In our various guest interviews over the years, Sarah and I have asked people to describe “a day in the life.” We are fine with people recounting a “typical” day, but longtime readers and listeners know that there is no such thing as a typical day. Each day features its own quirks, and our descriptions about a typical day (which, incidentally, almost never follow the format of a Saturday, or Sunday, or even a Friday, even though those three days together comprise almost half the week…) are often as much about how we’d like our lives to look than anything else.
So for this episode, Sarah and I decided to describe an actual day in each of our lives. We did not choose the same days because we had moved around the recording and we wanted to choose days from that particular week that at least approached typicality. (My first overnight business trip in 21 months was not exactly a normal day in any way, shape, or form!).
Anyway, take a listen to hear what life looks like. In my case there was a lot of kid shuttling, though also a nice trail run in the morning. And getting kids down at night always seems to take longer than it should (though we are slowly settling into our school year discipline).
Please give the episode a listen! And if you were thinking of joining our Patreon community, now would be a great time. We have our first online discussion tonight (9/28 at 8 p.m. eastern) — the Zoom link is over at the page. Also, we’ve got a great discussion thread going there about childcare back-up options. If you’re curious what other people do when school is suddenly closed for an inexplicable power outage and both you and your partner have to be in the office…well, go check it out!
I always like these slice of life episodes, even though there is no ‘typical’ day as you say. If Sarah ever needs someone to commiserate with her over how not ‘instagrammable’ or fun a day w/ kids looks/feels, just ping me… With a 3.5yo and 10mo baby, our days are not super fun most of the time! Dr. Becky of Good Inside actually has a whole episode today about how parenting isn’t fun some/much of the time and that it’s ok/normal. Might be a good listen as it made me feel seen!
I have never blogged about a day in the life, but if I did, I would probably choose a week day because there is more structure of a week day. Weekends are so all over the place. But it would probably be interesting to memorialize a week day and weekend – future self Lisa would likely enjoy reading about it in 5 years or so when life is maybe/hopefully easier??
I am a keen diary/journal writer and have 20 years of diary pages. During lockdown last year I picked a random date and typed up all 20 ‘entries’ for that date. I was amazed how just one date could give me such a clear and almost all-encompassing feel for what made up my life that year as I wrote about family, faith, frustrations, things that were bringing me joy etc. Since then I have encouraged people even if they arent natural diary writers to just write their reflections on life in the moment every now and then, as you say it can ‘memorialize’ your life at that time. It always made me feeĺ more validated in my role as a mum to record such things as the number of dishwasher loads I did in a day as it’s not what one talks about but was a definite part of my day. Definitely not ‘in the trenches of motherhood’ like most of your listeners but out the other end and reclining in the lazy boy chair of grandparenthood. Full of admiration for those in the thick of it but at least with my diary sheets I know how I did it.
I am so jealous of this! I wish I had diary or journal pages from when my kids were little. I’ve been keeping detailed journals of my days for about 2 years now (only) but my kids are in middle school now. I have a spot where I jot down things I “accomplished” that day (like “got groceries”, “washed towels” etc) and also a smiley face section where I write down random things that were good/made me happy (like “walk with son” or “drive to soccer practice was pretty- sunny and leaves starting to change”). I keep the smiley section separate from my gratitude items even, as I consider those to be a little different! Anyway, I know what you mean about enjoying looking back. Sometimes if I feel like a week has been a mess, I can just skim over those bullet points and be like, oh, you know what? I actually really did a lot this week! Or, hmm, I had some really fun and good stuff in here too despite the craziness. 🙂
Random comment, but my TI-83 from 21 years ago is still going strong and I use it daily at work and at home (I schlep it back and forth and cannot live without it)