Have you ever looked at houses while you’re riding down the road and wondered, “what are their lives like? What do they do? How do they live their day-to-day life?” Well, if you’ve ever wondered that about me, here ya go! Right, wrong, pretty, ugly, and pretty ugly this is my life.

My typical day has changed so much in the last year. Not only did it change tremendously when the pandemic started, but it has also continuously evolved in the past eleven months. My typical day today was not my typical day a couple of months ago, and it definitely wasn’t a typical day over a year ago.

Pre-pandemic life was very strictly scheduled. Every week was a copy and paste from the last week. Every Monday thru Friday the kids had school from 8:00-3:00, and I had work from 8:30-3:00. I went to one job on Monday and Friday and the other job was Tuesday through Thursday. Monday nights we had Scouts. Tuesday nights I had a meeting with my direct sales team. Wednesday nights my younger son had guitar practice. Thursday nights were my catchup night. The weekends were for cleaning, laundry, yard work, homework, Scout activities, and working my direct sales business. The kids were in bed most nights by 9:00 and some nights by 10:00, and I wasn’t far behind them.

The pandemic put the breaks on just about all of that schedule. The kids were still in school and I was still working during the same hours, but we were all at home. Scout meetings halted for a while and then moved to virtual meetings for the older kids in the Troop. For the scouts in the pack, it just stopped. Tuesday night direct sales meetings switched to virtual. Wednesday night guitar lessons switched to virtual until we decided to quit until we could be in person again. Then summer got canceled. Well, I guess summer didn’t technically get canceled, but all the activities we had planned got canceled. All weekend and summer camps we had planned were canceled. Summer was full of extra yard work, many trips to parks to help battle cabin fever, and some deep cleaning and purging of rooms in the house.

Here lately our days have looked more relaxed, but are still busy… well at least for me. I’ve been waking anywhere between 8:00 and 10:00 (ok maybe more like 10:00 or 10:15). I fix my coffee, walk the dog, and turn on my computer. I am starting to work by 10:30 or 10:45. My younger son is usually up, but he is like me in the morning. He likes to wait to eat breakfast, and he’s usually relaxing and watching TV. I’m not exactly sure what time he has been waking me up, but he tells me it’s nine something and sometimes ten.

I work for a good hour to an hour and a half with practically no distractions. I may get a “will you fix me something to eat” from my younger son unless he can fix it himself. Then I start trying to wake my older son. Waking him is equally the most aggravating and most fun thing I do all day (probably for the both of us). I usually start by ticking or poking him and say “it’s time to get up” in my sweet voice. Then I start pulling covers off him and his bed. If all of that doesn’t work, I get Alexa to play the loudest most annoying music. As a last resort, I squirt him with water. He gets mad, then laughs, and chases me out of his room. The whole process, start to finish, usually takes a good hour. What can I say, he gets it honest. During the process, little man and I are usually eating lunch.

By this point I’ve started to work again, my older son has fixed himself some breakfast, and my younger son is watching a show somewhere. From there, I’m working off and on until about 4:00 or 5:00, and the kids are keeping themselves occupied. After I’m done working for the day, we all eat again and I take a break. My “break” consists of me cleaning up a few dishes, walking the dog again, feeding the dog, and straightening up my desk from work so I can get ready for homeschooling.

We have been starting our lessons around 5:30 or 6:00 each evening. If the kids worked independently during the day, I check what they did, and we discuss anything they didn’t understand. If they didn’t work independently, I make sure they understand their Math, Language Arts, and Reading assignments, and they complete the assignments. Then we do Geography and Science together. We are done with homeschool by 9:00 at night, and then our nighttime routine starts.

The nighttime routine consists of showers and baths, housework, eating a bedtime “snack” (which is actually another meal), another dog walk, brushing teeth, and getting into bed. The kids are usually in bed by 11:00, but that doesn’t mean the older one goes to sleep. I still lay in bed with my younger son until he goes to sleep. A part of me hates that I still do this because I feel like he’s too old for me to lay with him every night. Then I think “he’s only young once,” and “he won’t always want me to do this.” Plus, it gives me a chance to wind down. I lay there and play games on my phone and for about thirty to forty-five minutes I get to just relax.

After my younger son is asleep, I get up, work on my blog a little, and look over my schedule for the next day to make sure I’m not missing something important. I make sure my alarms are set (even though I won’t hear them), and turn on a show I’ve seen a million times, and go to sleep. I’m usually asleep anytime between 1 AM and 3 AM.

There is my typical day. Naturally, not every day is exactly like that, but generally, that’s how my days are spent. Exciting, huh? Weekends get mixed up a bit, but they are usually spent getting caught up with housework, planning the next week, grocery shopping, and occasionally throwing in something fun.

I often wonder what post-pandemic life will look like. I’m hoping for a healthy mix of “current life” and “pre-pandemic life.” I don’t want to go back to the busy schedule we had before, but at the same time, I miss the things we did. One thing is for sure, I do not want early pandemic life!