A Day in My Life

This is a typical week day during school term day in my life – welcome to my world!

My day hopefully starts with the alarm clock at 6.50am. I say “hopefully” as we have a 7 year old who tends to wander in MUCH earlier, but we are working on that. Yesterday I bought him his own digital alarm clock, so we will see how that goes!

I head down stairs after making sure everyone is at least awake, if not upright!

I really quite enjoy the first 5 – 10 minutes down in the kitchen  by myself, I feed and let out the cat, and start on the sandwich routine.

I have 3 kids, and they all have their own preferences when it comes to sandwiches for their packed lunches. However, inevitabley there are : 1. ham in granary bread 2. cheese in a wrap and 3 cheese in white bread. Soon the kids appear down, dressed in their school uniforms, for breakfast.
We usually just have cereal and milk on week days, and the kids get their own and in theory they put away their dishes too …… in theory!

My husband leaves for work around 7.30am.

I am all for encouraging independence, and the kids all sort out the rest of their lunches, I just ensure there s a range of fruit, yoghuts, cheese, juice and plain biscuits and they pack what they need – I discovered the contents are much more likely to be consumed if the kids make their own choices from the selection offered. Sometimes they opt for school dinners, but the majority of the time they have packed lunches.

My daughters leave to walk to school at 8am, and as long as my son has done his “teeth-toilet-shoes-hair” (we say it as all one word here) he is free to play or watch TV til 8.30 am when I take him to school. Sometimes we walk, but usually I drive him, especially if I have somewhere to go straight from school.

The rest of the morning varies from day-to-day but will usually include the gym (spin class) or a walk,

some creating of some jewellery,

any errands in town or grocery shopping

some social media and administration work for the business, and preparing the evening meal (love my slow cooker).

Some days I am visiting stockists of my jewellery, or sourcing new beads and designs, some days I meet a friend for coffee!

“Leftovers Lunch” for my lunch (my kids are amused that my lunch invariably means using up the left overs in the fridge) then my son finished as 2pm.

I encourage him to get his homework completed and have a snack soon after he comes home, so he is free to play after that.  The laptop is always sitting open in the kitchen, and sometimes I create a bit more jewellery at the table as he works.  Once a week he has swimming and sometimes we go to the library.

My daughters are usually walk home by 4pm if they aren’t staying late for sport, but if it is wet I will try to collect them.

A few hectic afternoons we have singing lessons, piano lessons etc, but I love a day when we can all stay home 🙂

I aim to have tea/dinner (we call it either) around 5.30 or 6pm. A few evenings a week will involve some more taxi-ing of the kids to church clubs, guitar lessons, or meetings at school. We try to share the lifts with other families in the area which always helps.

Our 7 year old heads to bed at 7pm.

I try not to make jewellery in the evenings, but sometimes there is an order to complete. I can usually be found multi-tasking on the sofa with my laptop, blogging, reading other blogs etc, helping with homework, listening to piano practice etc.

I try to watch the news at 10pm, and then usually get distracted by Pinterest and head to bed by 11pm…. making sure George the cat is tucked up in the utility room (he sometimes likes to play hide and seek at bedtime)

ready to start it all again tomorrow!!!

I am so fortunate that I am able to work from home, and fit my business around my family. If the kids are sick, need taken to appointments, whatever there is to be done, I can be flexible with my time.

So, what is a day in your life like?

Two years ago on this blog I did a similar post – the basic routine is the same, except my middle daughter is now at the same school as her big sister, so one less afternoon pickup to be done!

I’d love you to share.

All photos today courtesy of a year’s worth of Instagram from my iphone.

You can see how other bloggers taking part in the month of daily blogging challenge over at Boy Oh Boy.

The lovely Lisa Jo from Gypsy Mama also shared today how she balances working from home with her 3 young kids – check it out How to work from home without losing your mind!