A day in the Life - July 17, 2017

I had Monday July 17, 2017 marked as a day in the life post.  We have 3 types of days at our house.  Weekend, weekday and Mondays.  Mondays are my day off so they are a hybrid of the 2 and usually the most interesting of the days.  So here you have a typical, or in this case, atypical, summer Monday chez us.

7:23 - I get out of bed.  I try to get up even 15 minutes before the kids because I love the peace and quiet in the morning as I brew my coffee.

This particular morning the kids weren't far behind me.

This was the day that Sara and her kids were leaving our house so the kids watched some shows together, we had a quick breakfast, and started the day.

Sara was busy packing the car and we had to leave for swimming lessons starting at 9am.  Since we left before her I told her to leave the door unlocked and text me that she was gone and I would set the alarm from my phone.

Off to swimming we went!  The kids love swimming lessons so it is not hard to get them dressed and out of the house.



After lessons I let them go down the water slide a few times when my phone rang.  It was a local number I didn't recognize  but I answered anyway, which is rare.  It was 911 telling me that a duress code was entered at our house and that the police had been dispatched.

Sh*t.

I explained to the 911 operator that it was our nanny and she must have forgotten the code but he said since the police were dispatched there was nothing he could do.  Poor Jasmin.

It turns out that she couldn't remember our code since when we moved we set it to go off before she arrives so she never has to enter it anymore.  Apparently, we set the duress code as our door code which was once of the codes she tried.  Needless to say, the duress code has been changed.  Sigh...

We came home, the police had already came and left and we found this sweet note left behind by Aiden.




By this time it is 10:30 and I make the kids clean up the mess they made in the basement over the weekend while their friends were here. After that it was time for rest apparently, for the kids anyway.




I started to heat up the left over pizza for myself for lunch and macaroni for the kids.  Just as I was about to eat the doorbell rang.



I had a lady from the bay come over and measure for blinds for all the huge windows across the back of our house.  Of course they only sell Hunter Douglas and with a 25% discount and a $200 rebate it was still more than double what I wanted to pay for new blinds on 6 windows.  Back to the drawing board!



After she left, the kids ate lunch and I started to pack for our summer vacation.  It was a very slow start.  Since the kids wear the same 5 shirts on rotation, I couldn't pack for them yet!



Now it is Grady's turn for the TV, who knows where Cooper is at this point.



Our desk arrived in mid June and it is finally set up. This was the last of the boxes to be unpacked so I wanted to tackle them on my day off.  I got a little done before we were on the move again.





Oh, I remember where Cooper was!  He was in the soccer field out back playing watching for their play dates to arrive via foot.  The boys are really good friends with brothers that were coming over for the afternoon.



Finally, 20 minutes late J&N scooted around the corner and were ready for an afternoon of fun!



With 4 boys around, they spent a lot of time in the pantry looking for things to eat.  They are impossible to fill up!



After an hour of playing inside we decided to scooter to the park.  I rode my bike.  Good thing since those boys are darn fast on the scooters going down hill!  I couldn't' even get close enough to them to get a good photo.



We arrived at the park and I proceeded to pull out my book.  We were there for well over an hour which gave me an hour to enjoy the sunshine in read.  Win, win if you ask me!




I will have a book review coming soon but this book is winner so far.  So interesting and perfect for book club since it leads to some very risque discussions!

We stayed at the park for so long that we biked J&N home instead of driving them since we were already half way there.  They stopped to eat crab apples off this random tree on the way.



The boys were exhausted when we got home.  They settled in in front of the TV and I finished unpacking the office.  Not too shabby if I do so say myself.



James got home from work and like every other Monday we hopped in the car and went to our weekly spin class.  At this point, pictures were forgotten.

We put the kids to bed and I headed to the Castle Room** to watch the bachelor when I got an optical migraine.  Essentially I get blurry vision for 30 minutes then a slight headache, not like a typical migraine.  I hadn't had one in 10 months and it was a disappointing end to the day as they cause me lots of anxiety, leading to a poor sleep, and a tired rest of the week.  My doc assures me that they are normal and nothing to be scared of but I just can't help myself, having your vision affected is pretty darn scary.  Thankfully I was distracted by hometown dates, Dean's in particular.  Wow.

Turned out to be an eventful Monday full of activity.  I never plan them to be this full, but somehow they fill up quite quickly!

**I wanted to call our 4th bedroom upstairs with a TV Christy's Castle, Grady wanted to call it the Gaming room.  So we compromised with the Gaming Castle, or the Castle for short.

A Day in the Life: Friday, January 27, 2017

When I sat down to write this post I looked back to see when I last did a day in the life post and it was Jan 23, 2015, almost exactly 2 years ago!  Wow.  Also, I've never done one of these posts on a work day, I always thought that it would be boring as 8 hours of the day are spent at the office.  Then I started thinking about how people that don't work may be interested or even other working moms whose schedule looks much different than mine.  So I decided last Friday was the day, a typical Friday in the life of Rsquared.

6:08am - The alarm goes off.  The time on my alarm clock (yes, actual alarm clock!) says 6am.  I can't figure out how to add the 8 minutes to the auto GMT time and I refuse to see the 5s when I get up so 6:08 it is!

6:20 - I am out of the shower and the getting ready process begins.  Friday is 'wash hair day' so the process takes a little extra time since I have to blow dry.  This is where having short hair comes in handy.

6:40 - I am dressed and ready to go!  I don't mess around when it comes to getting ready for work.  This day I had to get dressed in the dark since James was going into the office late.  I snapped this photo when I got to the office.  Friday also = jean day!  And that is one of the reasons why I take Mondays off instead of Friday!

6:42 - As I come out of my room I notice Cooper is sitting up in bed.  This is unusual since Cooper is usually the late riser and generally I don't see either kid before I leave for work.  He did not want to have his photo taken.

6:45 - I pop into the van to drive to work in the dark as I start at 7am.   Based on the departure time it is looking like I am going to be late.

Edited to add: I realized after I posted this that I did not address childcare.   We have a nanny that comes to our house every day at 7am to watch the kids and manage the house.  The key to being a working parent is finding childcare that you trust, whether that be a daycare, day home, a family member, or a nanny (we've used all of these!).  Ours has been with us for 4.5 years and started off living with us but about a year ago she moved out. She is a part of our family and always will be. Having her in our lives has relieved a lot of stress and makes being a working parent that much easier.

7:10 - I walk into my office.  Notice it is still dark in the window. I hate arriving at the office in the dark...

My office is messier than usual given the time of the year. January is my busiest month hence papers and binders scattered everywhere.  What is the point of cleaning up all the work just to get it all out again the next day?

7:20 - I sit at my desk with my breakfast and water in hand.  No time to eat at home when you only have 52 minutes from the time you get up to get to your desk!  Same breakfast every day.  All Bran, granola, and almond milk.

7:21 - Music goes on. Sometime I stream the radio, Jack FM has been my station of choice lately.  I like the mix of current and old school music.  Today I tried one of the play lists on Spotify called 'TGIF'

7:22 - Time to get to work!  Take a look at the tools I use at work and take a guess at what I do for living.

If you guessed accountant, you would be correct.  I got my CA CPA 13 years ago and have worked at 4 different companies during that time in the financial reporting group.  What that means is that I don't do taxes like most assume, I put together the financial statements that are released to the public.  It isn't exciting, but it pays the bills.

8:10 - I leave for fancy coffee day with 2 coworkers.  Every Friday is coffee day and another reason why I choose to work Fridays!  On days where the weather cooperates we go to Deville for a Nutella Latte.  Coffee and Chocolate? Yes please!

8:30 - Back at my desk and back to work.  Other than a meeting at 9am, I worked away on the financial statements all morning.

11:02 - My workout buddy, who happens to sit a few offices down, stops by my office with her gym bag ready to go.  We have a trainer on T and Th so the other days are cardio days.   I grabbed my bag and headed out with her.

This particular day I hit the treadmill for exactly 42 minutes.  Just long enough to watch the first episode of season 6 of Scandal.  It was a good one!  If you haven't watched already, you really should get on it!

12:10 - Grabbed my lunch from the fridge and ate at my desk while I plugged away.

4:39 - While I only work until this 4, I really wanted to wrap my document up before I left the office for 3 days.  I quickly texted James to find out he was just leaving as well.

5:03 - I made awesome time getting home from the office, probably because every one left early on a Friday.

5:09 - James got home and we decide to go out for supper.  On the way we stop to get an xbox piece that James found on kijiji.  You see, Cooper got a game for the xbox that needed a special piece so we haven't been able to play the game yet.

5:50 - We are at a local Thai place for dinner.  We ordered in with some friends the other weekend and Grady tried and enjoyed.  He has been asking to eat again ever since.  We love Thai food so we ran with it.   My all time favorite dish is the green curry with chicken and snap peas. Yummy!

7:30 - We got home and the boys wanted to get the xbox going so they could pay Just Dance.  James got it out of the box only to learn that he was missing a cord.  So... straight to amazon he went to buy the cord for $14. We have officially paid more for the accessories we needed to play the game then we did the actual game.  Oy.

7:41 - the kids and James head to the basement to play mini sticks while I set up our new wifi on the printer and our scale.  I didn't realize how many devices were attached to our wifi network until we changed it!  I printed the kids valentines once the printer was set up.  I'll let you decide which valentine is for which kid....

8:30 - We head up stairs and put the kids to bed.

9:00 - I've laid with both kids and I position myself outside the kids rooms (Grady's request) in the hallway with all my electronics and a glass of wine to watch The Good Wife.  It is Friday after all!

9:42 - I head downstairs to watch a second episode of The Good Wife since a key character died and I had to see the next one. James watched the big TV and I sit on the couch with him and watch my own show.  Just another romantic Friday night....

10:30 - We head upstairs to bed.

This is a very typical Friday in my life.  Nothing exciting, nothing planned, just taking it minute by minute and kicking off the weekend in a total non rock star way.  

My favorite part of Friday night is after the kids go to bed and I settle in with my hubby on the couch with a glass of wine (or more recently, the hallway floor).  It is really the only difference between a weekday and weekend around here.  On the weekend, we I drink wine.

Hope you enjoyed seeing what a work day is like for me.  Hopefully it won't be 2 years before I do this again!

A day in the life: January 23, 2015

Today we are doing a little blog hop and talking about what we did for an entire day.  Not just any day, but January 23rd, 2015.  All of us are recounting our steps on the same day.  I've done a few of these posts, but never on the weekend, so it was fun for me to document our weekend life.  For those of you joining from Lana's blog - welcome!  Dont't forget to hop on over to Leslie's blog after mine to find out what she was up to!  Here we go!

3:30 - My day started very early. I woke up at 3:30 to go to the bathroom and I happened to notice that I was only wearing one earring. I didn't think much of it until I went to the bathroom and I heard something hit the floor. I looked around and found part of my favorite earring.  I was wearing my stella and dot ear jacket earrings and there are 2 parts.  Since James was sleeping, I couldn't look for the other part.  Then it was on my brain and I couldn't sleep.  I did find it when I got out of bed, it was actually in the bed the whole time.

4:45- This was the last time I remember looking at the clock before I fell asleep again.

5:50 - I forgot to turn my alarm off so the radio started blaring. Oops.

7:21 - Grady came in to our room and the official day begins. We have a quick snuggle before we go downstairs.  Cooper followed a few  minutes later.

7:40 - I make my coffee.  Which is actually a scoop of hot chocolate and a tube of Starbucks Via instant coffee.  Quick and easy.  Don't worry, I have a coffee machine for when we have company.

8:15 - The kids eat breakfast #1 and James leaves for spin class.

8:30 - The kids start their 60 min weekend xbox session....

....  so I can have a quick run and watch an episode of Scandal.

9:15 - I come upstairs, the kids have breakfast #2 and get their long johns on for departure.  I quickly make James a green shake for when he gets home and head upstairs to get ready for the day.  I wore my new Stella and Dot necklace that I just got the day before.  LOVE.

9:35 - I remember we have no food since I worked 5 days this week and didn't go shopping.  I threw a frozen pork tenderloin in the slow cooker and will figure out the rest later.

10:05 - we load in the car for our first hockey game of the day.  Note the 2 hockey bags in the trunk of the van.  That is one of many reasons we love our mini van!

11:00 to 12:00 - We watched Grady's game.  Sadly they lost, but they played a good game.  It was a tight match until mid third period and in the end they lost 8-4.

While Grady played, Cooper played on his iPad.  After the game he looked up and innocently asked who won. Watch the game, Cooper!!

12:15 - We loaded in the van and headed to the second rink of the day, but not before stopping for lunch at this fine local establishment.

1:15 - 2:30 - We watched Cooper's team play.  In Timbits they don't keep score and both teams came off the ice saying they won. Perfect, we have 2 winning teams!

2:45 to 3:30 - We ran a few errands on the way home from the rink including a stop at the bakery for buns for our pulled pork and a stop at the toy store for a birthday present.  When we finally get home I am exhausted.

3;30 - While the kids played I had to hop on the computer to download and delete some photos from my phone as it was full and I couldn't take any more photos.  While I was in there I printed off the kids minecraft valentine cards that I downloaded for free here and printed on card stock.  Yay me!

3:45 - I sat back for some R&R and read my latest book for an hour.  Note: I've since figured the book and really enjoyed.

5:00 - We pulled the pork out of the slow cookers, steamed some carrots and called it a meal.. It was really tasty all things considered.   We ate it so quickly I forgot to snap a photo.

5:45 - After cleaning the kitchen I spent the next hour at Superstore.  A cart full of groceries and $300 later I strolled out of the store with 6 new latte mugs and a bunch of groceries for the week.

7:00 - Grady did a very good job of helping me unload the groceries, so I agreed to a quick game of mini sticks before bed.

8:00 - we headed up for books and snuggles before it was lights out for the kids at 8:30.  

8:30 - We ended the night each watching our own netflix show with a snack.  I'm watching scandal, of course.

9:45 - I crawled into bed with my book and read for 15 minutes before I turned out the light.  

Just another wild and crazy night around here.  

For the record, the next day Cooper had the flu and we did absolutely nothing.  A nice change from our overly busy Saturday!

Don't forget to head over to Leslie's blog to see what she got up to.

a day in the life - November 16, 2015

The last day in the life post I did was almost 6 months ago so I figured it was time to see what a day in our lives is like in November 2015.

7:44am - I hear James get out of bed.  First thought is 'yeah the kids slept in' quickly followed by 'oh sh*t, we have to leave for school in 45 minutes'.

7:55am - I arrive downstairs to start coffee, breakfast and lunch making.  A smoothie for me (spinach, cherry, pineapple, banana), leftover pancakes for the kids, and a large instant coffee and hot chocolate on the side for me.

Today for lunch Grady requested macaroni so that is what is in the thermos, along with a granola bar and cheddar rice cakes on the container.  I am always interested to see what others pack for lunch.

8:45 - we hustle to school. For the third week in a row it snowed on Monday for our walk to school.  Grady's BFF comes to school with us as well.

Cooper and I load back into the van and head to his school that starts at 9:15.  Lately we have been driving the big kids to school otherwise we are late.  Cooper is a terribly slow walker.

9:20 - I head out to do errands for the 2.25 hours that Cooper is at preschool.

9:25- I arrive at Superstore for spinach for my daily salad and smoothies and buns for dinner tonight, among some other random things I purchased since I was there.

9:47 - I pull in at Buck or Two to get items for Operation Christmas Child.  Per their website, Operation Christmas Child is a hands-on project that allows individuals and groups in Canada to help bring joy and hope to children in desperate situations around the world, through gift-filled shoeboxes. It is one way to remind children suffering through war, poverty, famine, disease and disaster that they are loved and not forgotten.   Essentially you fill a shoe box with toys, hygiene, and other item that will be gifted to children around the world.  They are filling shoe boxes at my office so while I wanted the kids to come with me, it was more important that I get it into the office to be packed.  In early December we are doing going as a company to stuff the boxes at the warehouse.

10:15 - I arrive at Mastermind Toys to get the kids stockings finished.  As you read in my post on the Blended Blog earlier this week, I am working towards finishing my shopping by the end of November.  When I was paying for my items they asked if I wanted them wrapped as well.  I of course said yes.  I walked out with all my stocking stuffers wrapped and ready for Santa to give.... Score!

Lastly I went to Micheals to finish off the stockings with a few smaller items before heading back to get Cooper for 11:30.

11:35 - Cooper and I start our drive home.

11:50 - While I wait for lunch to cook, I deal with hockey emails.  Today there was talk of cancelling a practice, scheduling an exhibition game, changing the schedule and responding to emails re socials on both team.  Never a dull moment.

12:15 - We eat lunch.  Cooper wanted macaroni like Grady for lunch so that is what I made him and then he didn't like it and wanted pizza with me.  He had a cheese pizza, his was not as good as mine, full of ham, pineapple and jalapenos.  Yummy!

After lunch, Cooper played on the ipad and made funny faces for the ipad.

1:30 - We picked up Nana and headed to Make a Wish Foundation of Alberta.  For Cooper's birthday we collected donations in lieu of gifts and went to their office to drop off the money we collected.  One of Marla's friends works there and she does such a good job of making the kids feel special.  Cooper was extra shy today but brought out his smiles for the photo.

If you haven't done it before, I highly encourage you to try donations for your next birthday party. From my experience, not every kid brings a donation, usually 3 or 4 still choose to bring a gift, and that is ok.  Cooper is thrilled to open the few gifts he gets and then we donate all the cash we collect.  The Children's hospital also has a great donation program for children's parties, click here for more info.

2:16 - We arrive back home after dropping Nana off and decide to bake brownie cheesecake to bring to a party I am attending next week.  James and Grady don't like cheesecake but I discovered today that Cooper certainly does!

Here is the recipe from Tasty on Facebook.  So easy and so good.

2:40 - Jasmin took Cooper across the street to play and I sat down to start my blog post.  I have short term memory issues.  Need to get it on paper asap.

3:21- I barge out the door to get Grady from school.  I am out of breath when I arrive but I made it before the bell!  He was the first one out!

I have bit of lost time after school where I forgot to document.  I'm sure there was some ipad time and an early supper because at 5:10 we loaded in the van to go to swimming lessons.

5:40 - Swimming lessons start.  Can I just say I hate swimming lessons?  The ground is wet and gross. It is like a sauna in there. And they have terrible chairs. Thankfully the kids are loving them!

6:35 - We get home from swimming and I quickly finish off my cheesecake before putting it in the freezer in preparation for the party next week.  I can't wait to dig into this!

6:40 - The kids want to start their Santa letters.  We use the toys r us website to give us ideas so that I can order the presents once they go to bed.  Sneaky.

7:10 - James and I hop in the van and head to spin leaving Jasmin in charge of bedtime.  That is my favorite part of Monday night spin.

7:35 - Spin class starts and we swear our butts off.  James claims he could wring out his shirt.

8:55 - We settle in to watch Goldbergs.  Does anyone remember the movie Troop Beverly Hills?  I nearly died when the episode was about that movie.  Although IMDb only gave it 5.4 stars... it is a 10 in my books.

10:20 - Bed time for this couple.  

Another busy 'day off' for this mom and her boys.  One day, I'll look back and wonder how I got so much done in a day, but for now, being busy in my norm and I've learned to embrace it.