For the second year in a row, Trish (Love, Laughter and a Touch of Insanity) invited book bloggers to participate in A Day in the Life, a snapshot of life at the moment tracked throughout a single day.
I almost wasn’t going to participate — the last few weeks have felt rather hectic — but decided at the last minute that I thought it would be fun.
I ended up tracking last Friday, March 18, which was both typical and atypical for life at the moment (and, in a lot of ways, similar to the date I tracked in 2015). But enough chit chat, let’s get going!
6:00 a.m. | Alarm goes off. Hit snooze a bunch!
6:30 a.m. | Ok fine, awake. Get up, make tea (English Breakfast) and skim through blogs and Instagram for a bit.
6:45 a.m. | Breakfast (Shredded Wheat with blueberries) while I watch one episode of Jane the Virgin.
7:30 a.m. | Finish breakfast and tv, mess around on my phone until I can get motivated to take a shower and get ready. This is not the mindful, focused morning routine I hope to adopt… but I’m awfully tired this week.
8:29 a.m. | Leave for work.
8:31 a.m. | Arrive at work. Yes, my commute is only about 1 mile — I live and work in a town of about 5,000 people that’s 45 minutes from the closest Target. One of the perks of small town life is a short commute without traffic.
8:40 a.m. | Spend part of the morning making shopping plans with brother and sister. Check email. Finish layout on a couple of pages. Generally settle in (procrastinate) on the actual work I need to do (write one story, finish another). I’m the editor of our local newspaper and Friday is production day — the day we layout the paper, do all the final editing, and send it off to the printer to be delivered on Saturday.
9:30 a.m. | Get down to writing!
10:30 a.m. | First story done, on to final touches for another before I can finish the layout for the A section. Normally I’m only responsible for the layout of four pages, but our designer is on vacation this week so I’m picking up her job as well and doing a full 12 pages of layout.
11:40 a.m. | All 12 pages of the A section are out! This is unprecedented. Normally I’m still finishing up what I need to do after 12:30 or 1 p.m. On the other hand, I worked pretty late Thursday night trying to make sure things would go smoothly today with all that additional work.
11:50 a.m. | Running home for a quick lunch. Since its early, the boyfriend is home too. We get to chat and watch a bit of Brooklyn 99. Lunch is chicken noodle soup, strawberries and a glass of milk.
12:30 a.m. | Load up the car, stop at the bank, then head back to work. I’m leaving right after work for a girls weekend with some of my high school friends. The annoying part of living where I live is that I have a three hour drive just to meet up with them, then another 90 minutes to the cabin we’re staying at.
1 p.m. | Get an email from someone who is already on my shit list. Talk to business manager to confirm I am right, but decide to respond in detail Monday so I can cool off.
2:45 p.m. | Pull pages from the back to start making final edits! Everyone in the paper helps with copy editing, so once pages are done we set them out on the bank in the back for people to read and correct.
3:30 p.m. | Pages uploaded, stories posted online. This is very early for us, but I’m motivated to get on the road!
3:50 p.m. | And I am out! I grab some dinner on the road (turkey and cheddar Lunchables… umm, not great) so I can get home in time to meet up with my friends.
6:50 p.m. | Arrive at my parents house, now just waiting for the girls!!
7:40 p.m. | And we’re off! Stop at the liquor store, then the grocery store, then back on the road.
10 p.m. | Arrive at the cabin. Eat a frozen pizza, drink some wine, and stay up until like 4 a.m. catching up. Perfect. We stayed at the lake until late Sunday morning when we grabbed this last picture. Love those girls.
Whew! That was a long one. Girls weekend was great, we had so much fun. On Fridays when I am not heading out of town, I usually get home about 5 p.m., spend a little time cleaning my house, then have dinner and watch a movie with the boyfriend — not super exciting.
Anyway, the official link up date for A Day in the Life in tomorrow, so be sure to head over to Trish’s blog to see other posts!
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What a busy day! I’ll be posting on Thursday and I also found my day was very much like the day I tracked last year.
Kim, I loved this and I love your mug – Marauder’s Map – I want to steal it! LOL
It’s interesting to read about what others do and your editor job is one I don’t know much about. Glad you had a good weekend with your friends. I know things have been tough lately and I bet you felt better being with them and laughing and talking. And my day was much like the one I did last year too, but it’s my ‘normal’ life. 🙂
This is such a kind comment, thank you. And yes, I definitely needed some time to just relax with friends (especially friends I haven’t seen in awhile).
Loved seeing your day!! But ack, 6 a.m. wakeup time!
Those pages! Reminds me of my community newspaper days. We set ours out in just the same way for proofing. The magazine where I work now has an almost entirely electronic workflow, and I’m still getting used to it.
Looks like your weekend was lots of fun! I enjoyed this post. 🙂
Love your day! Sounds busy but also super fun! I am loving that mug too.
I got it in London on the Harry Potter studio tour… it’s probably my favorite souvenir from the entire trip.
Yes – love living and working in the same small town. My commute is nothing! Thanks for sharing your day!
Don’t you just love when your workdays flow more smoothly than you expect?
That mug!!
It sounds like you had a great day and an even better weekend. Thank you so much for sharing it with us!
I love Fridays that go smoothly. The stress level is always a little high — deadlines tend to do that — so it’s refreshing when everything gets done on time without any surprises.
I love your mug!! And I love that you’re watching Jane the Virgin … that’s such a good show! And Lunchables are awesome. Good dinner choice! Oh, and Brooklyn Nine Nine is so good, too! Good TV picks. 🙂
I just flew through both seasons of Jane the Virgin — I’m totally hooked.
Ahh a girl’s weekend out sounds like so much fun! Great way to change up the ordinary day’s recording. 🙂
Your Girls Weekend Out sounds wonderful. I have never done anything like that before. Your work sounds really interesting. One summer in college, worked as a receptionist for a small town newspaper and it worked pretty much the same there. I was sad when I had to leave and go back to school that fall.
Thank you for sharing your day! I enjoyed reading about it!
Life at a small newspaper is never dull, that’s for sure.
How lovely to end your busy day with a girl’s weekend. I wish I could get up and have extra time in the morning before I have to leave. I always have just enough time.
Your job sounds great – even if you do have to deal with people who are on your shit list!
I try to keep that particular list short but this person… boo!
Fun! I love hearing about everyone’s day and seeing all the photos! I did a tongue in cheek Day in the Life post because my days are definitely too boring again this year!
My dad worked for our small town newspaper growing up, so I love newspapers! So glad you were able to have a girlfriend weekend. Thanks for sharing a glimpse into your day!
I am so impressed by everyone who gets up early enough to have actual TIME before work. Both hub and I are out of bed at the latest minute possible–I’ve always just eaten breakfast at work rather than make something at home and be able to read for a bit or watch a show. This is what I want to strive for!!
The girls weekend sounds like a lot of fun. Glad you shared your day despite your recent busyness. 🙂
I love making some time in the morning for quiet — not having kids helps with that a lot, I think. I don’t always have a lot of control how my day will go at work, so I like getting the time to settle a bit before work and all the chaos that can come with it.
I also watched some Brooklyn 99 on the day like recorded. We love that show! Girls’ weekend sounds fun, too.
I keep saying I’m going to start Jane the Virgin, but then I get sidetracked with things like House of Cards. One day. I hear you on the distance thing — my friends and I have to travel 2 hours to meet up with one another. Four if we want to stay in each other’s city. But looks like the travel was worth it and you had a great time with your friends. Loved the peek into your day!
I’m so jealous of your commute! 🙂
What a fun day in the life and I love having a girl’s weekend! Nothing like lots of talk and laughter with your best friends.
I love this! I have a weird adoration for knowing about people’s everyday lives. Instagram and things like that give us avenues to make even the simple everyday things look glamourous, but I love seeing the real bits and pieces of what make people who they are. Love that you take your time in the morning. I used to do that and now I’m just a rush and a half lol. Maybe I need to try again.. begin the day more relaxed! What an awesome post :).
I’m lucky that I don’t have to be in to work super early — that definitely makes a quiet morning possible.
Nice Day in the Life! Just a few questions : how often does your newspaper come out? Is it a weekly? And what page layout software do you use? I’m just curious, as I once worked at a paper …
We’re a weekly — we come out on Saturdays. And we do our layout in InDesign — we switched from Quark about 18 months ago.