I debated about doing another day in the life series this year. I wrapped up 2017 and was feeling that this may be the time to stop this project. With Riley getting older I wondered if she'd still want me capturing these days - would it still be important to her? Would she care that I was posting the details of our lives for all to read. I'd been waiting for the heads up from another blogger (who hosts a round up of these day in lives each season) letting me know that it was time, but it didn't come. I decided I wasn't going to do it, but then asked Riley what she thought and she definitively wanted me to do it. She started talking about how she loves looking back through the books I've made each year (2012 is her favorite) and so I agreed this was a project I couldn't quite let go of. We'd just come home from a vacation in San Diego (more to come in a future post once I edit my pictures) so I couldn't bring myself to spend another day right away taking pictures all day long. But here, we are... I didn't want it to get away from me. I  really do love looking back at these posts and seeing how our lives have changed.

Saturday, February 3rd, 2018

Riley is 6 days short of turning 8

Jesse is 43 and I am 46

Mason (Jesse's nephew) is 18

Frank (my dad) is 89

Lucy (the cat) is 13

The night before I stayed up reading Wild by Cheryl Strayed far past my bedtime as I couldn't put it down. I finally put down my book only to open up FaceBook. I've been so good about not scrolling mindlessly on social media, but somehow got totally caught up in it and watched a video of Jimmy Fallen visiting a local MN family while in town this weekend (for the Super Bowl). Nothing that I needed to watch and 15 minutes I could have been sleeping instead.

I finally went to bed at 11:27 or so and felt Jesse crawl into bed about 10 minutes later which was also quite late for him. I woke at 2:40 and 5:10 - each time from dreams I no longer remember, but otherwise I slept well. I'd probably have slept through the 5:10 wake up if it wasn't for the cat licking me awake.

7:00 - I wake again, but this time it's because Riley is leaving her room. I need to teach her how to quietly close her bedroom door. I think I might be able to get more sleep (I WANT to get my 8, or more, hours of sleep), but as I lay there I realize that I'm awake. Sleep is not going to happen. 

7:14 - I slip out of bed hoping to not wake Jesse, but I have a feeling the loud click of Riley's door also jolted him awake. I go downstairs and I take my morning pill and drink my Citrocel and then tackle the kitchen. We left it a mess the previous night so I get that taken care of right away. I clean up cat puke in the dining room, empty garbage cans from all the bathrooms and the office and then set out the recycling and organics garbage to be taken outside. Next I sort and start laundry feeling like I've accomplished a fair amount in the last 45 minutes. All the while, Riley is on the couch with her tablet.

8:00 - I pour a bowl of granola  for me and some Rice Krispies for my kid. She's been watching TV  and writing fairy books so I head to my computer to check emails, the weather, and see what the internet is up to this morning.

8:27 - I run upstairs and put on some workout clothes. My dad is coming over in an hour and I want to get this in before the day gets away from me. I head to the basement and Riley follows, continuing to multitask with her tablet and her fairy books. I should probably have her turn the tablet off, but I let it slide. I set up Yoga with Adriene, a You Tube channel that was recommended by someone I met through blogging. My husband recently bought me Piyo, which I like, but Adriene feels more my speed - as in she's laid back and quirky, but I still feel like I get a great workout. The session I choose this day is only about 21 minutes so I jump on the treadmill for about 10 minutes after that and watch Victoria as I briskly walk along. I would have gone for longer, but I know I have a number of things to do before my dad shows up at 9:30.

9:12 - As I walk to the laundry room to dump my socks, Riley points out that someone is at the door. My dad. He's early. He's always early, but apparently I thought he would be on time today. No worries. I quickly clean up, change and pack up what I need. We are heading over to my rental property to fix a clogged sink. Afterwards, we plan to go out to a belated birthday lunch for me as I was out of town during my birthday. Whenever, I bring my dad over to my rental it's never a quick thing so I think the timing of this should all work out. 

Jesse's nephew, Mason, has been living with us since right after Thanksgiving and is trying to find a car. Jesse's promised that he would go with him this day to check one out so I double check to see if he can come to the rental with us or not. He shares that they will look at the car later.

9:33 - We head out the door. It's gloomy and snowy today and I feel a little bad that my dad has traveled out in this weather. I know he's not a fan of it; especially as he gets older. The Super Bowl will be played the day after this in Minneapolis so we also worry a little about what traffic will be like. It's slick in spots... or as my dad states "it's greasy out there", but the traffic wasn't heavy so all was good.

We arrive at my rental and the sidewalks aren't shoveled as well as they could be and the unit smells like cat piss. It's these moments that I dislike being a landlord. My dad snakes the bathroom sink drain while I notice a light is out over the sink. Luckily, I left a bunch of light bulbs in the basement so I grab one. My dad finds a little hair in the drain (as expected) and a piece of plastic (not sure how that happened). I change the light bulb, we clean up after ourselves and I check the toilet as it apparently runs every once in a great while. 10 minutes later and we're done. We'd planned on eating at Whitey's in Northeast, but none of us are hungry for lunch at 10:16. I was SURE that was going to take way longer. We decide to go back to my house

10:35 - We arrive home and Riley, my dad and I decide to hang out while Jesse and Mason go to Target. The snow keeps coming down and I worry about my dad driving home, but he insists he's fine. My dad and I chat and Riley plays with a race car track. Lucy joins us and plops herself down in front of one of her favorite spots... the living room register. I throw the wash into the dryer at some point. My dad looks at my Utah and 365 photo books on our coffee table and I show him the local magazine that featured a picture of my cat last month. The front doorbell rings, and even though we have a 'no soliciting' sign, I always worry that it will be someone trying to sell me something or talk religion. However, it's the girl scouts and it's hard to pass up buying some cookies from them. We don't eat them that much to be truthful, and I think the ones we have in the freezer are from two years ago, but we're almost out so it seems smart to get some more. Riley likes them as a treat so she picks out two boxes of Thin Mints. I'm sure she'll like some of the other flavors, but since this is pretty much the only one she knows, she doesn't branch out. 

11:24 - Jesse and Mason arrive home while my dad takes a call from my sister, Angel. Jesse and Mason are still waiting on when to see the car so they decide to stay home, while Riley, my dad and I go to Applebees. Riley brings her fairy books she's been writing and continues writing at the restaurant. We talk about my recent trip to San Diego (where I got to see my cousins and a friend), we discuss his recent visit to the eye doctor (who happens to also be my dry eye doctor), and my dad marvels over Riley's love of reading and writing.

12:55 - As we prepare to leave, I realize that I don't have a snow scraper in the car.No big deal, but I make a mental note to replace it. We get back to my place and my dad assures me that he'll be fine driving home and then heads off. Riley works some more on her fairy stories (they are a series of books based on the Rainbow Magic books) and shows her dad what she's come up with so far. Jesse and Mason are playing video games in their respective rooms, still waiting to hear from the car guy. 

1:18 - I sit down and work on editing pictures from our recent vacation. I'm moving slow - picking far too many pictures to keep, knowing that I should delete a lot more than I have. My eyes are dry so I'm sure that's contributing (at least today) to my lack of speed and attention. I check on Riley and she's back on her tablet, and it's still snowing. I had no idea it was supposed to snow all day today so I keep waiting for it to stop, but it almost seems like it's getting stronger. Riley comes into the office and somehow the topic of Orca whales come up and how they are on the top of the food chair. We talked a lot about Orcas last week when we were at SeaWorld and somehow get into a debate about what is the largest animal that Orca's eat. I insisted that they've been known to go after Grey whales, but Riley and Jesse assert that they never heard this during the Orca whales presentation last week. I Google and find that I am correct, although they tend to attack juvenile Grey whales.

1:57 - I grab the clothes out of the dryer and fold them. I'm freezing so I get my new robe, which feels far too luxurious for me, and wear it around the house. Jesse gives Riley a snack, then he and Mason shovel part of the driveway and back walkway, and then leave to go look at the car finally. I sit back down with the hope of editing, and do, but get quickly distracted. The house next to my rental is for sale so I look it up online to see how much they want for it. This leads me to look at other listings, and then to see what my rental is estimated at. it's a wide range and it's rental estimate is far lower than I get. I've been debating about selling it since the market is good and then I wouldn't have to worry about fixing sinks (that wouldn't need fixing if renters didn't let plastic go down the drains), but it's also good to have the rental. There is a large supply of potential renters and, for the most part, I don't have to do anything, but collect the rent. My husband would like to be rid of it, but I'm not quite ready.

2:40 - Riley wants another snack. I cut her up an apple and tell her that she needs to turn off the tablet since she's been on it a lot today. She's been given optional homework by her teacher so I ask that she do some of that. The only homework that her class has this year is to have each kid read with a parent at least 5 days of the week. Riley and I read together at bedtime so this isn't very hard to accomplish for us so Jesse asked Riley's teacher about additional homework, much to Riley's chagrin. Riley's teacher sends home these optional packets each Monday and somehow Riley has three of them. She has completed parts of each, but I figured we should finish at least one of them up. They cover a lot of things - my favorite is when she has to read a story and then answer questions about it, but it also has things about multiplication and division which isn't something she's learned about yet. She does what she can and we help her with some of the parts that we think she can figure out, but might need a little guidance, and we skip the rest. I go upstairs to put the laundry away and she follows me, asking questions about her homework.

3:10 - Laundry has been put away, homework is done (at least one packet) and it's still snowing. It's so gloomy and I'm completely unmotivated to do anything, but I also don't want to see Riley navigate to her tablet again. We decide to bundle up and go outside. I plan to shovel and let her know that she can play, but she wants to shovel too. I grab the kid shovel for her and the big one for me and we both start working away. She seems put out that I am shoveling too, but I assure her that there is enough for both of us. We clean up the front with a little help from the neighbor who is out with her snowblower and then head to the back. I thought Riley would be done with shoveling my now, but she helped me right to the end... and then went to play in the snow. She remarked that she wished her dad was shoveling off the roof as she likes having the snow tumble down over her so I grab the roof rake and clean off the garage roof - nailing her with snow over and over while she laughs and laughs and laughs. I couldn't help, but laugh too - she was clearly having so much fun.

4:02 - Jesse and Mason arrive home. They share that they were ready to buy the car, but there were a couple discrepancies that need to be checked out. The guy selling it is selling it for a friend so he said he would get Mason the answers to their questions. Hopefully, he finds something soon so he has a little more freedom to get around (a couple days later it all works out and Mason bought the car - yay!). Riley and I play outside for a little while longer until she gets snow all over her face.

4:11 - Riley cuddles up with the cat and a blanket while I try to call my dad a second time since he left. I hope he's outside shoveling and not in a ditch somewhere. I grab a warm compress for my dry eyes. I queue up a She Explores podcast that features Kylie Fly, an adventure photographer and I plant myself on the couch with my warm compress. At some point, Riley brings me my robe as I'm chilly and then resumes talking with her dad. Once I'm done with the compress, I head into my home office and start listening to the next podcast episode about a woman who is a two time Olympic runner while I check out Kylie Fly's website and Instagram. I dream about how fun adventure photography would be and then I come back to reality. I love the outdoors part, but adventure has a cap for me and I'm guessing Kylie goes beyond my comfort level. While I'm trying to imagine if I could hang off a cliff photographing actual climbers, Jesse is living in reality in the kitchen making Riley dinner.

4:30 - I grab my leftover salad from lunch and eat that. It's not much, but it will do for now. My dad calls to check in as he sees I tried calling him. I share how much the rental next door to mine is going for. He once had a chance to see inside one of the units and mentions that it isn't that big so he's surprised they want that much. He expresses doubt that they will get what they are asking for. I return to my podcast after talking with him. 

5:23 - Riley has finished dinner and I'm done with my podcast. I add a picture to Instagram and then start to write this post since I haven't taken good notes or as many pictures as I usually do. I did record notes from time to time on my phone and that saved me from completely forgetting some of the details, but things probably get a little fuzzier from here on out. Mason has been mostly in his room all day, as he usually is, playing video games. There are no pictures of him partly because he was in his room all day, but also because he doesn't like his picture on the internet so I try to respect that. Riley asks for a cold cookie (re: frozen Girl Scout cookie) so I tell her to go ahead and grab one of the new boxes, but she grabs from our two year old stash.

6:46 - I get Riley in the shower after realizing that it's shower day. While she's getting clean I head upstairs and put on my pajamas. I never showered after working out, but took a washcloth bath before going to the rental so I decide that will be good enough, especially since I plan to get up and work out again in the morning. I grab Riley's pajamas as well, fill up the humidifier, close her curtains, and then head back downstairs. While she's showering, I go in the bathroom and cut my finger nails which have been bothering me all day. Riley talks with me about the fairy books she's been writing. They started with her friend, Kylie, making one and then Riley made book 2 of that fairy series. Riley keeps writing more and more stories so she noted that she wasn't sure if she should write another book in case Kylie wants to write it. Riley stressed that she wanted to start it that night, but thought she should wait. We talked about what she might say to her friend to see if she wanted to write the next book. Since Kylie's birthday party is coming up we talked about what Riley would want to get her as a gift. Riley declares that she's going to write her a fairy book featuring Riley and Kylie. That night Riley proceeds to draw the cover page and create a title, and write up a description on the back page. When it's all written she wants to make a copy so they each have ones since they are BFF's.

7:29 - Riley is out of the shower, dressed her her jammies, and her hair dried. Jesse came home from the movie, The Hostiles, and noted that he was disappointed in it. Riley and I go upstairs where she brushes her teeth and we read together. We are on the forth book of the Series of Unfortunate Event books, The Miserable Mill. I bought her books 1 - 3 last year for her birthday thinking that was the full set. Obviously, I had no clue. We just started reading them recently and both of us totally fell in love with them. We started watching the Netflix version of the books which had some spoilers, but it's still fun to see how they translate the book into a tv show. We are almost done with this book and I'm trying to time it just right as we bought her the remaining books (5 - 13) in the series for her birthday. 

7:50 - I leave Riley's room. She works on her book to Kylie, and then read's an entire A to Z  series book before falling asleep. I grab some meat, cheese, and crackers to make up for my small dinner and sit back down in front of the computer. I work on editing my San Diego pictures. It's slow going, but I get through the zoo. However, I'm still not through that day as we also went to Balboa Park. I watch Victoria while I edit which probably contributes to my slowness as I stop to watch the show for long periods of time.

9:47 - I head upstairs and read another chapter of Wild and then quickly check my Instagram account before going to bed at 10:26. I close my eyes and am out. I have no idea when Jesse came to bed. I was tired. 

12:55 - I wake up from a dream where I am being chased, or hunted. Part of my blankets are off and my heart is beating hard. I get up to go to the bathroom, half expecting the person chasing me in my dream to be standing in the hallway. Once I talk myself out of how silly that is, I go back to sleep and zonk right back out. 

At some point Lucy comes into bed and is super cuddly, which is cute, but she's also licking my hand and her cold, wet nose keeps touching my face. I fall back asleep and dream that I'm in a car that my dad is driving to Alaska. He's not really paying attention to the road. He's looking at his phone and driving super fast. I'm looking at a map, trying to figure out where we are in Alaska because I determine that we have to stop and experience Alaska. It's the second dream I've had recently where my dad is driving erratically so it has me a little worried about what it means. In real life, my dad always hands me or Jesse the keys when we are in a car together so I haven't actually been in a car where my dad is driving for at least a few years. The dream fast forwards and now I'm in a bar in Canada with a couple friends. We're participating in trivia and notice that everyone is dressed far smarter than we Americans are. I'm brought out of my dream by Riley opening and closing her bedroom door... TWICE before she heads back downstairs. 

At that, is our winter day in the life...