this isn't my day

unfortunately, my computer died on me the day after the "day". so, i'm posting this as a fill in, since i'm at the library, and my notes are at home (ack!)

Minnie
who promises a real post as soon as her puter is back up.

How about 45 minutes in my life?

Ok, these are all the notes I have and it's been long enough that I have no idea what I did for the rest of the day. Heck, I can't even remember what book I was reading in the bit that trails off... Sorry!

Chris
Stumbling Over Chaos

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6:00 - 6:30 (altho the clock reads 6:45 - 7:15, early morning trickery that I never fall for): Repeatedly hit snooze. Fend off Chaos (who wants his breakfast, but who would also love to lick my armpit) by pulling the covers over my head.

6:30: Get up, turn on computer, go to bathroom, come back and log in to computer. Go to kitchen and feed Chaos. The incessant meowing ceases. Ahhhh. Get bread and OJ out of the fridge and start toasting a slice of break. Pour OJ. Go back to computer, start Eudora, then log into work and check work email and systems. Answer work emails.

6:45: Go back to kitchen, flip bread over, and retoast. Turn on espresso machine, fill with water, and get prepped. Take medicines. Slather toast with unholy amount of smooth unsalted peanut butter. Eat some more peanut butter out of the jar for good measure. Sit down, eat toast, and read a few pages from

Erica

I realize I organized this and it's already been a week, better late than never. I had so much fun documenting my day in my journal that I decided to do Thursday too since Wednesday was a day off and Thursday was a day at work.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006
5:22am - I woke up to go to the bathroom and had a bad headache. I went to bed with a headache and hate to wake up with one. This one was just above my eyebrows.

8:35am - This is my day off so I get to sleep in. Bryan wakes me up and I lay there for a few minutes afraid if I get up my headache will come back. George starts scratching at the door and meowing - how dare we wake up and not let him in. After about 10 minutes, I slowly get up, my headache is still there. This time it's above my right eye. I sit down for the first time to start documenting my day. Bryan says, "We'll have to make it interesting for you."

8:55am - I check email and add two more people to the "Day in the Life" blog. It's going to be a sticky day so we close all the windows and start the window A/C.

9am - Bryan and I sit down for breakfast. I have a whole wheat bagel with fresh local raspberry fruit spread that we bought at the farmer's market three weeks ago. My headache is making my stomach queasy and the thought of eating granola with soy milk makes it worse. While we're eating I'm looking through my Women's Bodies, Women's Wisdom book about hormonal headaches. I think this might be a PMS-related headache. We decide I need to do some meditation to relax.

9:45am - While Bryan takes a shower, I sit on the couch to meditate, I have to move to the floor because George wants to sit in my lap which distracts me from concentrating on my breathing. I move to the floor and sit on some pillows. While I'm meditating I notice again that I have gotten back into the habit of breathing from the chest instead of from my abdomen. When I do abdominal breathing I feel more centered and relaxed. I meditate for about 15 minutes. The Migrastick with peppermint and lavender essential oils seems to help my headache.

10am - I jump into the shower. The peppermint and lavender really feel good now on my head. I decide that I'm going to take a leisurely shower and try to relieve some tension and possibly get rid of this stupid headache. A little personal grooming, such as leg shaving, are in order, too. After my shower, I feel so good, for a few minutes my headache feels as though it's gone. It reminds me that it's not, it was just wishful thinking.

10:30 am- Bryan and I head to the UPS store to send Matilda, the Lendrum wheel, to her new home. The woman at the store asks if I feel it's sufficiently packed, I tried not to laugh because there are miles of tape around the box to keep it from popping open because of all of the packing inside. We put a lot of packing peanuts and bubble wrap around the wheel and her components so that she'll arrive safely.

10:50am - We arrive home and I sit down to catch up on my day so far. My headache seems to be subsiding and I'm trying to breathe deeply and relax my jaw. TMJ seems to always irritate a headache or many times cause one. To keep my headache to a minimum my goal is to stay off the computer as much as possible.

11:20am - B is eating lunch. I knit on the Mason-Dixon washcloth for U, who is having a commitment ceremony with her partner next weekend, that I started yesteday.

11:50am - I walk with B part way to class. It's quite warm and humid and I decide to only walk four blocks with him through the park then I walk home. On our walk we discuss B's nephew again. I say he should be in day camp instead of goign to a tutor this summer. This has been a topic of conversation a lot the last few days.

12:30pm - I decided to call B's dad about my concerns about B's nephew, M. (M is B's Dad's grandson who lives with him.) I said I may be completely out of line and then suggested day camp for M. He said he'd thought of the tutor as a way to to keep M busy over the summer and to give him a boost so he's ready for school in the fall. He also said he hadn't considered day camp. Before I called I did a Google search to see about YMCA or park district day camps around them. There is a Y day camp quite close to them. I hope he talks to someone soon. To keep his writing up to speed, he's going to correspond with B and me for the summer.

12:45pm - I take mail out of the box. Two books we bought online arrive. Teany by Moby with lots of neat recipes that we'd previously checked out from the library, and another book arrive. Yesterday, Mason-Dixon Knitting arrived. Yay! for new-to-us used books! After bringing in the mail, I wash some greens from my lettuce plant outside and warm up pita to have with hummus for lunch.

1pm - I sit down to watch Days of Our Lives and eat lunch.

1:55pm - I just finished knitting the washcloth for U. I just noticed that my headache is completely gone. I'm soaking the washcloth now so I can block it. Now to start the washcloth for ML, U's partner. These washcloths along with handmade soap are their gifts. I heat some water to try Rose Hip ice tea.

2:15pm - I pinned out the Mason-Dixon washcloth and it's drying in the bedroom.

2:30pm - I started a pinwheel washcloth for ML using the Pinwheel blanket pattern. The Rose Hip iced tea is actually pretty good. It's interesting because iced tea seems so much better than tea that's just been allowed to get cold because it's been sitting too long.

3:43pm - George started to get snarky. I told him to wait three minutes until I finished my row. He looked at me, walked away, looked at Chloe who had that "Oh, George" look on her face and he sat down. I could have sworn that he sat watching the clock but he's a cat and can't tell time, at least we think. Sometimes I swear he has an internal clock because I'll tell him to wait 10 minutes and in exactly 10 minutes almost to the second, he's back.

3:45pm - I get up and feed George & Chloe.

3:50pm - I remember that I was supposed to make a pizza crust for dinner tonight.

3:55pm - I get out the food processor and flour to start the pizza crust.

4:10pm - The pizza crust is done and in a bowl. The kitchen isn't very warm today so instead of letting it rise in the oven, I put it in the office window in the sun. I log on to see if anyone has posted or having problems with the Day in the Life blog.

4:19pm - B comes home from class. I tell him about my conversation with his dad. He's really glad that I called. I was afraid he might be irritated with me. We sit and talk about his class in Thesaurus Construction, which ends tomorrow, he's ready for it to be over. I show him the washcloth I'm working on and he recognizes the pattern, such a wonderful husband who recognizes patterns. :)

4:55pm - I check in again in my journal to document the last two hours. B starts a letter to M.

5:15pm - We go to the computer to look some stuff up and to load one of B's collages to see what it will look like on a t-shirt. He loves the collage t-shirt that I made for him as an early birthday present.

5:45pm - The pizza dough is fully risen. B puts it in the over to cook for a bit before putting the toppings on. I love the pizzas we make together - me the dough, he the rest of the pizza.

6:20pm - We sit down at the table to eat.

6:45pm - I finish dinner and go brush my teeth to get ready for my knitting group.

6:55pm - Once again I'm late. I walk to Aroma cafe for the knitting group. Our normal hostess is out of town so we meet at a coffee shop.

7:05pm - I arrive at Aroma and see Miss M at the counter. As we're getting settled I mention that I read Prep and I've never read a 400-page book in a week. It's a small group tonight, just four of us.

about 9:00pm - B met me at Aroma to walk home from knitting.

9:20pm - We arrive home. I knit one row on ML's washcloth and then start writing in my journal again.

9:53pm - My hand is tired of writing, I'm going to finish the washcloth.

10:35pm - The washcloth is finished. Time to get ready for bed.

11:05pm - Finally in bed after a quick check of the email, taking my contacts out, washing my face and brushing my teeth. Reading Matilda by Roald Dahl.

11:30pm - Lights out. Must be up at 6:30am tomorrow for work.

Knitti-me's Day

1:15 a.m.- I crawl into bed after an extremely long day and even longer rehearsal. This is “hell” week, the week leading up to our show Friday and Saturday.

7:30 a.m. – I finally roll out of bed after hitting the snooze button numerous times. It’s quiet in the house as Husband had to go to work early, Daughter stayed the night at a friend’s house and Son was still abed.

8:30 a.m. - I arrive at my weekly Chiropractic appointment. The Doc had to work me over a bit more as I took a tumble down some stairs at rehearsal the night before. It was quite embarrassing, missing that last step. After the fall, which I accomplished with as much grace as a hippo in a tutu, I immediately went on a rampage sticking reflective tape down on every surface, because you know when the lights go down on a scene, you can’t see so well in the dark, and that last step is a doozy.

9:30 a.m.- I arrive to work where I’m met with a towering “In” box, 19 emails and 14 voice mails.

9:50 a.m. – One of my team members, the Busy Body, came in to say that her husband is having major surgery and will need to take time off to care for him. It’s the same week I’m taking my vacation. Just hope none of my other team members want to take time off during that week.

10:30 a.m. - I just received a call from an employee named John Locke. I really, really had to control myself not to make some inane comment regarding Lost. I am so lame.

11:50 a.m. - I just picked up three more voice mails, which were left while I was on the phone. One was from an employee, Steve, who had questions regarding coverage on his spouse Sheryl, and four children, Stacie, Stephanie, Stuart and Stanley. Aren’t they all so cute with their names – Gawd.

The month of June is Open Enrollment for my largest account, which starts with a Wal and ends in a color. I swear every employee of this company must call me during the month of June. I feel as if my telephone handset is permanently imbedded in my skull. And my husband wonders why I don’t want to talk to anybody when I get home from work.

1:30 p.m. –I escape to my car to sit in the shade, eat my sandwich, and listen to my audio book. I’m listening to White Oleander. I decide to put the seat back and take a 20-minute power nap. I pass out quickly, the drool being an indication of my loss of consciousness.

3:20 p.m. – Husband picked up Daughter from girlfriend’s house and just delivered her to my office. I immediately put her to work alphabetizing the hundreds of Open Enrollment applications I’ve received, making copies, shredding my shred pile, etc. I slip her a $10.

5:00 p.m. – We leave work and make a quick swing through the Drive-thru at In ‘n Out Burger. This is the first burger I’ve had since January and boy was it good.

5:50 p.m. – Navigating afternoon traffic, driving with my knees as I eat, we finally make it to church for the technical rehearsal.

8:30 p.m. – There is a scene in the drama where I sit and knit (you knew knitting had to figure into my day at some point!), while entreating God to “send an angel to the battlefield.” In this scene we have several tableaus where the women of the Civil War are at home going about their daily chores, washing, mending, knitting (me), etc. thinking about their beloved husbands, sons, fathers fighting.

I sit and knit for a good 20 minutes while they set the lighting. I joke that I’ll finish the scarf before we even get to curtain.

10:45 p.m. – Technical rehearsal has been long and arduous, but I think we have all our queues down. Several of the guys choreographed and rehearsed a fight scene diligently over the past couple of weeks. Bill finally shows up to rehearsal and decides to “die” right in the middle of the choreographed scene. Everybody is on edge.

11:30 p.m. – Finally make it home. I sit down and watch my NetFlix – a couple of Buffy episodes, Season 5.

1:00 a.m. – I crawl into bed.

La's Day

I awoke secure in the knowledge that I was a wife and a daughter and a stepmom.

I went to bed knowing that, come February, I was going to be a gramma.

Everything else that day became inconsequential after that.

(Sorry to cheese out, but, seriously, the baby news completely wiped anything else about that day from my memory.)

Sydney

June 7, 2006

12 Midnight - I'm just getting home from a trip to Birmingham for an evening meeting. The meeting was good but I'm really tired and I still have some things to do before I go to bed. I catch up on my email, clean the litter boxes, put the ferrets in the cage and make sure everyone has food and fresh water. If the ferrets wouldn't go toe hunting in the middle of the night, I would leave them out. Oh yeah, I need to get the coffee ready for the morning. I know I'm going to need it.

1:30 am - It looks like the ferrets (Balt, Zoe, and Phoebe) and the cat (Katie) were playing the gravity game while we were gone. That's where they knock stuff off of the tables and dressers just to watch it fall to the floor. I'll deal with that later. I'm going to bed.

7:30 am - Ouch, that's the alarm clock. Didn't I just go to sleep? Maybe a little bit more sleep before I get up.

8:00 am - I've got to get up. I brush my teeth, let the ferrets out, and make coffee. I give Balt his morning treat. That's our thing every morning. He's the only one who enjoys treats, and it shows. He's a little on the chunky side. I should have gotten up earlier but just couldn't do it. Car travel exhausts me. I feel like I've been beaten all over with a stick.

8:30 am - Get a cup of coffee and check my work email. I finish up some things that I should have done last night but I was just too tired. I pick up a few things that Katie and ferrets knocked down yesterday.

9:00 am - I grab another cup of coffee and a bowl of cereal and continue catching up. Rick gives me a kiss and heads out. The coffee just isn't working today. Normally I would exercise in the morning but I just may blow it off this morning. It's hard to get any words out of this lump of jello that's masquerading as a brain. I can't help feeling like the day is going to lurch out of control. Maybe it's just because my brain isn't working all that well. I make a mental list of things I need to do this morning.

9:30 am - I shower and get ready to go to the office.

10:30 am - I head out of the house. I need to stop and get some trash bags and paper towels for the office. I've been in a cleaning and organization mood at the office and want to continue what I've started.

11:30 am - I take a look at this virus-ridden computer we've been working on. We left a clean-up program running on it but it's going way slower than it should. Something is still not right. I find the problem. This is much worse than we thought. I wonder if we can even finish it up today. So much for the office organization I was going to do.

12:45 pm - I wanted to get the computer finished before lunch but it's just not happening. At this point I'm not even sure it will be ready today. Rick and I decide to go to lunch anyway and leave the computer in progress. We go to Southland, a home cooking type of restaurant run by some friends of ours. It's one of those restaurants with lots of regulars. Rick decides he needs to put his floating eyeball gag in his tea glass while we are there. Ah, life with a magician. I have chicken fried steak and vegetables. The waitresses like the plastic eyeballs so much they grab them and play more jokes on customers and kitchen staff with them. I think I left my sense of humor in Birmingham last night.

1:45 pm - We're back in the office and I check on the computer. It turns out the power went out while we were gone. They must have been working on something. It was off for a while. I'll have to start over again. This does not make me happy.

3:00 pm - The customer calls and says she can pick her computer later.

3:40 pm - I finally get a chance to check my email. Luckily there's nothing very important in there.

4:00 pm - We're actually on the downhill side with this computer. I'm determined to finish this computer today. Rick goes out to deliver another computer he was working on. I really need to get some orders out but that's not going to happen today either.

5:30 pm - The computer is finished at last. I actually managed to get a few quick orders done while I was waiting for the computer to finish. The computer is working so much better now, almost like a new computer. Rick calls to see if I'm still at the office.

6:00 pm - I finally get home, later than normal and not a typical day at work, but I'm feeling good. The day is looking up now. It's good to get that virus-ridden computer out of the way. There are few minor details to work on but tomorrow I can get some of the other work done that's waiting for me. I go through the mail and scan the local newspaper. There's only junk mail and nothing very exciting in the newspaper. I catch up on email and play with the ferrets a bit.

6:30 pm - Should I fix dinner or have a "fend for yourself" night? I want something healthy so I decide to fix dinner. Besides I have some salad stuff that I need to use. It's chef salad and pita night.

8:00 pm - I start reading today's blogs. Usually I try to get to them earlier but there just wasn't time for it earlier today.

8:45 pm - I look at the fish tank. That's right. I need to change the water. They've been neglected lately. I grab a bucket and change the water.

9:15 pm - Finally I can have a cup of tea and do a little knitting. Katie spots the knitting and comes to join me. While I'm knitting, Rick turns the TV on Criss Angel and we critique it a bit. Am I the only person who wants to grab Criss Angel and scrub his hair? I have a hard time seeing anything except his hair.

10:30 pm - I need to post something on my blog. That's right, I was going to post the scarf pattern. I work on my blog and some other web page work that I need to do.

11:15 pm - The web stuff is done, now I need to get the ferrets ready for bed. I clean out the litter boxes and make sure everyone has fresh food and water. Katie gets excited this time of night, mostly because there's lots of activity and the ferrets are awake and running around. Katie tries to wrestle the couch to the ground. I give the ferrets their cage treats (a little baby food turkey) and put them up.

12 Midnight - It's been a long day. I can finally I can get to bed and get some sleep.

Sydney
As The Yarn Turns

Jane

June 7, 2006
12:35am I hate the motion-sensing floodlight outside my window.
3:44am I really hate the floodlight outside my window, especially when it doesn’t turn off automatically. And I don’t control it, my landlord does.
6:30am I’m just getting up – this is late for me, even on my day off. I’m usually up at 5:30. Annabelle is quiet – she must have given up on me. I’m coming out of a strange waking/dreaming state. Every thought becomes a dream for a moment, and they’re all strange.
6:50am The coffee is on, Annie has had her sip of milk, and the computer has booted up. I’m ready to settle in and read the news, visit KR, and read a few blogs.
7:00am It’s raining hard, dark and dreary, and aching weather to boot. I hurt from all the work I did yesterday. Tuesdays are just plain busy – we get most of our shipment, and I usually have a lot of office work and ordering to do, too. I took all the boxed overstock from the back room to the top of the basement stairs, carted the new books that were just going on sale up to the tables, rearranged the tables (hauling more books to the top of the stairs), and carted the shipment of shopping bags from the back to the stairs. I did too much, as I usually end up doing on Tuesday, because I wanted it to get done. It’s not that nobody else does any work, it’s that once I get going I don’t stop until it’s finished. I pay for it the next day, though. I can be done in by my knee, and that’s what hurts the most this morning. Ahhh, the coffee tastes so good – Starbucks Verona Roast. I’ll just take it easy. It’s my day off, after all.
7:45am I’m still at the computer, sending a few emails, reading through my Bloglines list, and enjoying my next cup of coffee. I have at least two, and I like it strong, with milk and sweetener to cut the bitterness. The weather is getting to me. I’ll take a couple of sock photos, since who knows if I’ll be able to do it later?
8:15am I might as well get dressed and go to Sag Harbor for the mail. I have to stop at the bank, too, because I made a mess of my checking account. I can fix it, but I’m peeved. It’s raining harder, it’s cold, and all I really want to do is stay home in my comfy clothes. Judy calls me somewhere about now, with a question about her Mason-Dixon Dishcloth. She and R are on the Jitney, on their way to New York City. I know how people are on the Jitney – if she stays on the phone for too long, someone will complain – so I try to answer her quickly. Silly me, worrying about bus decorum. In the car, I get to listen to In Cold Blood. I love this book. It’s almost The Perfect Book – Truman Capote really was a genius, and he really did invent a genre: nonfiction fiction. Not true crime, but literary nonfiction. Crisp, clean, gripping, edgy. Why haven’t I read him before now? The trip to Sag usually takes about twenty minutes, but the roads are a rain-washed mess already.
9:15am I’m already on my way home. Noyac Road is “ponding” and Perry and Dick are about to be arrested in Las Vegas in January, 1960. I’m listening, but I’m feeling aggravated by the weather, and the mood I’m in. I would like to tell myself to snap out of it, but I know I wouldn’t listen.
9:35am Home, home. Scrambled eggs for breakfast. I read the mail (toss most of it in the trash) and open a little package. I’ve been waiting for it – the sock bag that I swapped with Trek. I sent her a book, and she made this neat little cotton bag. It’s lovely, all teal and blue, with a white lining. I’ll put my Trekking socks in it. The Trek/Trekking connection makes me giggle. It’s pouring again.
10:25am I have to close the windows because it’s so cold, and put some socks on. I start a load of laundry, sit down to visit KR again, and talk to Annabelle. She’s not feeling great today, and I think what she really needs to do is curl up and sleep. Or heave a hairball, which she does. Better now, Annie dear? I want to knit and listen to the Dixie Chicks, and pass the day doing little bits of this and that. But I am feeling crazy and cranky. My thoughts bounce from rain, to Socks That Rock, to what to post for the letter L in the ABC-Along, to my messy home, and the way my internet connection is so slow today.
11:35am already, and I get the first call from the store. I don’t usually make it through a day off without at least one, but more likely two or three, calls about something unimportant (“Where is such-and-such book?” “Do we have any more envelopes?” “F isn’t here yet.”). Sometimes I don’t pick up. This one is a computer question that is worth asking, because now I won’t have to do anything about it tomorrow.
12:40pm Okay, the rain is really getting to me. I’ve had enough.
2:00pm I’ve spent an hour fiddling with the Rockin’ Sock Club pattern and it just won’t work on my big old ankles. It was ugly, just ugly. I’m pleased that I didn’t curse it or throw it or something, because I know I’m getting crazier and nastier by the minute. I have to do something to quiet my brain. I’m beginning to ponder a seed stitch cuff on top of a plain stockinette sock. I think I can make that work, and it will be different.
3:40pm Well, I’m impressed. I worked up a nice seed stitch edge, with a little rim of stockinette that rolls over, and it looks right. And there was no screaming. I’ll keep at it after I switch loads and go to Schmidt’s for milk and salad. I had mac and cheese a while ago, and all I want now is salad.
4:30pm Judy called to report on her dishcloth progress. It all made sense to her. They had a good trip to the city, except for the bad weather. By the end of the conversation I realized that I’m beginning to climb out of my black hole.
5:20pm I guess I’ve recovered enough to write a blog post, but Blogger is down. Crap.
6:40pm I just had a long conversation with my sister S, who lives in Chicago. We got caught up on the news, the plans, what the kids are up to, the movies we’ve seen lately, our niece’s graduation, how we want to de-clutter. This is a recurring theme, in which we congratulate each other for doing things like throwing away a pile of old magazines. We are pathetic, but at least we can laugh about it.
7:00pm Salad. Good. Jane full. Less cranky, too.
9:00pm I’ve been watching TV and working on my sock. It’s working better now that I’m knitting on fewer stitches and smaller needles. Blogger is finally back up, so my post is done – the one I’ve been thinking about all day. The weather is calming down at last, after a windy spell that sent a small branch crashing on to the roof. Annie and I jumped out of our skin, and it took her a long time to clam down. I realized that she needs a good brushing, so that helped. She’s better now, and less hairy, too. I hate how weird and cranky I’ve felt all day. I don’t enjoy black moods, not even a bit. It’s a good thing that I kept to myself all day, or I might have gotten dangerous. Nobody had to deal with me except the cat, the sock, and the sheets I tried to fold (I hate folding fitted sheets, even on a good day). The cat forgives me, the sock calms me, and the sheets don’t care.
10:15pm I’ve set up tomorrow’s coffee, cleaned the litter box, loaded the dishwasher, and locked the door. Time for a last trip around the internet – news, KR, and a blog or two – and then it’ll be time to go to bed.
10:35pm Work tomorrow, so I’m going to sleep. Oh, and I hate the floodlight outside my window. It’s on, it’s off, it’s on again. Isn’t this how my day began?

Jane
Not Plain Jane

Mary

A Day in Mary's Life - June 7, 2006

Midnight: I'm still awake, because last night I went to our knitting group, had lots of fun and stayed too late at the party - and what a party it was. My new friend Jane, the unofficial leader of our knitting group known as "TNK" (Tuesday Night Knitters), documented it well on her blog, thankfully, which saves me the effort of struggling today with temperamental Blogger. (I may still post some pictures of that evening to my blog at a later date, but not while Blogger is so unreliable.) Now my mind is still a whirl and it always takes me at least an hour or two to wind down and go to sleep after an evening out. And so I'm watching a rerun of Andy Griffith while laying in bed with a cat on either side of me.

12:30 am: Still awake. Old Ange didn't lull me to sleep, so perhaps a rerun of Star Trek: The Next Generation. I don't remember this episode, so instead of being lulled to sleep, I stay up and watch it. At least it's recorded on the DVR so I can fast-forward through the commercials.

1:04 am: Still awake. Okay, how about an episode of Carl Sagan's Cosmos -- if that doesn't lull me to sleep, nothing will. I'm going to be hating life when the alarm goes off.

Approximately 1:15 am: Asleep.

Approximately 7:30 am: Halfway between sleep and awake - I peek out the window and see the sun coming up through the trees. I roll over and go back to sleep.

7:35 am: Clock-radio alarm goes off -- too soon. REALLY loud. I'm awake, but need another minute or five to mosey out of bed. I'm not a snooze-alarm person. Once it is Time To Get Up, I'm up. Probably a hold-over from my childhood, when our dad would burst in our rooms, fling off our covers and turn on the ceiling light. There was no snooze button for that.

7:40 am: Still in bed. Casey the cat jumps up to wish me Good Morning and we snuggle a bit. Ali the cat is huddled up further down the bed, against my legs, in an effort to keep warm. It got down to 58ºF last night, so the house is cool. I love it, but the cats feel differently.

7:45 am: Out of bed, hit the bathroom, wash face.

7:50 am: Walk to the kitchen, fill the cats' food and water dishes, get a cup of water for myself, grab a muffin, and walk my five-second commute to my desk.

7:55 am: Check, read and reply to a few emails.

8:00 am: Dial into my first conference call of the day. I'm just the host, and not the team lead, so don't have to pay close attention.

8:15 am: Continue reading emails during the call. Wait - did someone call my name? Did they just asked me a question and I wasn't paying attention? I have no idea what they asked me, so have no choice but to ask them to repeat the question. Busted! Better pay attention from now on!

8:44 am: Conference call ends mercifully early - that's a blessing.

9:00 am: Check, read and respond to a few more emails.

9:04 am: Cell phone rings. Recruiter that I've been avoiding for three days is calling again. This time I answer and tell him that I just don't have time for his project, but have a friend who might be interested. We talk a few more minutes and hang up. Now I need my friend to email me back so I can hook them both up and get this guy out of my hair.

9:15 am: Remember that today is the official "Day in the Life", and start documenting my day.

9:19 am: I remember that my mother was born 76 years ago today. HAPPY BIRTHDAY, MOM! I cannot tell her that in person or over the phone because she is currently in France with my dad, visiting some friends there. I just sent them an email, though - here's hoping my dad checks his email today. My mom is suffering some mild dementia and will not remember much (or any) of their trip once they return. This makes me sad. I thought that as an adult, I'd have many years of being close and doing grown-up girley things, (craft shows, antiquing, flower shows, etc.), with her, but she has withdrawn a lot from others and the world, and doesn't do much anymore except go on these semi-annual trips with my dad. I cannot remember the last time mom asked me about my life, but I am grateful that they both are in great health and can still enjoy their later years and each other. Despite grieving the loss of the mother I used to know, I still have much to be thankful for. She's alive, happy, and healthy, and loved dearly by my dad. Thank God for that.

10:30 am: Email from a former coworker, asking me to pray for her sister recently diagnosed with colon cancer. I am humbled that she would ask me, and send an immediate reply to her, and then forward her email on to other folks I know who'll also pray.

10:32 am: Pray for Laura and her sister Kathy. I don't do this (pray) often enough.

11:00 am: Receive and review finalized version of client's RFP. Notice what looks like a huge mistake - hoping that it was caught before it was sent out to the vendors. Make mental note to ask the project manager about it later today.

11:30 am: My 8 am muffin has worn off and I'm hungry for some protein. There's cold chicken in the fridge, which I reheat and eat. Gotta love leftovers.

11:35 am: Email from my friend Nancy, telling me she's put Laura's prayer request on her church's prayer chain. I love how people jump in to help.

Noon: Send a reminder to one of my teams regarding deliverables due for our weekly Friday call. Received a flurry of responses back from folks, many saying they cannot attend Friday. This doesn't bode well. Of the eight teams I oversee, this is the only one where I really have to hold their hands and take the reigns. Their team lead is truly an absent-minded professor type, with no administrative skills whatsoever, so in reality, I am their unofficial team lead - not a role I relish. This could be a really painful process.

12:15 pm: Ali the cat performs her daily ritual of trying to crawl inside my sweatshirt while I'm still wearing it. This is fine in the evenings when I'm laying on the couch watching TV, but when trying to sit at my desk and work, can be a bit of a nuisance. I finally relent, unzip, and allow her to crawl inside. She stays for approximately 90 seconds, decides I'm too squirmy for her, and departs to curl up on her designated pillow next to my left elbow. Cats are nothing if not creatures of habit.

12:30 pm: Tried for the hundredth time since Monday to upload pictures of my past weekend to my blog. Blogger has not been cooperating, so instead, I start a new post and make mention of Day In The Life. Now THAT picture uploaded just fine! Grrrrrrrr. Send multiple issue reports to Blogger Help, in hopes that a human might eventually see them. Blogger Help/Support is infuriatingly elusive. Decide to join the Blogger Help Google Group to see if other people are experiencing problems today. Sure enough, they are. While there, find a link to an interesting blog called The Real Blogger Status. Try to leave the blog owner a comment - get a "Blogger Down" error message. Sigh.... Time to give up blogging for another day.

12:35 - 5pm: More multi-tasking - reading & responding to emails; reviewing documents; attempting to work with blogger to no avail.

5 pm: Eat a leftover roast beef sandwich (did I mention I love leftovers?) as a quick dinner.

5:15 pm: Shower

5:50 pm: Fight rush-hour traffic driving to Unraveled, a west-end LYS.

6:10-8:30 pm: Meet a new friend, another Virginia knit-blogger and spinner named Robin at Unraveled. Beth and her friend & coworker Monet are there, as well - both very fun ladies. I finish the toe shaping on my second baby sock, but save the kitchener's stitching up the toe for home, when there are less distractions. Each of us periodically sets our knitting aside and gets up to fondle yarn. I bought a ton of yarn this weekend so feel no pull towards acquiring more fiber. Robin is especially entranced by the Blue Heron yarns in the shop. Beth and I are each knitting a shawl with Blue Heron's Rayon Metallic. Beth's clapotis is in the "Lilac" colorway, which is actually much more pinkish than purplish. My colorway is called "Heather". I've been knitting this same garter stitch rectangular shawl for months, and it seems like the yarn ball never gets any smaller. After we've all perused the yarn at length, shop owner Mary Jane announces the "last call" and I decide to buy one of those laminated Kitchener's Stitch cards.

8:30-10:00 pm: Talked Robin into eating dessert at The Melting Pot, just a few doors up from Unraveled. I order the mushroom salad, (yum!), because I feel like I need to eat something "good" before we eat the "bad". (How do you like that logic?) We then share a dark chocolate/caramel/marshmallow cream dessert fondue and find ourselves in fondue heaven. I really enjoy getting to know Robin - she is very sweet and funny. She lives in the Blacksburg area and is in town this week for a class at the State Library. She doesn't look a day over 30, and yet she has a daughter graduating from high school. She and her husband met during a Civil War re-enactment, and actually had a Civil War wedding. They now spend many weekends participating in Living History events, where she demonstrates spinning, and he demostrates wood-working and other manly things. We leave the restaurant glowing from dark chocolate bliss and chat a few more minutes in the parking lot before getting in our respective cars and leaving. I am so glad I came out to meet her tonight -- I could see her turning into a great friend. Too bad she lives three hours away. We vow to contact each other the next time one of us is in the other's home town. We may see each other again at the Fall Fiber Festival. She knows Jane's sister Lawre, and knits with Tanya's knitting group, so she's in good company.

10:30 pm: arrive home, let out Casey the cat, who is a night owl and loves to feel ferocious and roam her vast "territory" of the front porch. Check email - see that Blogger Help has finally responded to the multiple issue reports I sent earlier in the day. A little late, but at least we know that they were aware of the issue and worked on it. Perhaps I might actually get to post something tomorrow.

11:00pm-Midnight: Self-indulgently read knitting blogs. There's just never enough time to catch up on them all!

12:04 am June 8th: Holy cow, it's after midnight. Time for bed!

Bess

4:00 a.m.
What is this? 4 o’clock? I don’t believe it! How am I ever going to get through the day waking up like this? Is there time for a meditation tape and any possible extra sleep. Is the dawn really coming in like this so early? Don’t you remember? In Sherlock Holmes when he says it will begin to grow light after 4 a.m. in Victorian London? “Wait till after 4” he advises Watson, “When it begins to grow light.”

5:00 a.m.
Okay may as well get up. Besides, I’m supposed to record this day, if not in minutia, at least in detail. Rats. I’ve never seen that link Erica provided - Where are my pajamas anyway oh yeah, hmm. Glasses - don’t forget your glasses. Shhhh. BD is sleeping. Yes, honey. I love you too.

5:15 a.m.
So. I am thinking about what I’m going to blog about today. In Her Shoes is still on my mind. I’m so glad BD liked it. It’s so durn difficult to pick a chick flick he’ll enjoy. Heck hard to pick one I’ll enjoy. What didn’t work about that movie, though? Thank goodness there aren’t so many dirty dishes I can’t fit them all in the dishwasher. Yes yes yes. I know. It’s gross. But I am a Morning Person and I don’t Do the kitchen at night. Why suffer miseries at the end of the day when I can whip this place into shape in a twinkling at the beginning of my peak energy cycle? Who cares if the place is a pigsty anyway, since we’re the pigs. Coffee - ahhhh.

5:30 a.m.
Good. No news worth reading except that NYT article about Netflicks - so one day there won’t be any DVD’s and it’ll all be downloads. That will suck for us rural folk who can not get high speed at any price. Well. We could get it for about $1k a month. Yeah. Hmm. I see nobody I know died either. Every morning it’s the same routine - Open 3 web pages - Hotmail, NYT and Richmond Times - check headlines and obits. Thrill when I get blessed longed for Email from Friends - rats - there isn’t any. Where is everybody? Why doesn’t C write? bummer bummer. And I completely forget to email P who I promised to send my blog addy to on Monday fer cryin’ out loud.

Then the important stuff: Mr.Horoscope - and the statscounter - who are all these people who log on but never post a comment - who is in New York? Who is in Egypt? Norway? Malta? Do they knit? Do they read? Are they secretly storing porn on my blog and beaming it worldwide to geeky code snatchers plotting world distruction?

Then Knitters Review (dot com) and the daily blog reads - half of which get updated only infrequently, but I always check because these are people who have become important to me. I want to know how they are - even though, in a few cases I shall never meet them - never even email them since they don’t leave a path and I haven’t an email button on my blog either. I still care. Is this something like soap opera characters - they become metaphors for our inner selves, our hopes and desires? I don’t think so - they’re too real. Click, click click through the list. Of course, the grinding of the hard drive and the 3 minute wait for a page to load means that this classic multi-tasking ENFP can also be writing her own blog post in Mcsft Wrd.

Crap. Blogger ate half my movie review! Dang it all.

8:00 a.m.
Still thinking about the WW meeting last night - "Drink your Milk" they say and I decide to fix a strawberry smoothie for my breakfast. BD can have his usual oatmeal.

The skunk dogs want in this a.m. and they don’t smell all that bad. Interesting how a few decades in the country and skunk becomes one of the familiar mammalian odors, instead of something to flee or attack with tomato juice. Aww, sweet Jack, curled up on the mat by the front door. Hello Priss, Hello Socks. Yes. Come on. Lets’ go wake up daddy.

And Honey? Let’s just not watch a movie tonight. Lets’ read or oh yeah. OK. We can look over the taxes and we might as well go over the wills too. (secretly thinking ugh - what a horrible evening)

8:30 a.m.
Shower. Admire self in mirror. God I love this new hair cut. I feel so young. I feel so cute. I feel ... Moxie. Sexy. I feel Special!

9:15 a.m.
Such a sparkling day. The breeze is making the leaves flutter like all the green butterflies in the world at a convention. And around the last bend on the lane - is that a deer? Oh. No. It’s the butt end of that maple tree BD cut up on Saturday, after it came down in a storm and blocked access to the tar road. Huh. Funny that golden color is the exact shade of a doe in June. Funny too, how the mind works. I know this is a deer crossing. I see the color. I think it’s a deer - even though it’s a round circle, not deer shaped at all.

Am I going to get it all done this week? Which Important Thing am I going to forget? I’m worrying as I drive into town. No music on in the a.m. No audio books. I’m listening to the Greek Drama: tragedy & comedy, a Modern Scholar release from Recorded Books. The professor is Peter Meineck. He looks like your next door neighbor, but he’s still got that British accent. He’s from New York University. I wonder of John Chute knew him. Chutes. The Beans of Egypt Maine was written by a Chute. I didn’t like that book, though.

Sometimes I feel like my brain is an enormous trunk line of wires that has been severed and each copper thread inside is shooting out attention grabbing sparks.

9:40 a.m.
"Clark's Auto" “Well, the squeak was not there at all yesterday but as I drove up to the mailbox, this morning it sang out. I think it’s the back passenger wheel.” That’s what I tell Dean as he drives me back to work from his garage. I see, along the way, a new pizza restaurant is opening. Like I need more pizza. I ask Dean about that Chevelle - it looks like it’s a candidate for rust maker of the month but he says the guy who owns it thinks more of that car than he does of his wife. “I did some work on it this week. He’s going to have it painted next.” The paint on that car was peeling up like a tangerine - thick, pliant, like a skin coming off. Well, whoever he is, I hope he feels young and hopeful and ready to take ‘em on once he’s dumped $$$ into what is a very ugly car.

Dean Clark. I wonder if he knows his grandfather used to drive my mother-in-law to school in the school surry? Dan raised prize Blue Ticks that sold for $1000 in 1975. I bet he'd never heard of Westminster, or if he did he thought it was a church in England. "Did you ever go to a dance with him, Mom?" "Heavens no! He was a Clark!" But if he was as good looking as his grandson, with that lean dark capability I wonder ... And the great grandson comes to the library to check out car books. He's another Dan Clark. How cute is that? I suspect he has been in love with me for several years, but he's getting to be 10. I will lose ground to play stations and little league.

Dean used to be married to that Carreras girl. Olga Deshazo’s granddaughter. I remember when Ms. DeShazo wanted to borrow a genealogy book from the non-circulating section and a board member told her she could. And when Judy, my assistant, said she couldn’t the she complained to the member who ripped me apart. Funny, about small towns and privilege and how people think that the rules are for everyone else.

And how Newton DeShazo’s son and grandson got killed in freak accidents and the minister slid off the deep end and told them it was God’s punishment for them going to a Unitarian church. And how my boss was the lawyer for the vestry and needed the Roberts Rules of Order book to conduct the meeting when they broke the contract with the minister whose little boy, btw, was in my Cub Scout troop. Which all goes to prove the Keven Bacon rule. And aren’t you glad your last name isn’t Bacon, because imagine how the kids would tease you in 4th grade and call you Hog or HogFace or HogBrain and shout “Your bacon’s cooked, bozo!”

And now you see how the ENFP brain works – from car brakes to Keven Bacon in six easy steps.

10:00 a.m.
Yes! I remember to call Jane. E-books? What the ___ are they really? Can we handle them in Dial-upsville? Hmm. Solinet is offering walking away titles - the books that always get stolen the moment you put them out. Resume books, GED books, SAT books. Okay. Yes. I see. Oh lawsee! They have that book on Legal Forms? An ordinary computer works too? Not only an MP3 player. Yes. I see. Good.


10:30 a.m.
Story hour. A mother is going to home school next year. Another mother is so excited. “I’m a teacher but I still think homeschool is best.”

I am always silent when I hear them talk about homeschool. Homeschoolers are our best customers. Homeschooled children are very well behaved and know just how to please adults. I would die before I homeschooled any child of mine. Bite lip.

Lord these little kids are so cute.

11:30 a.m.
L is back from vacation. Poor thing. Sick all week. Catch her up on the ThingsToDo List and put her to work buying gum-ball machine toys for the summer reading club.

Noon
Grab PSA to take to radio and walk outside to GoriousWeather and the feeling of Why In The World Do I Work When I Could Be Outside On A Day Like This?!?

Oh yeah. Lunch. Food. I have to eat. Meet S at the courthouse. Courthouse gang all agog over my new haircut and I feel like a Star. Cute me. Shake my head, Darling cute. There is nothing in the world like a successful change in hair to make you feel Special. We walk down Prince Street - gaze at Allec’s brick pile - the addition to his 17th century building. It might be attractive but it’s setting is awful; squished up against the old 1960s Snack Bar building on a turn of the (19th) century brick storefront street. Too much brick. Too much weight for the street. Too bad. I wish I had grass like his though. I wonder what it would really cost to put in turf ... just around the house, you know. Will I ever have that kind of money?

Lunch at the Riverbank Seafood Restaurant. S&I have neither of us ever been there. I know there will be nothing remotely WW-ish for me to buy. I don’t want to go. I can’t think of anyplace else I’d like to go. Time is ticking by. Seafood salad - not too much mayo. In fact, exactly the right amount. Yes. Very good. I still won’t go back, except to buy fresh fish to cook at home, but it really was good seafood salad. Lawsee, am I ever going to get back to my WW goal? How I want to fit into those beautiful dresses from 2004. Sigh.

Stop in at the nail salon - can I be squeezed in somewhere this week? Yes, at 2. with the new gal who is Beth Dewey's daughter in law. I have to pass on the 23rd again. Can we switch the appointment? Thursday? Good. But really I just want to show off this cute haircut. It’s such a girlie girl place. Everyone chatters and flutters and beams at me and I feel even More Special. So special I have to go by Brenda’s - since she is the one who cut this fantastic haircut. We hug. It’s laughing time. We’re so proud of ourselves. Me, because I made the decision. She, because she made the cuts.

And think about this - If someone walked into the library and said “Bess, I need you to outfit me with a new computer network access today. I need to be able to use my X4LC 53 FanTron DXL with your network” - I’d freak out. Even if it is something I could do, I need a little more lead time than a walk-in request. And yet, how often do we do that to hairdressers? “I need a change” we say - and expect them to make us different and beautiful at a moment’s notice. Hmmm. I’m glad I gave her a couple of month’s time to think about it and talk about it with me and look at pictures with me. She was ready. She was confident. She was successful. I get to be cute. No - better than cute. I look younger!!

I am so utterly vain and trivial to care so durn much about a hair cut. OH lord - 4 pages and I’m only half-way through the day!

1:30
Hey! It’s LD! Hugs. He’s busy. I’m busy. But a hug is so much fun.

And K? Can you be here at 2 o’clock next week and keep the front desk? We need to hold a staff meeting and that’s the only day this month we can all be here. Thank you sweetheart. Yes. I’d like you to catalog the B&T books today.

2:30
Talk to K at the State Library. “E-books? Yes? Oh? Really! Hmm. Okay. I guess it’s a go for us then. I’ve got till the 15th. And btw, I loved the conference call seminar on Web Junction but they really need to figure out protocol so there aren’t those long silences punctuated by 3 people talking at once. Yes? Sure I’ll write a “review” of the process. You know I am always looking for an opportunity to talk.”

Call Van
Call Jack
Call Kay
What's this! No DayTimer? No schedule? Left at home? Lord! Can I move? Can I think? Decide? Schedule anything? Am I even real?

3:30
AT - from the wireless internet folk is here in person. Yippee! Next week? Don’t need to do any limb cutting?

Here are my 2 concerns about wi-fi:
A. Security - someone comes into my parking lot, logs onto our network and robs the bank’s e-funds while riding on Essex Public Library’s Internet access - are we liable?
B. Expense - will there be so much bandwidth sucked up in the middle of the night by drive by internet users my bandwidth costs will soar beyond what we can pay?

You can handle the wi-fi DHCP block from Warsaw? Interesting. Oh. I’ll need another switch. Okay - let’s do it. End of next week? Yes.”

Really, they ought to clone these T men - they are all so handsome and so smart and so tender and they can even sing. You could just go to the T-family catalog and order up a husband for any of your girlfriends. Am I developing a crush on a boy I used to read nursery stories to? Goof!

4:30
Hello Dean. It was the front wheels? Hmm. Well. I guess all my brakes are good to go now. Yes. I can drive you back. See you in a minute.

My, how nicely this car drives now.

5:16
Do I go to the gym or go home? Do I go to the gym or go home? Gym? Home? Home is the drive for listening to the Greek Drama.

5:55
That tree doesn’t look like a deer from this angle. How soft everything is. I am so tired. I’m so glad I have an easy dinner all planned. I really need to take a walk. I need to earn those activity points. I am hungry. I’ve shot the points budget already, what with having seafood salad sandwich for lunch.

6:15
Sweet potatoes and squash in the oven. Shoes on. Ouch. These gym shoes are just too short. Funny how they grow shorter as they grow older. My toes hurt. Walk Walk! Jack jumps Priss, Socks jumps Jack, Priss does an end run around them both. Daddy! Daddy! Hurry Up.

It’s a glorious evening for a walk. We talk about the day. BD’s cover proofs for Where None Before Hath Stood came via truck delivery today. He approves. The book will be published next week. Shipped within 10 days of that but then it’s the slow warehouse shuffle getting them from the west coast to Virginia. He hopes they’ll be ready by August. We talk, but every time Jack jumps out of the cornfield or the wheatfields, my eyes soften, my heart melts, I grow all gooey inside. How I love to watch dogs in the country. They’re so happy. They’re so strong and free and wild and yet not wild, because if you call, at least two of them will come running to you with such happy grins, such gleaming eyes, such love. Not Priss. She is the dog who walks alone and nobody can alter her from her chosen path. But she loves us too. She chooses to come to us so often you don’t mind that she won’t come when she’s called. We just never take her off the farm so we don’t have to worry about losing her.

It looks like a storm coming. Black rolling sky-mountains looming up out of the north west. Turn at the mile point. Stop at Jacob’s Gut for the dogs to cool off. Look! It’s LD on his bike? Does he have Buster? Yes. A bit of territorial sniffing, a little appeasement and we’re all friends. But I know dinner is cooking While We Walk. Hugs to LD, leave BD talking with him and hustle on home.

7:00
Dinner while we watch A&E’s Hatfield & McCoy. So obviously a television show. You can tell when the commercial breaks were because they always repeat the last thing said before a commercial immediately after the break. We laugh and scoff and make comments to the television while we eat.

8:00
Time to look over the taxes and the wills. "Is that all we made last year?" "Is that all we made last year?" Hmmm. Well. There you have it. Sure had fun with it all. Now we’re laughing at lawyers and laughing at language and scratching all over the wills with red pens and pondering the question . . . but what would we do with this place if we had no heirs? It’s an unlikely event but just, what if? A scholarship fund in BJS’s name? Oh. I love that idea. Okay, let’s have Scot put that in as well.

9:00
I am sooo sleepy. Goodnight sweetheart. I love you too.

Catherine

4:35 a.m. Murphy woofed softly. I told him to go back to bed.

5:25 a.m. Alarm went off, I got up, let the dogs out, made coffee, let the dogs in, gave them Scooby snacks. Read news and blogs and drank coffee. Crocheted 1.5 squares for the afghan that will be done when I’m 80. Let the dogs in and out several more times. Yelled at dogs for asking so many times.

6:30 a.m. – elliptical trainer, crunches, stretching.

7-ish – shower.

7:20 a.m. – The phone rang. It was my mother, calling to say my father is having a great deal of difficulty breathing and could barely get out of bed. They live 2 hours away. I can hear him wheezing in the background, trying to say something. I told her to call the doctor’s office. She said the doctor doesn’t have anybody on call after hours. (He’s the primary physician to a population of mostly old people. What the hell kind of office is that?) She’s frantic. I tell her to call 911. She turns to my father and asks if she should do that. [unintelligible gurgling] “He doesn’t want to go to the hospital.” “If he’s unable to breathe or get out of bed, what else do you plan to do?” “I don’t know!” “Call 911!” “Maybe I should call 911!” “Maybe you should, and then call me back and tell me what’s going on. “

7:30 a.m. – my hair is now drying into a fright wig, my contacts aren’t in, my makeup isn’t on, and I’m running late again. I get ready for work, muttering under my breath, remembering that I have an important meeting downtown and wondering if I should just tell R he’s on his own for it.

8:45 a.m. – at the office. Still no call from my mother. Consider driving across the state to find out what’s going on.

8:47 a.m. – Just as I’m about to call her, she called. She didn’t call 911, she called the home health service. A nurse from hospice (okay, so somebody actually alerted hospice after I talked to his primary the other day, good) had come and checked him and said he was stable, and increased his oxygen. Crisis averted once again, and I’m glad I didn’t drive across the state. I don’t have much personal leave accrued, my current employer is stingy as hell about vacation time. I can’t drop everything and run for these bi-weekly crises, they are too far away.

9:30 a.m. - In R’s truck, heading into downtown Orlando for a meeting with our company’s lawyers on a contract amendment on a deal that is so convoluted and loaded with issues it makes my brain cramp. We talk about work and about cars – his truck is huge and a pain in the butt in the city, he wants something smaller and comfortable. I want a new car too. He’s thinking “previously owned” BMW or Lexus. I’m thinking about a Toyota Matrix. I’m thinking maybe I’m not getting paid enough.

My life revolves around the northern suburbs of Orlando, I go downtown every six months or so and it always looks different. There are many new construction projects, a lot of them "luxury condos" in a market that has already reached condo saturation. It'll be interesting to see what happens downtown in the next couple of years.

10 a.m. – 1:30 p.m. – Brain cramping meeting. How did I end up here, discussing deal points on huge land contracts like I know what I’m talking about? I have no idea. Lunch was brought in from a local “where the power people eat” restaurant. The chicken in my salad was so dried out I could hardly chew it.

1:30 ish – We lurch from attorney’s office brain-fried. R once again wistfully suggests blowing off the afternoon to go drink margaritas at an outdoor bar. The “margarita wish” has become a post-meeting ritual. We always talk about this but never do it, because we are good little Type A Do-Bees. We would feel too guilty. R is a country boy (a very educated and very very smart country boy) and he’s bemused by the number of men downtown with what he calls “frosted’ (actually highlighted) hair. His own head is shaved and looks a bit like a shiny sunburned bowling ball. I can’t picture him with hair, let alone “frosted” hair. I agree with him on the “men with highlights” issue. I couldn’t be attracted to a man who spent more time and money on his hair than I do.

We got back to the office around 2:15. I spent a long time reading email – including several priceless funnies from friends, which of course had to be circulated. My brain was mush after the meeting, I just wanted to go home. Puttered on small projects I couldn’t do any harm for the remainder of the day.

5 p.m. – Narrowly missed getting into another long project discussion with R at quitting time, but we were both too tired and actually both left at 5. Not a typical day.

5:30 p.m. – There is no cat or dog food, there are dishes in the sink and nobody brought in the mail. By Wednesday the usual layer of crud and clutter has piled on every surface of my house. I got the mail and dispatched Girlchild to fetch cat and dog food. And wine. Opened the mail – almost entirely junk, but my cousin C sent me pictures from our weekend in St. Augustine with her sister L. L and I look hilariously alike in many shots, same facial expressions and such. We both also look too fat. Vow to increase time on the elliptical trainer and decrease the wine intake. Starting tomorrow. Honest.

6 p.m. – Sales call from pushy person in California trying to talk me into a new mortgage. She got quite bitchy and demanding when I said I wasn’t interested in whatever interest-only very bad idea product she was peddling. I had to hang up on her, but I did it gently.

Girl returns from Publix with pet food and pinot grigio, and a hilarious story about a nice lady who ran to grab a shopping cart that was rolling toward Girl’s car to keep it from hitting her. We’re laughing because Girl’s car is 5 years old and led a hard life at FSU – it’s quite dinged and slightly dented here and there. Girl told the woman, “Thanks, but it’s okay, the last thing that hit this car was an SUV.”

Cleaned the pond filter, watered the tomatoes. They are putting out tiny little nothings in the drought. I never should have tempted the weather gods by planting tomatoes, any year that I plant veggies we have a drought. I started the grill. I had bought steak at Costco last weekend (a rare treat) so we had steak and corn on the cob for dinner.

My phone rang while I was eating, a little after 7. I didn’t answer and let it roll to voicemail. I checked it after I finished eating. It was my mother calling to report that my father was doing okay and was sleeping. I didn’t call back because the phone is right by his bed and I didn’t want to wake him.

The next couple of hours are spent on TV, reading blogs, playing with the dogs, (Dudley is obsessed with fetching the rope) just puttering around wasting time. I’m too tired to concentrate on knitting the shawl, easy as it is, I know I’ll screw it up.

9:10 p.m. – Still awake and still wired. I got on the elliptical trainer for a few minutes, which is usually a bad idea before bed, but I felt restless. I watched The Daily Show, which I’d recorded from the night before. Did many crunches. Those pictures from St. Augustine were NOT flattering – God, I didn’t realize I looked that dumpy. Depressing. I vow for the millionth time to exercise faithfully every day. If I look at those photos every day I may be able to stick to that vow.

9:45 p.m. – Lights out. Dudley snuggled very close, Boris sprawled his fat squishy body on my feet, I started swearing, kicking and moving critters, trying to make some room for myself. Murphy wants no part of this nightly ritual, he got in his bed on the floor, he is not a bed sleeper because he can’t get down by himself in the middle of the night. The bed is very tall, and he is very short. We are all asleep by 10.

Andi

7 am: Waking up at summer vacation time. Ahhh. The alarm was set, though, because I have a shopping date with my mom. We will be visiting baby stores, getting ideas for the nursery.

7:30 am: Breakfast on the patio consists of peanut butter toast and a peach. No coffee because I am trying to whiten my teeth. Brainstormed with my husband that Mountain Dew soda might be necessary during the bleaching treatments...necessary caffiene without the dark color which could stain.

8 am: Left my house to travel to Mom's. She lives about half-an-hour away. Easy to get to on the freeway.

8:45ish: Leave Mom's house with several pages of mapquest.com directions. I drive. Mom gets to knit on her sock. Life can be very unfair. We have light, easy conversations about her work, my work, various people in our lives.

9:15ish: Arrive at the first mega-store. Oops, it doesn't open until 10! Plan B...move on to the next store on the list. Guesstimate how to get there, since neither of us is familiar with this side of town.

9:30am: Arrive at second baby store. Oops, it doesn't open until 10! Luckily, there is a Starbucks on the corner. Mom orders green tea, I try some cranberry juice. Does anybody know the tooth-staining potential of cranberries? I probably just ruined the whitening effects. Oh well! Mom distracts me from my knitting with magazines...one quilting, one knitting...lots of great patterns.

10am: Finally, it's time to shop! We move counter-clockwise around the store. Most of the cribs have a heavy feel, since they are designed to convert into a full size bed in a few years. At least we know what's out there.

11:15am: Move on to the next store on the list. Discover it is alot further away than we expected. After driving for about 20 minutes, we find the store, and walk in just to realize it is a consignment store. Not that there is anything wrong with that! But, this is my first child, and at this point, I am willing to spend a little more on new things.

11:30am: Decide to take the freeway back to the first mega-store. Found a couple more stores in the yellow pages. They are relatively easy to find, and open when we arrive! The first one was a darling little boutique, mainly clothes. Gender specific clothes, which don't do us much good yet, since we don't know if it's a girl or a boy. But, we found an adorable teddy bear. The next store was more of an interior decorator place, so that was just in-and-out. Time for lunch!

12:15pm: We walked around the strip mall looking for a restaurant. Yes, we looked at the map, went the wrong way, doubled back, and then found out it was closed. Bummer. But look, across the parking lot is another restaurant that doesn't have a location on our side of town! Perfect. Mom had seafood enchiladas, I had a pecan-crusted chicken and spinach salad. Both were delicious. And since it was a special occasion (Wednesday is too a special occasion!) we splurged on dessert. Mom had blueberry cobbler a la mode, and I had fudge pie with fresh whipped cream.

1:30pm: Back at our original destination, a home furniture mega-store. It was amazing...arrows on the floor to guide you. It felt like Disneyland! I saw some cute toys, and I could probably redecorate my living room there, but the cribs were institutional-looking. I did buy some mesh-type drawer organizers.

2:30pm: Back on the freeway for the long drive home. Rush hour starts early! Again, Mom got to knit. But about a mile from home, she realized she didn't make the heel flap the right size, so she ripped out basically all the knitting she had done today!

3:00pm: Back at Mom's house, we did a little bit of online shopping. She found the most wonderful crib with a giraffe on it. Giraffes are my thing. We had already decided to do an African safari theme, and this crib would be perfect. It's a little expensive though, so we're still debating that purchase.

4 pm: Home at last, and really tired (lack of caffiene I'm assuming). Hubby and I lay down to nap and I tell him all about my day. Realized after about 15 minutes that I wasn't going to fall asleep.

4:30pm: Get up and check email.

5 pm: Walk to the 3D mailbox. Wednesdays are the junk day...grocery ads mainly. But I did get a magazine and a catalog to flip through.

5:30pm: Heat up some leftovers and eat on the couch in front of the TV. Decide to put a movie on while I add binding to a quilt that I am showing in a class on Saturday. I am not happy with the quilting in one part...the tension in my machine was off and the back of the quilt is a mess. Maybe tomorrow I will have time to use a practice piece to adjust the tension, then rip out and fix the mess.

8:30pm: Quilt binding is done. Looked at the TV guide and discovered the show I wanted to watch at 10pm is not on until 11pm. There really isn't anything else worthwhile on, and I'll probably fall asleep before 11. I'll call it quits and submit my diary.

Goals for tomorrow...sock knitting! Load new quilt onto longarm! Catch up on the blogs I missed this week!

That was my day. Submitted by Andi in Phoenix, Arizona

Laura

7:30 a.m. Got up early (to me, anyhow) and did a few chores , had coffee, logged onto the computer and accidentally deleted Erica's last message for A Day in the Life. I tried for 30 minutes to retrieve it but to no avail? Then I put eggs on to hard boil KNOWING I wouldn't forget to check on them after getting back on the computer and you guessed it.....after a full 10 minutes of rapid boiling, I remembered. Needless to say, we're talking very hard boiled eggs here. :)

11:00 a.m. Showered and dressed and began my new make up application thanks to my DIL who was here for the weekend with my son. She is a whiz at make up application and proceeded to show me so many great tips and at my age, I'm telling you, I can use them. I need a new eyebrow brush with the proper kind of stiff and angled brush to do a really nice, natural looking brow rather than the one I've been seeing lately which hasn't looked too good. In fact, I need a few new brushes now that I realize what a difference they can make. M used some of her own on me and what a difference they made in the outcome. We had such a good time and I even let her pluck my eyebrows which is a huge leap of faith....and without a single scream!

12:30 p.m. I've had a slight sinus headache all day and it's getting worse as the day goes on. I think I'll take a couple of Alleve and hope for the best. I'm really tired and feel like I could take a nap, but will I? Probably not although I should just give in and lay down for 15 minutes or so. I would like to do some knitting but don't feel much like it for now so I'll see if I can as the day goes on. Heaven knows I need to work on my 3 current projects which sit in their basket calling out to me. I don't know why but for some unknown reason I haven't been in the mood to knit lately which is very rare, thankfully, so I hope the inclination returns sooner rather than later.

3:00 p.m. After eating some cottage cheese with peaches for lunch (trying my best to cut down), I read a few chapters from a book called "Secrets About Life Every Woman Should Know" by Barbara DeAngelis. So far I'm finding out some things I've known, but haven't put in the same context as she has, and it's quite an eye opener. There are some good ideas put forth in this book and one of the best ones is:

"When you go through each day expecting what is happening outside yourself to make you happy, you are setting yourself up for failure, you are setting yourself up for misery. You make yourself a victim of circumstances you cannot control and become dependent upon others for your own state of joy and contentment".

Now that one statement alone, leaped off the page at me. I think I've gone through the major portion of my life expecting that my happiness was always dependent on how much I was liked, loved, respected, etc. by all the major people in my life. In reality and I truly do believe this, the only TRUE and LASTING happiness in this lifetime is already inside each one of us and only WE are capable of finding it on the inside where God has put it from the moment of our creation. When we start to truly be happy within ourselves, only then can we begin to honestly love ourselves and others. How many times have I heard this theory presented, and yet, I've always turned a deaf ear. I've kept up the search on the "outside" with every sort of stop gap filling in the empty spots here and there. Okay, okay, so I've hopped up onto my soap box, but I did want to share this with all of you in case someone out there might find the same A-HA moment that I did. :)

4:30 p.m. Fed the 2 sweetie pies (our 2 cats) who proceeded to act like they never ate before! Oh well, they're so cute, what's a mom to do? :)) Then I had to figure out what we're going to have for dinner since I forgot to defrost anything. Looks like leftovers of fried chicken and I'll boil red bliss potatoes and a veggie. Got the mail and there was my first issue of "Taste of Home" cooking magazine, a mother's day gift from my darling daughter.....thanks so much, hon, I love it!

5:30 pm. My husband got home, changed and collapsed into his oversized chair to tell me all about his day, which if the truth be told is pretty much like any other at his place of business. His co-workers are quite a mix and the people who should get the boot, never do, and the ones you need to keep, seem to leave. In any event, it's good for him to be able to vent as I know so well from my recent days in the court system as an overworked and undervalued employee. I'm so glad those days are in the past, at least for the time being.

7:00 We ate dinner and got a few phone calls in the middle.....which is always the case. I guess it's Murphy's Law, if the phone doesn't ring all day, it's sure to start when you pick up your fork, LOL. The kitties wanted to go out on the deck which is about 10' off the ground so they stay put, but it was sprinkling a bit outside which didn't deter them one iota. They wanted to check on their bird pals and see if the bunnies were running around in the back. They sure have a good old time watching all the goings on.

9:45 p.m. After reading a bit more, I decided to log on and put my thoughts down while they were fresh and now, dear readers, I'm heading off to bed. I haven't been sleeping very well, dreaming all the time and apparently sleeping on my back too often according to DH which isn't good for snoring or a touch of sleep apnea. Hope tonight is restful and I wish the same to all of you. I'll be looking forward to reading about your days as you post them. Be happy, and God bless.

Judy

7:30—Barely awake; why are we soooo tired? I went to bed at my normal time, but I feel like we could stay in bed for at least another hour. What’s up with that? But the idea of staying in bed while Mark gets up and takes care of the dog when he would rather be doing his wake-up routine (reading the news/sports on his computer in his quiet office) makes me feel guilty, and I get up.

8:00—Decide it’s high time I trimmed Henry’s nails (the poor guy’s back nails haven’t been trimmed in so long that his toes aren’t quite straight when he steps on his back feet!)…try it on my own and realize I’m in over my head. Then I commit the cardinal sin: I hurt my poor baby! He yelped and Mark yelled from his office, “What’s going on out there?” Mark came out to offer to help and we both struggled with how to get the damn dog to let us clip his nails. The frustrating thing is that we clean his feet every time we come inside: after going to the “bathroom,” after playing--any time his feet touch dirt--yet he won’t let us HOLD his feet to clip the nails. Now that I’ve hurt him it’s going to be even more difficult. Sigh. So, we gave up and decided we’d try again later. That’s denial for “let’s give up.”

8:50—I’m trying desperately to tear myself away from trimming the fringe on a project I finished last week because we agreed we’d clean the house this morning. I only have another 45 minutes before I need to be in the shower in order to get myself ready to leave for work at 10:00. But I’m almost done! So I sit there and trim while Mark makes my tea and has his breakfast. I figure I can always clean while I drink my tea: pick up a stack of knitting magazines, sip my tea; throw away old newspapers, sip my tea…it works until I need to sweep the kitchen floor. But by that time I’m almost done with my tea anyway.

9:45—Rushing through my shower, even though on this day, of all days, I need to do “extra” time-consuming things (shaving my legs comes to mind), but I need to leave my house by 10:00 in order to come close to being on time for work. Eek.

9:55—I don’t know why Mark gets so defensive when I bring up whether he has cut a check from his dad’s account (he works part-time as his dad’s office manager), but each time I remind him, he says, “are we that poor?” as if I’m in panic mode and we have to have the money to survive. This is just a plain old job like every other job, and I figure he should pay himself on a regular basis. It seems to me like he puts it off because he feels guilty taking money from his dad’s account when he knows just how much money his dad has. I don’t know.

11:25—Discussing DaVinci Code and Angels & Demons with colleages…I just don’t remember enough about either of them, even though I read them both, to have a real conversation about them. I remember liking them both, but when I read fiction, I’m not usually looking for solutions to the world’s problems, or anything like that.

12:00—My brother calls to see if we want to go out to dinner when we’re up north for my father-in-law’s wedding. It’s so interesting: my brother is really stressed out by money stuff right now (he was out for illness and was getting half-pay for a number of weeks), yet he wants to go OUT to eat with us. I tell him we’ve decided to just “receive visitors” all day/evening, so they could come up to camp and hang out with us. He seems a little disappointed, but it sounds like they’ll come. He also gives me a little not-so-subtle prod that I can bring his middle step-daughter’s birthday gift with me—her birthday was last week. In my defense, they’ve only been married for a year and a half, so I’m not up to speed with when the kids’ birthdays happen. But I’m trying. (I’m getting to the point where I think kids should still get presents, but not the grown-ups in our families—everyone has enough already, for pete’s sake.)

12:15—Just snuck a peek at my personal email and had a lovely email message from my One Skein Secret Pal, who told me her name starts with ‘M’ and that it’s an unusual name. How mysterious. She sounds like she's going to be a fantastic pal—and I was really worried that I hadn’t heard from my pal! She’s really nice and she has shown that she’s been reading my blog. She even read an old entry about how I wanted to create a jpg file of something I’d found online and she sent it to me as an attachment! She’s a spinner, too, and sells her yarn, so the skeins she’s going to give me are going to be handspun, personalized for me. Yahoo!

12:45—A student just came to ask me to participate in a survey for her health class: 3 advantages and 3 disadvantages to being my sex. I struggled to think of a third advantage, which really surprised me. I had the disadvantages pretty quickly, but that last advantage was a stumper until I finally got it: society allows women to show emotions (freely giving compliments, crying, etc.). I threw in a funny one: women’s clothing is more interesting than men’s (I think). And last, but not least, was that we can bear children. Yes, it’s painful (not that I know firsthand), but we’re the only ones who can do this, so it’s something to be proud of, I think.

3:00-3:30—Just had a good, collaborative discussion with one of my favorite faculty-members about how to “embed” a librarian in an English class. I’m really excited about this idea—it’s just the thing to keep me interested in my job, and to help students feel comfortable in the library. It might even impress the administration with how central the library can be to the college. This would be a great change in the attitude towards the library, let me tell you.

5:15—As usual, I’m waiting and waiting for my colleagues to leave for the day so I can slack off and do what I want without anyone seeing. Yet another source of guilt in my daily life.

6:00—I’m getting more excited about work because of this idea of embedding someone in a class; I hope this excitement carries me in to the next semester. I have been trying to remember that I’m a good planner, and not such a good implementer…but then I worry about not looking motivated. It’s a weird way to work.

6:30—So I just ate 2 cups of Cheddar Cheese Chex Mix instead of eating dinner. There are perils to working in such an unsupervised (non-guilt-producing) area: I can rationalize any dietary transgression while suppressing untold amounts of guilt, and don't have the pressure of thinking that someone is judging me by what I eat. Of course this makes me eat more because I feel bad. Blech. You’d think, after doing all of my life-changing eating changes (fewer carbs, virtually no refined sugars or white flours, more fruits and fibers) that I’d feel happy enough about myself and my body that I wouldn’t feel compelled to eat to make myself feel bad (or better, I guess). Right after I did this “bad” eating, I went to the bathroom and caught a glimpse of my face in the mirror and thought, “Huh; I’m not half-bad looking today.” Well, if I keep eating the way I have been today, I’ll be back to my unhealthy size/habits. What is up with that?!

Guidelines

We are documenting Wednesday, June 7.

Jot down things throughout the day. Be sure to check out the excerpt from This Day: Diaries from American Women to get an idea of how it was documented in the book. If you can't remember exact times, don't worry about it. Have fun with this and please don't see it as a drag, if it is then please don't feel that you must participate.

At the end of your day or the next several days, post your entire day here. Please use the "Title" option in Blogger and just put your FIRST name so that it will be listed in the sidebar. For your privacy, don't put your full name or your work place's name in the post. My plan is to have a link to your post as well as your blog in the sidebar. If you need help with posting or can't get the "Title" option to work, let me know.

I'm so excited about this and know that it won't be a typical day. I look forward to reading all of your days.

Some final business, if you have "Day in the Life" listed in your Dashboard, you're officially signed up and can post your day. If you have signed up and your name doesn't appear in the sidebar please email me.

Have a wonderful June 7.

Another question...

Just to be clear - June 7th is the day we're documenting, correct? So it's possible that many of us will actually post here about it after the fact, on June 8th or later? I guess this is another way to ask Bess' question, below....

A question here, about posting on the 7th. Do you envision one long post at the end of the day or several throughout the day? Or is it not important and are you imagining we just flood this place as the inspiration dictates?

Welcome

This blog was created to record the lives of knitters for one day. It's inspired by the book called This Day in the Life : Diaries from Women Across America by Joni B. Cole, Rebecca Joffrey and B.K. Rakhra. I heard a really interesting interview with Joni B. Cole about the book and it made me also think about how a normal "boring" day can be so interesting because of the thoughts and feelings on that particular day. Here's an excerpt from another book by the same authors entitled This Day: Diaries from American Women.

If you're not comfortable putting some crazy thought or something online don't feel like you have to. And certainly don't write anything that will get you fired from your job. For yourself this one day be honest and remember that everything that you think or happens in your day doesn't need to be posted. You can definitely filter it for online reading. You also don't need to be near a computer all day, take a notepad or piece of paper to jot down things throughout your day.

Wednesday, June 7, 2006 is the designated day. You don't need a blog to participate. If you would like to participate, email me at dayinlife (AT) erica-lee (DOT) org to sign up.

Here is a button for your blog. Please copy it to your own server.