Week in the Life: Monday. December 11

Hey friends, let's do something a little different this week.

I'm a huge fan of "day in the life" posts but every time that I sit down to write one I quickly become horrified by the mundanity of my life and think "I don't want to write this and no one wants to read it". 

But during NaBloPo I was very taken with Stephany's Week in the Life series, and now I find myself motivated to try again. Sometimes you just need to sit down and write the kind of content that you want to see, so we're going to take another stab at this and see what happens.  The worst case is that this will be incredibly boring, the best case is that I might learn something, and the ultimate best case is that some of the other Cool Bloggers might do this themselves (HINT!  HINT!).  In any case, there's not a lot happening this week so I might as well spend my free time doing a bit of extra blogging.

I'm giving myself a bit of a head start by not posting Monday's recap until Wednesday, so hopefully I'll be able to keep up with tracking my fascinating life.

Here's what went down in the life on Monday, December 11.

On Mondays and Wednesdays I get up before the hubs, so the goal is always to wake up and get downstairs before the silent alarm on my Garmin goes off.  Today is a rousing success in that department.  I wake up around 5:30 and snuggle until 5:50 when I get up for real and tip toe downstairs.

Coffee is the first order of business.  I looooove coffee but as an adult I recognize that there's a limit to how much caffeine I can have, so I only drink one cup a day.  My go-to brew is Trader Joe's French Roast and I always grind the beans the night before so that all I have to do is to put water in the coffee maker and turn in on.  Today I have the "small" size which is two scoops of beans and water up to the "3" marker.  The Mug du Jour was a wedding present and I pour in a splash of half and half.

While the coffee brews I grab my laptop and go down to our basement gym.  I change into workout clothes (which I keep in the gym) and connect my laptop to the TV.  That takes long enough for the coffee to brew, so I go back upstairs to get My Precious and then it's workout time.  I pop in my airpods so that everyone else can keep sleeping while I start sweating.

Plan A was to do a full body workout from the Caroline Girvan Epic Endgame series on Youtube, but I realize that's not going to work.  I got my COVID booster yesterday and although it isn't terrible, my arm is just sore enough that upper body work is off the table.  OK, so either I'm going to skip strength or I'm going to find a lower body workout...I scroll through her video list and come up with a 15 minute lower body workout.

Problem solved!  Wait you say, we know you're on a quest to do pushups three times a week on Mondays, Wednesdays, and Fridays so how are you going to pull that off?  Well, I luckily I'm psychic so I did my Monday pushups on Sunday right before I had my shot so the pushup quota has already been filled.

After the strength workout I hop on the treadmill for a 20 minute power walk.   I need something to do besides stare at the wall for 20 minutes, and random Youtube videos fit the bill.

I'm done working out at 6:50 which is much earlier than normal.  Hubs is eating breakfast and stepson #2 should be downstairs since he gets picked up for school at 7, but he's still getting ready so he and I end up being ships that pass in the night.  I put my laptop away in my nook in the back room and stop by the kitchen to do the first Reheating of the Coffee.  Then I go upstairs and shower. The hubs and I are pretty spartan with our shower products, but here's what goes down.  The hubs has another nook with his shampoo.  And yes I use his body wash because (1) I like it and (2) it cuts down on the number of products we have in the shower.

Post shower we have the exciting world of moisturizer and leave in conditioner.  I don't have any on camera meetings today, so we're air drying.  I slip into my "day" pajamas, which are leggins and a long sleeved hoodie.

Normally I'm really rushed in the mornings but today is a welcome exception.  I'm not ready for food yet, so I get right back in bed and sip on my coffee while doing Wordle and the NY Spelling Bee.  Today was not my day for Wordle.

I work for an international company so the day started a long time ago for everyone else on my team.  My phone is in do not disturb mode until 7, and my boss and her boss are hard at it chatting on our 3-way Slack channel.  I firmly ignore them until I start work at 8 - I mean if something is on fire yes I'll start work early but otherwise work stays on the "ignore" list until the work day starts.  I end up with about 20 minutes of blog reading time, which is a rarity these days.

Ok, it's getting close to 8.  I go into my office, which is the spare bedroom next door and fire up my work laptop.  Then I go downstairs for another Reheating of the Coffee and nuke up a breakfast burrito.  I munch on a handful of grapes while it's heating up.  Stepson #1 has gotten up, had breakfast, and was hanging out with hubs for a bit and is now heading out the door.  Hubs makes his way up to his office, which is down the hall from me.  We learned very early on the pandemic that we can do everything together except share an office.  I mean, I don't know what his problem is since my work is fascinating but whatever.  I head back upstairs with breakfast and get into it.

Let's werk it!  If you're new here, I am an accountant that specializes in payroll, or an "accountant who has fun" as I like to think of it.  It's a blend of traditional accounting plus paying people.  I work for an international company that has just enough employees in the US that they needed someone who gets a US paycheck to run things over here.  Over the past two years I've weaseled my way into the international payrolls as well.  This week we're finishing off the US and Canada payrolls for December 15th, and then we'll switch over to the "everyone else" payrolls that will pay at the end of the month. 

As you'll see, there are advantages to being in a different time zone than the rest of your team but first thing in the morning is not one of them.  It's morning for me and afternoon for everyone else, so they've got quite a head start on me.  The ol' inbox is full and busting at the seams.  I start by parsing through and figuring out what's going on today, and then what has been handled already and what needs to be done.  Today isn't too shabby, and in the end I've just got a handful of things to chase down for payroll.  The big thing that's going down is that it's close to year end, so for the past few weeks we've been chasing down all of the fringe benefits - stuff like employee gifts that the tax man gets a cut from so they have to be reported in payroll.  Every country has different rules on what's taxable and what isn't and if no one minds me saying so, it's insanely boring to keep track of.

My boss has a couple of questions for me on Slack and my boss's boss calls me to go over one of the fringe projects.  It's nothing that I actually want to do, but also nothing that's too annoying.  Around 10 I finally finish my coffee, brush my teeth, and take a little break to snuggle up in my comfy office chair and read blogs.  My work computer will go to sleep after 15 minutes of no activity, so I make sure to move my mouse every once in a while to keep my Slack light on.  Yes I've heard of mouse jigglers but I work for my living so I just move the mouse myself.  I have to say that the ability to work for a while and then take downtime for a while is the #1 perk of working from home.  I've always needed breaks in my work day and it's so much better to just relax instead of...mentally checking out and pretending to look like I'm working which I what I did back in the bad ol' office days.  Just curious for my fellow folks with traditional "sit at a desk" jobs how many of you are actually "balls to the wall" busy for 8 hours straight?  I've had some busy jobs in my time but I've always worked on the "do work take breaks" system.

I get back to werk but now I'm hungry so I grab a small cereal bar from the kitchen and get back at it.  This tides me over to lunch.  My boss and boss's boss stop working earlier than usual so I'm in total control of my time today.

It's noon.  If you think that people who WFH just sit around in their PJs all day, you are half right.  I get dressed in a casual shirt and jeans before heading down to lunch.  The hubs has come downstairs as well.  He makes a turkey sandwich and I reheat a lil' something that I cooked up on Sunday that I'm very excited about: Rainbow Plant Life's Gochujang noodles.  I feel like every time I link to a recipe I have to tell you everything that I did differently: no bok choy because I didn't have any, orange bell pepper instead of red because that's what the store had, I added in some frozen fried tofu blocks, and I doubled the sauce.  This is goooood stuff.

After lunch I head out for a walk around the block.  It's as much of a physical as a mental activity to get some movement and clear my head.  I listen to a podcasts while I'm out there.  It's a so-so day.  Cloudy and kind of dark, but not too cold and the snow is pretty.

After I get back I get a lil' treat and head back up to work.

By three I've done everything that I need to do for the day except send a few emails, so I hop back into my comfy chair and take an internet break.  I feel snacky so I grab a small bag of microwave popcorn.  Hubs just so happens to be downstairs on a plant watering break and stepson #2 comes home so I finally get to see him.  We chit chat for a bit and then everyone goes back to work and/or homework.  Another perk of work from home is being able to see your family during the day.

I alternate blog writing with sending out emails and shut down right at 5.  

Dinner time!  Or more accurately, let's call it leftover reheating time.  The fellas have leftover turkey pot pie from last night, and I have another chicken sausage and rice deal.  My gourmet cooking method is to grab a chicken sausage out of the freezer, microwave it for 30 seconds, pierce the skin with a knife, and then pop it in the air fryer for 5 minutes.  While that goes down, I reheat some chicken flavored rice that I made a while ago that's been in the freezer and some peas.  It's not wildly exciting, but it gets the job done.  Stepson #1 is still at school, where he's wrapping up his first semester of college, so it's just hubs, #2, and me for dinner.

After dinner the hubs and I go out for a walk.  Just a few weeks ago that sentence would have read "after dinner Stepdog takes the hubs and me for a walk".  We are grateful for the wonderful years that we had with our incredible dog and that she passed peacefully AND we miss her terribly and it's fair to say that we continue to have small moments of "Stepdog sads" throughout the day.

After we get back Hubs settles down in his relaxing spot in the front room and I settle into my lair in the back room. I hear a strange noise from the front room so I investigate and find that Hubs is setting up the cool Nerf gun that we won at my company Christmas party on Friday. Hilarity and chaos ensue.

Stepson #1 comes home and has the remaining piece of turkey pot pie and hangs out with hubs.  Stepson #2 disappears into homework with his headphones on.  Hubs works out and then he and I do today's section of our puzzle advent calendar.  This is a new tradition for us this year and I don't know how we made it through previous advents without it. 

After that we settle back into our respective lairs until bedtime.  I indulge in my #1 vice of watching the TMV TV show.  It's 20 minutes of brain candy and it's where I learned about my current favorite news story - when you're a 79 year old legend who everyone thinks is sitting in a rocking chair and looking back on your glory days but you're really letting Mariah Carey know who's boss of the Christmas charts.  This is followed by more random videos on Youtube, a good browse of the internets, and further writing of this post.  

The night wears on and the hubs and I make our way upstairs.  I take a quick shower and if you're saying wait hold the phone you took a shower this morning, bravo for paying attention.  Yes I take two showers on days when I work out.  The morning shower is the "heavy duty" one because workout sweat.  The night shower is mostly to help with dry eye syndrome.  The secret sauce to managing the dry eye beast in addition to gallons of eye drops and an omega 3 supplement is to put this goop on my eye lids and take a quick shower.  If I leave the goop on it irritates my eyes, if I wipe it off I doesn't really do anything, but if I hop in the shower and get some steam on it that's where the magic happens.  And no the magic doesn't happen if I do it in the morning, it has to be at night.  I think it's because sleep is drying to my eyes so having them not dry when I go to bed puts me ahead of the curve.  Whatever, it works and things that work are gold in the dry eye world.

After the shower I snuggle in bed with the hubs.  It's just after 10, which is when the NYT crossword puzzle comes out, so I do the mini and the regular puzzle.  After that I've got enough time to read a chapter of my latest book, A is for Alibi.  Around 10:30 hubs turns out his light so I pack it up myself.  I'm tired but my brain is blazing and I'm thinking a million thoughts.  My head won't shut up which I know from experience is not compatible with sleep.  I pull out my airpods and fire up a sleep mediation on the Insight Timer app.  It takes two 15 minute meditations to get my head where my body needs it to be.  I stay awake long enough to take my airpods out and the next thing I know it's Tuesday.  But that's a story for tomorrow.