I am typing this from my 10-year-old’s parkour class. The lobby has wifi! This was not originally in my Golden Hours intentions, but here we are.
Yesterday, after hitting “publish,” I got the 6-year-old ready for bed and read to him from one of the Magic Treehouse books. He wanted to play in his room with the door open and lights out, but after about 15 minutes of this (during which I shut the house, started the dishwasher, etc.) he decided that in fact he desperately needed me in there. So I went in there, and he immediately goes “I wish you were reading me SpongeBob.” He got a new SpongeBob book for his birthday. Fortunately each of the stories are really short so I was able to read him one in about 4 minutes. I sat there scrolling until he fell asleep (9:30).
At that point I went to my bed and read The Economist, as I’d intended. At 10 I said good night to the other kids (the 14-year-old and 10-year-old were hanging out chatting) and then got myself ready for bed. I was asleep around 10:30 p.m.
Unfortunately, I woke up in the middle of the night again — 3:30. I lay awake for a while but I did manage to get back to sleep (with some trippy dreams) around 4:30, and slept until my 6:20 a.m. alarm.
I showered and dressed, then got the 14-year-old up at 6:40 and the 10-year-old up at 6:50. I ate my eggs and drank my coffee and got their breakfasts. We were in the van at 7:12. There was a pretty stunning sunrise — the sky was neon pink. A nice little treat for being up, I guess.
After, I woke the 16-year-old (7:25) and worked for about 20 minutes, at which point I got the 6-year-old up. We drove all together to the high school, and were back around 8:15. At this point, the 6-year-old and I played with this new Polaroid style digital camera he got for his birthday. I got him breakfast, put away some laundry, and we were in the car 8:55 for school drop off. I was back at work 9:15. I did various random projects until 10:30 a.m., at which point I worked for an hour on Golden Hours stuff. At 11:30 I got lunch (cereal) and kept working, pausing at 11:45 to register for my 25th college reunion (!)
At noon it was time for our January Patreon meet-up. Sarah and I led that zoom for about 50 minutes. Then we had a 15 minute break (during which I talked with my college kid, who is fine-tuning his spring schedule) and started recording around 1:10 or so. We recorded one episode, then an intro & Q&A for Best of Both Worlds. We were supposed to do another episode and we had the notes, but then we just weren’t in the mood. And Sarah was going to be on a mic a lot today. So we tabled that for later.
I worked until 3:15 p.m. on other things, talked to the middle schoolers, finished up some loose ends, then drove my daughter to her new pottery class. I dropped her off at 4:05, then went to CVS to pick up the errant prescription from yesterday, then went to Starbucks to buy bribery drinks for my two older kids (as in, the two older ones still at home).
Why bribery? I needed them to do a variety of things tonight because I was still going to be the lone driver after 5 p.m. (our house manager works on Wednesdays so she was there to do some kid stuff, like get the 6-year-old off the bus). I got home at 4:35, and she took off to bring the 6-year-old to choir practice at 5. I changed into my exercise clothes and from about 4:55-5:30 I ran and walked on the treadmill plus did some strength work every few minutes (the treadmill is so boring I have to break it up, so I run half a mile, stop and do 2 minutes of strength, run another half mile, etc.). Then I swiftly cleaned myself off, got back in the car, and got the 6-year-old at choir (6:00) and the 14-year-old at pottery (6:15). We were home at 6:25 at which point I ate the chili our house manager cooked, eating with my older two kids.
Then it was off to bring the 10-year-old to parkour. As a special treat to myself (it’s 15-20 minutes from the house) I decided I would not go home for half an hour after dropping him off and then have to turn around and go back. Instead, I would sit in the lobby and work and read. So here I am. The teenagers are watching their little brother. They also have other responsibilities, including cleaning up the kitchen, taking out the trash, and turning on and off the water so the 6-year-old can take a shower. When I get home I’ll need to put him to bed but hopefully that will be quick and I can squeeze in a Golden Hour intention of doing my puzzle for 20 minutes. I’m hoping to read the Economist now after hitting publish. I brought the current issue with me!
Here’s my day in log form:
8:30 H stories, shut house
9 H story, sit w/H, scroll
9:30 read Economist in bed, kids
10 ready bed, in bed
10:30 sleep
3:30 up, lie in bed
4 lie in bed, sleep
6 6:20 up, shower
6:30 shower, dress, kids up, eat
7 read WSJ, kids, bus, S up
7:30 work, H up, drive
8 drive, home, H play
8:30 laundry, H, drive H
9 home, work (random)
9:30 work
10 work
10:30 work (Golden Hours)
11 work (Golden Hours)
11:30 lunch/work, admin (reunions)
12 work (BOBW/Patreon)
12:30 work (BOBW/Patreon)
1 work (BOBW record)
1:30 work (BOBW record)
2 work/SHU, work/emails
2:30 work
3 work, chat R, A
3:30 work, in car, drive
4 drop R pottery, CVS, starbucks
4:30 home, ready, run treadmill
5 run + strength (2.0)
5:30 change, to church, get H
6 to pottery, R, home, chili
6:30 eat chili w/kids, drive
7 drive, work at parkour
