation so I decide to trust that it will be ok.

12:17 - My conversation with my supervisor runs over so I eat lunch a little later than planned. Leftovers of tilapia with capers, brown rice, and carrots. I overdo it on the capers as my tummy feels messed up after I eat.

1:00 - Back to work - emails, phone calls, etc.

1:30 - Oops, eye drops. Usually do this at noon, but just remembered.

You can't tell, but it's really snowing here.

2:00 - Spring Fling! It's quarter launch time at work which can sometimes be fairly stressful. To help get us through it all we have a quarter launch squad that plans some fun activities usually based around a particular theme. This quarter's theme is prom. Over a two week period we get treats dropped off at our desks, free coffee, ways to win things and usually some fun event. This time it was the spring fling where some people submitted prom pictures for a contest, we got to play bingo, and there was a dance thing (Wii?). Oh, and there was cake and punch. It was fun to take a break and get a good laugh at the prom pictures submitted.

I have two pictures here - #15 and #16.

I went to a Catholic high school. You could say my dress was frowned upon.

Prom was at a car dealership - hence the car and gas pump in the background.

Update: I did not win the prom picture contest, but was still told by a number of people that my pictures were their favorites so it's still a win. 

Most of my team (why am I standing like that?)

2:45 - back at my desk getting phone calls and sending emails.

4:33 - After a day of looking at the snow pelting down sideways I get to head outside and wait for the bus. This winter I have been lucky with the buses being on time during bad weather, but today I know I better and decide to hop on the first bus that comes that will get me near my house. I usually wait for the one that drops me off a half block from my house, but who knows when that will arrive so I jump on the one that drops me off two and a half blocks from my house.

5:07 - Still downtown and a ways to go before we jump on the highway. I usually get home at 5:15 so I text Jesse to let him know we will be late. I read, or try to read... I'm sitting near a talker who can't stop checking the news on her phone and then complaining to her friend about the bad wi-fi over and over. I'm reading the Turtle Catcher by Nicole Helget, a local author from Mankato. I read her memoir which I really liked even if it made me uncomfortable, really uncomfortable, at times. This is good, but I don't love it quite as much. I'd still recommend reading it.

5:29 - There is a particularly nasty spot where two directions of one highway merge onto another highway. I look up to see we are sitting in the midst of it and a car in front of us is stuck. One guy is trying to push the car and is successful in getting it to move forward. Then our double long bus attempts it and nope - we're not going anywhere. We are blocking one lane, but the back of the bus has started to move towards the middle. The driver is trying to take it easy as each time he attempts to move the bus forward, the back of the bus slides a little to the right. Cars keep flying by us and even hop over the piled up snow between the two lanes. A bus patron finally gets up and motions to cars to stop and eventually one does. In the meantime I look down to see a woman texting while driving in this mess.

OMG, quit squeezing by us. Let us try and get out of this.

Bus driver dumping sand under the tire. One of the other buses I could have taken is behind us.

Jack-knifing. Fun stuff.

Picture from MnDot? 

The driver gets out multiple times to put sand under tires and then rocks back and forth. We start to make headway, but the bus is slowly jack-knifing to the right. We are now blocking the right lane and cars are going around us to the left, including two buses that I could have waited for instead. Of course. The bus keeps getting closer and closer to the cement median on the right side of the road. Just over the median is a large drop off. I don't have fear that we'll go over, but we only have a couple feet to the right before we hit the median. The woman next to me shares that this is only the 5th day she's been riding the bus. I assure her that this is the first time it's happened to me in the over 5 years I've been riding the bus. She doesn't look very convinced.

6:00 - Another bus comes by and offers to take on passengers. I am lucky to get on, but about half the bus has to stay behind as there isn't enough room. I see a few guys just start walking and hope they don't get hit, because it's stupid slippery/slushy out. On the new bus I start talking with a woman who works on my floor. I see her multiple times a day, but this is the first time we have a conversation and exchange names. Turns out I had responded to a request she put out for daycare referrals. The woman on the other side of me taps me on the shoulder to show me a picture of our stalled bus that someone put on twitter. Someone must had taken it from a building nearby.

As we drive away the new bus hits the stuck bus multiple times. It's not super hard, but enough that I'm going to guess there are scratches on each of the buses.

Update: The stuck bus eventually gets towed. Our driver reported that he was out of there by about 7 pm.

6:21 - The bus drops me off and I call my dad during my slushy walk for two and a half blocks towards home. For some silly reason I didn't wear boots, but I walk down a tire track on the street and am ok. I know my dad will want to know I am ok so I call him first. I am relieved to know that his neighbor came over and helped him shovel. I walk in the door and Jesse heads on out to shovel, but first lets me know there is a corn on the cob for me.

I am starving so I gobble up the corn and don't care that it's super messy. I then play with my kid and get her bath going. Jesse took her shopping and got her another car from the Cars movie along with some goggles (always with the buying stuff!). We take them out and play with them... and take them into the bath.

Showing Riley how they work.

Obviously the only picture I took with the good camera this day.

7:14 - After Riley's bath we head upstairs where Jesse gets her jammies on her and then I help with brushing her teeth. We read a couple books that she and Jesse picked up at the library earlier in the day and she gets into bed for sleep. We do our usual conversation of walking through what Riley did that day. I get a heck of a hug ("I pulled you hard" - yes you did, kiddo) and a kiss and say goodnight.

Library book written by former football coach, Tony Dungy, and his wife.  Didn't expect him to be a kid's book author.

7:40 - I jump in the shower and then make a plate of cheese, salami, crackers, and apple since corn on the cob isn't really a full dinner, but I am too lazy to make something 'real'. I sit in front of my computer while Jesse has CNN on and is playing a game on his computer. I hear Riley cry out multiple times and hope she'll eventually fall asleep (and she does). I start to write this post, but then get up to clean up the kitchen a little. Jesse goes downstairs to watch TV or play a game. We were going to watch a movie, but it was just too late to start something.

9:30 - Still on the computer. I realize I am still hungry so I have a bowl of cereal.Not my typical dinner routine to eat various items throughout the night, but certainly not the first time I've done so.

9:46 - Start path to bedtime. Brush teeth, and am about to go downstairs to say goodnight to the hubby when he comes up. I give him a smooch goodnight and head up to the bedroom. I get clothes set out for the next day and crawl into bed shortly after 10 pm.

But first I take a picture of the joy happening outside.