It's that time of the year again...where I spend an entire day documenting our life. Thanks to Ellie and Addie for hosting this Day in the Life round up. 

Saturday, October 7th, 2017

Riley is 7 and a half years old

Jesse is 42 and I am 45

Lucy the cat is 13

The night before I head up to bed and check in on Riley. She's fallen asleep sideways and with the light on. I decide to take a picture of her with my phone and use the Lightroom app, but the shutter sound is soooo loud. I get into my bed and proceed to try to figure out how to make the shutter noise quieter. After multiple searches online it appears it isn't possible. I open the phone's camera and am able to have a quiet shutter so I decide to use that for any middle of the night pictures. I turn off the light shortly after 10 and go to sleep.

1:02 - As usual, I wake multiple times during the night. I go to take a picture of my clock to keep track of these wake ups (with my quieter phone camera shutter, of course) and my clock is flickering with a radio station instead of the time. Eventually it shows the time, but it does this pretty much every time I look at the clock during this day. I've noticed it doing this in the past, but not to this degree. I hope this doesn't mean that my alarm clock is about to give out.

2:30 - Up again. Get up and go to the bathroom as I always do, and go back to bed. Fall right back to sleep.

I hear Jesse get up and then Riley. She slept in most of the summer, but seems to be back to getting up at 6:00... or at least that's the earliest she's allowed to come out of her room. Who knows how long she may have been up before that. I finally look at the clock around 6:11 and decide I'm going to try to fall back to sleep.

6:52 - Success! I haven't been feeling my best this week and I know sleep will help. I sort of want to stay in bed even longer, but I'm hungry so I work on getting myself out of bed. I finally head downstairs a little after 7:00.

Riley is eating at the table and Jesse is in the office. I do my usual morning routine, like drink a glass of Citrocel, refill the cat's water, and debate about breakfast.

I was pitifully inactive the day before and know that behavior contributes to me not feeling well. However, Friday night, I just didn't have it in me... lots of fatigue, headache and other body pain so I just wasn't up to any activity. The Citrocel seems to have taken care of my hunger for now so I decide to jump on the treadmill before I really have time to think about it. I decide to commit to at least 10 minutes based on how crappy I feel this morning. I watch Narcos while walking and am so engrossed in it that 25 minutes go by pretty fast. 

7:55 - My wrist has been bothering me this week, but it's in a lot of pain today. I have no idea why and don't realize how bad it is until I try to take a sock off my foot. Holy crap that hurts. I head upstairs to eat some food and find Riley and Jesse working on sketch books. Riley put one together for each of us and Jesse is cutting the letters for 'dad' out of construction paper to put on the cover of his. Riley transitions into playing on her tablet.

8:05 - I eat gluten free waffles and a banana while reading The Sisters of Hardscrabble Bay by Beverly Jensen. It was a random library book I picked up and it's been well worth the read. The author wrote a series of short stories over almost 20 years that were inspired by her mom and aunt. When she died, her husband and friends compiled the stories into a book that chronicles the sister's lives over 70 years. 

8:27 - I take a well needed shower, check the weather and then get ready for the day. While in the shower, Jesse and Riley get dressed. I head upstairs and hang out with the cat for a moment and then strip the sheets off the bed.

9:28 - We leave the house and head to REI. Jesse is going on a big road/camping trip to Moab, UT for 12 days with his Toyota Tacoma friends and Riley and I are going to fly out there for a few days to join him. I decide this is a good excuse to buy new pants and feel the need to splurge at REI.

I figure Jesse will want to pick up some last minute supplies, but once there he shares that he needs to assess what he has and will be back in the next few days to get that stuff (side note, we went back the next day because we both realized we need new light coats. Jesse still did not assess his trip needs, but we picked up some camp food anyway and a couple of coats). I spend way too much money on two pair of pants and a pair of socks, but somehow feel justified since I get to apply my 8 dollars and some change in dividends on my purchase. It didn't make much of a dent, but I'm sure I earned more dividends for next year. 

Riley is in a bit of a sour mood while at the store. Not sure what's going on, but I'm sure it's not very exciting for her there. I let her play in the play area even though she's older than the 'age 6 and under' that they have posted. She perks up a little, but she is a little off the entire day - nothing too bad, but she's generally such a happy kid that it's noticeable to me.

10:53 - We leave the store and Jesse turns away from the parking lot exit. I'm quite confused until he stops in front a Tacoma truck that's all pimped out. Jesse takes a picture of it to show to the guys. He mentions that he likes this person's storage system so I figure that may be the next thing Jesse purchases for our truck. It's really gotten a little out of hand, but there could be worse hobbies to have.

After admiring a stranger's truck, we decide to pick up lunch on the way home. It's a little after 11:00 and I remark that I'm really hungry since I didn't have my mid-morning snack. Jesse is doing this intermittent fasting thing where he doesn't eat from 5 pm at night until 11 am the next day so we have a little laugh about me complaining about not eating in the last hour while he hasn't eaten in 18 hours. I might have laughed more than he did.

We stop at Honey and Rye on the way home. I'd been mentioning this place to Jesse for years, but would never actually think to stop there until the evening and they close at 3:30 or something like that. The week before we finally went there for lunch and loooooved their sandwiches so Jesse suggested we go back. Riley doesn't really like anything there (except the sweets) so we just picked up our food and then made her lunch at home. 

11:20- We're home and I see some packages have come. A couple books for Riley that Jesse ordered and the 2015 day in the life book that I finally got around to printing (the 2016 book came a few days later). I open it and realize that the font I used was too big. Oh well, now I know for the 2017 book. Jesse makes Riley a plate of food and we all eat our lunches. We let Riley go on her tablet again and I watch a little more of Florence Foster Jenkins that I started the day before. It's based on a true story of a socialite who thought she was a good singer, but wasn't. You won't want to watch this movie if you have a headache - her singing is horrendous, but the acting is great.

11:49 - I clean up the kitchen, change out the laundry and decide to finish my book as I'm on the last chapter. My wrist continues to hurt and I generally feel like crap all over... most of it is low level pain, but now my teeth and face hurt. I can tell it's getting worse so at some point I take a pain pill and then head to the couch with my book.

1:07 - I'm finished with my book and Riley is playing on the floor next to me. Jesse says his goodbyes as he's headed over to his friend's house to work on the trailer they just built. It needs some finishing touches (fenders) before it's ready to go to Utah. Jesse is hauling a friend's dirt bike along on their trip.

Riley seems content and I need to attend to how I'm feeling so I decide to meditate while putting a warm compress on my dry eyes. I do a 10 minute body scan, but only remember getting from my head to my back... and then I wake to silence. I'm not sure how long I was out, but obviously it was needed. I turn on the Calm app's music and suggest to Riley that she read to me. She hasn't had any homework yet this year until this past week. She now has to read to us for 20 minutes at least 5 days a week. I'm not too worried about Riley getting this practice since she is a skilled reader, but I like to follow directions. Riley reads me The Journey to Atlantis. She recently discovered the timer on my phone so we decide to set that for good measure. After she's done I read a little of The Secret Garden to her. We started this book long ago and then set it aside for the summer. The movie is now on Netflix so I want to finish the book and watch the movie together.

2:40 - Good lord, I've been on the couch for a couple hours and am feeling incredibly lazy. I know it's probably good for my body to just chill today, but I feel like we have to do something. I tell Riley that we are going to walk to the library to return my book and then walk to the frozen yogurt place. I'm not totally convinced that I have it in me, but after a gloomy, rainy morning the sun is now shining and it's inspired me to get up and go. First, I change out the laundry again and put the clean sheets on our bed. The mail has come so I grab that and see that my company has sent me a gift card for Starbucks. Due to one of the recent hurricane's it impacted our phone volume at work so it was their way of saying thank you. I do so appreciate that they do this, but I don't drink coffee so I have a number of unused gift cards.

2:54 - Finally out the door. We go to the library and see that they've installed a bench that blocks off our shortcut. It seems an odd placement since they have pavers that lead you to the shortcut. It's like they can't make up their mind as to if they want you to take that path or not. For some reason Riley's brought her book which she carries the entire way, but never reads. We head towards the frozen yogurt place and Riley goes into pretend mode. I'm queen Elizabeth and she's princess Riley. I'm not a fan of pretend, but this day she tells me exactly what I need to say... "Mom, I'm going upstairs for awhile. Now you say 'okay', okay?" And then she'd talk to herself or sing. It was a fairly easy walk and she seemed pretty content. We walk past a couple cars that clearly were in accidents so I mention that I've been in a few. She wants to hear all about them so I tell her about being rear ended a couple times and the big one where my cousin crossed a highway and got slammed into by a car. She's relived that I wasn't hurt in any of them. 

On the way home I have to momentarily change roles to Prince Loken. Riley stages a scene where we walk across the parking lot towards each other, and bump into each other. I, the prince, walk with her for awhile before departing ways. I go off script during our encounter and Riley approves (I often do not say what she'd like me to say which is probably one of the reasons I don't care for pretend play). I can tell she's starting to peter out so I just let her do her thing. She sits on some rocks for a bit and I don't rush her. We don't have anyplace to be and it's turned out to be a beautiful afternoon.

4:04 - we get home and I suggest we go to Goodwill to look for books. I sort of want to keep moving while I'm at it and this seems like an easy task to include in our day. When we get to Goodwill we are sorely disappointed by the kid's book options. I've never seen it so picked over. There are a bunch of new prints of Little Women so I grab one of those and a book for me. Riley finds a brand new create your own recipe book and a brand new scrapbook you make about you and your dad. She wants to go, but I make her follow me around the entire store. 

5:12 - We get home and she wants to start filling her recipe book right away. She decides she wants to start with breakfast so I tell her to search for kid friendly breakfasts on the computer. She finds one and asks me to write it in her book and then is disappointed that we can't make it immediately, but I promise to put the items on the grocery list. I notice that we have two more packages that have been delivered. Amazon can thank my husband for keeping their business going. Somewhere along the line I pop a frozen pizza into the oven as I've lost all energy to cook a meal.

5:57 - I sit down at my computer and read up on how to sync Lightroom with Lightroom mobile. Riley watches TV because I don't really care at this point. I fold laundry and clean up a bit, but I don't take as many pictures for the rest of the day. Riley is usually game for having her picture taken, but I can tell she's over it. We are a sorry set today - getting through the day, but just not feeling our best. 

7:07 - I tell Riley to head upstairs to get her pajamas on, but then see Jesse has arrived home and is in the driveway. Riley and I go outside and Riley excitedly tells her dad about the dad scrapbook she got. We go inside and get ready for bed. Jesse comes upstairs to say goodnight and Riley is bummed that it's already time for bed. I leave her room around 7:40 and she reads for awhile before going to sleep.

I decide to make a salad since I didn't have any veggies with my pizza. I start to edit pictures and decide to watch a movie. I pull up New in Town and figure it has to be ok since it has Renee Zellweger and Harry Connick, Jr. I watch about 20 minutes of it and it's 20 minutes too much. Gah, it's an awful movie. It portrays my fellow Minnesotans as total bumpkins who say "you betcha" all the time. I go to turn on something else, but then decide I'm not in the mood. I listen to some more music from my Calm app, take some different pain meds for sleeping and then head up to bed a little after 9 pm.

I check my fitbit and for feeling rather lazy for a good chunk of the day, I still managed to get in 13,114 steps. While in bed, I check Instagram and finally go to bed around 9:46

11:44 - I wake up and go to the bathroom. When I get back in bed I realize that Jesse isn't there. He comes up a few minutes later and adds a blanket to his side of the bed and ends up hitting me in the face with it. I sleep pretty well, although get up multiple times as usual. I still feel cruddy the next day, but my wrist is way, way better. My cruddy feeling continued to carry over to Monday when I ended up taking the day off because of a horrible migraine. I just hope it all goes away for our Utah trip.

And that is our fall day in the life.