It’s only Day 2 of ‘A Week In The Life’ today and already, I’m wondering if I did the right thing to do it this week. But, I’m hoping that by the end of this week (and onwards), I’ll be glad that I decided to try and record daily living, even though my week is already feeling crazy.
In any case, as promised, here are some notes and photos from Day 1, Monday. Starting off with the photo above: Me, getting ready for my Monday Morning Weekly Walk. Usually, I get ready in a rush on Monday mornings, helping the kids to get ready for school – getting kids’ breakfasts, packing lunches, nagging about making sure everyone has everything they need, etc – while the hubby gets ready to do the school run.
After I wave the family off to school/work, I start getting ready with my day. Usually, that just involves a shower, getting dressed, and other morning routines. Then, off to my home office to start work.
However, as some of you would know, a few weeks ago, I started my Monday Morning Weekly Walks. Something I have been able to keep doing so far! (Yay) I’m really liking the way I get to start my week this way.
Below, is a photo of an agapanthus flower. I love how they look. They’re really flourishing around Adelaide at this time of the year. And yes, it seems like I’m getting to do this weekly during my walks – taking a ‘flower of the week’ photo. Though, most of the time, I have no idea what the flowers are called. This one, at least, I know. 
On this walk, I also decided to take our dog Blue. He was very pleased. In this photo, we paused a little to take in the view near our house –
Gorgeous, right? In the distance, there’s a bit of a sea view. But, it’s not easy to see it in these photos.
Another thing I seem to have started doing during my walks: collecting bits and pieces from nature, creating a spread, and then taking a photo of that collection.
For this week’s walk, I ended up with a small rock-themed spread. I had no plans to do any walking themes, but I seem to just decide what to collect as I start my walk. This time, I decided to pick up a rock for every street I walked past. As you can see, I didn’t go to very many streets.
It took my just under half an hour to finish this walk. And, some parts of it, a bit more challenging, thanks to my walking companion who gets overexcited easily.
When Blue and I got home, I got myself a bowl of cereals for breakfast and decided to take a photo of what everyone else had for breakfast that morning:
With breakfast in hand, I went straight to my home office to get my working day started at around 10AM, which is a little later than my usual start of 9-9.30AM –
Here’s my work desk (yes, I cleaned it up a little! :)) – with everything I usually have near me during my work day: My new Surface Pro (need to blog about it some time!), with a Microsoft Arc Touch Mouse, my Nokia Lumia 1020 phone, a Downton Abbey Calendar (a Christmas present from the hubby last year, which has kept me company all through this year), a box of tissues, and my meal.
This is where I stayed, working, until around 2pm.
At 2, I got up and got myself a late lunch. Ended up having coconut tuna and rice for lunch, while watching an episode of Switched At Birth on Netflix. All these, done in about an hour.
Then, got back at my desk to work some more.
By around 3.45pm, I got ready to pick up the kids at the school bus stop. Helped them to settle in. They often grab some snacks and drinks before heading off to rest and/or do their own thing – like playing the drums, doing homework, watching TV, practicing piano, going on their devices…
By 4.15, I’m back at my work desk.
Oh, and both kids presented me with their Christmas cards they made for me and hubby (those are two advent calendars for the kids that they also started opening today):
Most of the time, I’ll keep on working until around 5.30-6pm, until I need to start making dinner. That day, however, I ended up working until around 6.30pm. So, we were running late for all the evening stuff.
Put dinner on by 6.30pm and didn’t get to eat until around 8.15pm, as I planned on making a roast dinner. Yikes.
Hubby got home around 6.45pm that night and decided to do some more work in the garden, when I told him dinner was running late. This isn’t a usual scenario, but a few weeks ago, we started renovating our backyard, so that’s taking a lot of the husband’s free time. And yes, when I say “we” – it’s actually mostly hubby doing most of the work at the weekends or on his spare time in the evenings.
Kids continued to do their own thing, as they patiently waited for dinner –
Hubby and I feel guilty when we end up leaving them like this when we’re both busy, but they seem quite content. They come up with their own projects – Boy either maintains his online projects or plays games + Girl does different things. In this one, apparently, I’m not allowed to write in public what she’s doing so you just have to guess based on what you see here. 
When dinner was finally ready, everyone was happy to come to the table. Roast chicken is one of the family’s favourite meals, so at least, no one was disappointed with the wait. Served it with mashed potatoes, rice, boiled baby broccollinis with butter, and gravy. Oh, and yes – the family vice – Coke. Looks like we’re drinking a lot of Coke in this pic, but really, we only had an equivalent of two cans shared between us (one can was left unopened and the other can was near empty; the bottle of Coke was from a meal the day before and hubby just took some of the leftover; yes, I know, still not healthy… :p).
During this family dinner photo, I had to explain to the family why I was taking a lot of photos again. They know I take photos a lot, but not this much usually. I had to explain I was doing the Week In The Life again – and they seem happy to comply. Well, mostly happy. Hubby’s never thrilled, but he accepts that I have these habits. And, they generally enjoy the outcome of my role as family historian.
Since it was late, we immediately got into our bed time routines as soon as dinner was over. The hubby looked after the washing up. The kids did their evening ‘jobs’ – boy feeds the dog and girl feeds the bunnies (new additions to our family earlier this year!).
Then, I got the kids ready for bed –
Typically, they get a bedtime story. But, since it was late, it was straight to sleep after changing into pyjamas and brushing teeth this evening.
Blue also settles into his favourite spot – right next to my bedside! This is pretty new, now that we let him sleep outside of his ‘bedroom’ (the laundry room). For some reason, he decided he likes sleeping next to me in the main bedroom –
In-between all the rushing around for the day, I also got the hubby’s presents and card ready for the next day (our anniversary). Made a homemade stamped wrapper for one his presents, using some new CollectedCo stamps.
While hubby finishes up his chores, some work in his study, and some solo down time, I settle into one of my own favourite spots – my bed. I tend to do a lot here at night – from finishing up some client work to dreaming up ideas, as well as sketching, reading, researching, writing and other project work. I think bed time was just past midnight this evening!
Well, there you are. Day 1 of my second A Week In The Life project.
Hoping to find some time to check-in and blog about today (Day 2) tomorrow.
