just another manic monday

At work, we have a bi-monthly employee magazine with an article called “A Day in the Life.” In each issue, the article profiles employees throughout Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta and shows you what it’s like to walk a day in their shoes. One month it will profile a member of our Transport team who flies patients in a helicopter, and another month you’ll see life through the lense of a feeding specialist. I always find it interesting to see exactly what others at Children’s do each day.

So, I thought I’d try to mimic this by offering a glimpse of a day in my life. I started writing this post last Monday, when this timeline actually happened. But I got sidetracked throughout the week and am just now getting back to it. I can’t promise it will be super interesting, but here it goes…

Manic Monday

4:45 a.m. – James’ alarm goes off and he goes to the kitchen to cook a full breakfast before heading to run the 6 a.m. and 7 a.m. classes at CrossFit Addiction. I wake up at this time, but lay in bed until my alarm goes off.

5 a.m. – I get up, often welcomed by the aroma of sautéing onions and bell pepper, and head straight to shower.

5:30 a.m. – After James is out of the kitchen, I whip up a pot roast and put it in the crockpot to cook all day. Then, I cook breakfast–either some version of paleo pancakes with sausage or scrambled eggs with bacon. I take my time eating, drinking a cup of coffee and checking e-mail. I’d rather enjoy my mornings than have to rush around just for 15 minutes of extra sleep.

6:35 a.m. – I’m finally ready and out the door heading to work.

7 a.m. – I log into my computer and my workday begins. I get busy and update our company Intranet, write up some articles, flesh out the next step of a communications plan, help a client develop campaign communications, assist content editors in updating their content and spend time mulling over our content management system implementation.

9:30 a.m. – At this point, I’m starving. It’s rare that I get through the morning without a snack.

11:30 a.m. – I take an early lunch and go to a nearby bookstore to read a 20-page transcript of some interviews that I’m using to write a freelance article. In a way, it’s a working lunch. But it’s better than blowing money at Target!

12:30 p.m. – Lunch at my desk. Today, I had my current salad obsession (spring mix with sliced strawberries, feta, toasted pecans, avocado and pear white balsamic vinegarette with grapeseed oil), along with a quiche I whipped up Sunday night (sausage, tomatoes, red bell pepper, onion, artichoke).

4 p.m. – Work, work, work until I leave. I’m lucky that most days I can leave at 4 p.m. to beat the traffic up I-75, especially when I go to the gym.

5 p.m. – CrossFit! Dynamic warmup, sumo deadlifts (5-5-3-3-1-1…I got 235lbs…PR!), max wallballs in 3 minutes (14 lb ball, 10 foot mark…this killed my quads), 20 minutes of yoga.

6:30 p.m. – After 12 hours, I finally make it home. Next on the to-do list is figuring out dinner. Thank goodness I threw stuff in the crockpot in the morning, so now, I simply cook some mashed parsnips and relax for a bit.

6:45 p.m. – Relaxing for me means baking, so I whip up two coconut flour chocolate chip loaves so I can freeze them for later.

7:15 p.m. – I clean up the kitchen, catch up on blogs I’m following and monitor my parsnips.

8:10 p.m. – James calls to say he’s heading home. Lucky him, I’ve timed dinner so that we’ll eat exactly when he gets home.

8:30 p.m. – Dinner is served and we watch a 20-minute episode (sans commercials) of last week’s Modern Family.

9:15 p.m. – We’re in bed reading. I just finished the last book of The Hunger Games series, which I recently learned was a young adult book. Sigh. I’m 15 at heart.

9:40 p.m. – Lights out! Yes, we have the bedtime of a 10 year old. But getting up early will wreak havoc on us if we don’t get enough sleep. If you’re doing your calculations right, going to bed at 9:40 gives us exactly 5 minutes to fall asleep so that we get our 7 needed hours before waking up the next day. Five minutes is plenty of time to fall asleep. James takes about 2 minutes and I average roughly 3.

It’s no wonder I’m exhausted come Fridays!