For everyone who’s tracking time this week, welcome to day 2! This was a fun one, for some planned reasons and more serendipitous ones.
I woke at 6:45 a.m. when my husband brought the baby to me (in the guest room). As per yesterday’s post, he was on duty last night and I was…elsewhere. I suspect the baby slept through the night because I believe I would have heard more of a night time play-by-play if he hadn’t. BUT…best not to view the guest room night as wasted. I got up to go to the bathroom in there but otherwise slept 10:45 on. This was amazing.
I fed the baby for about 15 minutes at which point the 5-year-old came in (right at 7…is he waiting for the clock to change?) and jumped on us. This alternated being really cute to have two little boys rolling over me and kind of terrifying since the 5-year-old isn’t exactly gentle with his little brother. Around 7:15 we went downstairs, the 5-year-old got his YouTube time, I played with the baby and made/drank coffee.
At 7:40 I went up to shower. G arrived at 8, at which point I got to work for about 45 minutes, before making my breakfast, and doing my daily rituals (War and Peace, free writing, weights). I then realized…whoa, I’m on the Drew Barrymore show this morning! January 5 seemed a long time from now when we taped the segment in October. Fortunately, the show is re-running overnight so I’m taping it now. It was a great segment, and fun to see the edited version on YouTube. In perhaps the highlight of my entire life, Drew called herself an uber-fan.
(Digression: Check out my 2014 post on a magazine’s silly headline on a Drew interview).
I also have a book review in the Wall Street Journal this morning. With so much being online these days, I love seeing my byline in actual print.
We set up the taping, I got dressed and then hopped in the car to go on a little planned weekday adventure. One of my goals for the next year (well, really always) is to use the freedom that self-employment allows me. I wanted to see the Ann Wyeth McCoy dollhouse at the Brandywine River Museum of Art. I wanted to see it done up for Christmas but all museums in PA were closed for a while. Now they are open again and I had the place to myself on a Tuesday morning — easy to distance. I took in the wonderful meta display of a Wyeth family dollhouse bedecked with prints of Wyeth family art on the walls (because what else would you put there?) I especially liked the N.C. Wyeth Kris Kringle picture over the fireplace, right across the gallery from the full-sized version. Andrew Wyeth is the best known artist of the family, and certainly the most “artsy,” but N.C. Wyeth was cranking out really great illustrations. What can I say — I have a fondness for commercial working artists who are thinking about what they can sell.
Anyway, it’s a great Tuesday when you can see Andrew Wyeth and Grandma Moses (among others). This field trip could definitely qualify as my adventure for the week. I took a short walk along the Brandywine River, hopped back in my car, zipped home, and was back to eat lunch at 1, and work for the next 2 hours.
At that point I fed the baby, then took the 11-year-old for a walk outside since he doesn’t have much in the way of sports now. It was a nice chat as we walked through the neighborhood. We came back home, I did an hour-long email triage (hacking through my inbox to answer stuff from the past two days), and then I spent a not-terribly-happy ten minutes hunting for sports equipment that the 13-year-old and 9-year-old needed. There was more kid shuttling, then 20 minutes pushing the sleeping baby in the stroller outside in the dark on the driveway while G was cooking dinner and the baby kind of needed to keep going with his second nap. I woke him at 6, and then took him and the 5-year-old outside for a while so the 5-year-old could play with the light-up scooter he got for Christmas until dinner was ready.
We ate, cleaned up, and then I played with the baby and the 11-year-old for a while (my husband was picking up the other kids). We’ve created a mostly baby-safe area in the basement that’s walled in, so it’s possible to semi-relax while he toddles around in there. Some of my older kids will come keep me company in there for a while, and the 11-year-old was willing to tonight, so that was nice. At 7:45 (roughly) I handed the baby over to my husband, who may or may not have been found playing Fortnite, and I went up to do Legos with the 9-year-old. We are now through bag 3 of 6 trillion on this amusement park. Getting there.
I then fed the baby and put him down (8-8:30). I’m writing this now, and will soon read the 5-year-old his stories and force the older children off electronics so they’ll read too. Wish me luck. And a night with no wake-ups.
Hope your Tuesday of time-tracking went well!
That is so cool that you were on the Drew Barrymore show! I have to track my time for my business, and have years of records. What I have learned is probably obvious. Not all time I spend on work is the same, and for one hour I spend on “heavy lifting thinking”—that is worth about 20 hours of other stuff (admin, meetings, briefings, etc.). It’s so much harder for me to do the hard core high end creative, groundbreaking thinking. I do find that thinking is best done super early in the morning after coffee. Curious your thoughts on how to get more of that in a day, or week, if that is even possible?
Wow, that is so exciting you were on Drew Barrymore’s show! I love her and really admire her, she seems very genuine. Not sure how you kept your composure in front of Hollywood royalty, but you did an amazing job! Great segment. Congrats!
I love weekday adventures!! Especially after reading ‘Off the Clock’, I’ve made a deliberate effort to schedule in times for a bit of levity, even in the middle of the week, even during a pandemic. This week is my last week with in-laws after 6 months of pandemic co-habitation, so I made sure to mentally prepare myself to be able to take a few nights off and enjoy the time with everybody. Tuesday night that turned into a garage darts extravaganza that had more laughing from my mother-in-law than I think I’ve ever seen. I love the accountability aspect of time tracking, but part of that is also the justification to be able to be ‘Off the Clock’ sometimes without feeling guilty. A fulfilling life to me optimizes for both wellness and achievement!