“A day in the life” on a busy Wednesday, driving in circles

I AM TIRED.

Yesterday was actually an overall good day, but it just felt exhausting. I think because I just did a lot of different things, which made it feel extra long, lots of context switching, etc.

I also spent a huge chunk of the early evening literally driving around in circles. Wednesdays have morphed into a heavy-driving night for me with the boys both having overlapping activities (Ethan piano from 4-5, Asher dryland training for swim 4:30-5:45) – at a time Ivan is not home yet. Asher used to have soccer on Wednesdays- which he could walk to- which meant he didn’t go to swim dryland (~10 minutes away). Now that soccer is over, he’s back to dryland- and I’m back to driving.

On top of it, last night Asher had an appointment at the gym after school at 3:30 (to upgrade his membership, so he can now use ALL of the weight rooms) and Ethan also went to the gym later, separately.

I made a drawing of my exact driving routes, #1- 11.

(*Our gym is super close to home, so some of these were very quick runs. Nevertheless, it’s still more running.)

Here is my day:

4:45 a.m. – Wake up, brush teeth, contacts, get dressed

4:55- Wake Asher, give him a 5 minute warning

5:00- 5:15 – Shoes on, heat a Nutella Uncrustable for Asher to eat on his way to swim, Asher getting ready

5:15 – Leave for swim practice- drive.

5:30- Drop Asher. Drive home.

5:45- 6:40- Home. Tea, emails, update planner, write blog post, eat a little breakfast.

6:40-7:00- Drive, pick up Asher, drive back home.

7:00-7:10- Drop Asher at home to shower, gather grocery list, say hi/bye to Ivan (who will drive Asher to school)

7:20- Drop Ethan at bus stop (he preferred to take the bus, instead of waiting for Asher, who runs late on swim mornings)

7:30- 8:30 – Grocery shop. Listen to an episode of The Productive Woman about Tranquility by Tuesday on my Airpods.

8:30- 9:00 – Unload groceries, put stuff away, etc.

9:00- 2:50- Work. Don’t really take any big breaks or go outside. Ate leftover chicken at my desk and some blackberries. I do take a couple breaks to read a few blog posts.

3:00- Kids home. I shower quickly from 2:50-3:15 or so.

3:15 – 3:45 – Attend the gym training session with Asher, get his new membership tag.

3:45-4:00- Drive Ethan to piano.

4:00-4:15- Kill time sorting mail and reading a couple blog comments on phone while waiting to leave with Asher for swim dryland.

4:15- 4:35- Drive Asher to swim dryland, drop him off, then drive back across town to piano (where Ethan is).

4:35-5:00- Park outside the piano teacher’s house to wait for Ethan. Go for a walk! Got my 20 minutes outside in. Very pleasant evening- warm in just a hoodie.

5:00-5:05- Talk with piano teacher.

5:05-5:15- Drive home, stop at gas station.

5:15- 5:35- Start making dinner. Ethan helping a little. Texting/ calling Ivan to see if he can pick up Asher at 5:45 on his way home or not. Nope, still at work. Darn it.

5:35– 5:55- Stop making dinner, go pick up Asher at 5:45. Drive home.

5:55 – 6:25- Finish making dinner: shrimp/ red pepper alfredo, salad, garlic bread. Ivan walks in the door right around 6:25 as dinner is done.

6:25- We all sit down to eat. At the table! With a candle! RARE for us, but nice.

6:30-7:00- Dinner

7:00- 7:30- Ivan mostly cleans up dinner. I chat with him a little and put a few things away, then I run Ethan over to the gym at 7:15.

7:35- 9:00- Catch up on some work downstairs in my office. (Daytime hours got cut a bit short with the grocery run and early end to take Asher to gym appt.) Ivan picks Ethan up from gym around 8:00 when he’s done working out. Asher does some homework during this time.

9:00- Back upstairs, Ethan showering, Asher tired from early morning swim wake up and moving toward bed.

9:15-9:30- Wash my face, PJs on, etc. Kiss Ethan goodnight in the hallway and crawl in bed. Ivan stops to chat with Ethan/ tuck him in, then joins me in our room. We turn on the TV! Watch two back to back episodes of Younger (in which Liza finally gets together with Charles!! FINALLY.)

10:30- TV off, I go to bed and Ivan heads back out to the living room for a little bit.

The end!

Whew. Just a lot of moving parts in this day, no?

I felt happy with it overall, although I never did fit in a workout besides my walk. I’ve been doing this Wednesday grocery morning run which I generally love and fits in well (the store is empty), but my intent was to then do a home workout on Wednesdays at some point (since I’m at the store during my gym window…).

With Asher’s gym appt after school, though, I lost some work time yesterday, and I opted to work instead of work out later in the evening. In hindsight, I should have probably just scratched my planning/ blogging window in the morning and worked out while Asher was at early swim. But….. I didn’t really want to….. haha. Much more relaxing to sit and sip a cup of tea.

I had some great “car conversations” with the boys yesterday, too, which is always enjoyable.

On a side note, I abruptly noticed yesterday, while walking in the piano teacher’s neighborhood, that the leaves are just GONE!

When did that happen?? One minute the trees are full of colored leaves, and all of sudden – poof. Weird how you don’t really notice the progression sometimes. I wonder what else in life is like that. It’s like with kids…. they constantly do something, and then all of a sudden, one day, they just don’t anymore. And do we always notice when that transition takes place?? Hmm. Food for thought.

Daily Gratitude:

I am grateful for the kids’ activities at least being pretty close to home?! Imagine that drawing above expanded but with very long drives on each leg. 🙂