I’m back with another A Day In The Life Of… It’s a chance for other bloggers to share what a typical day looks like for them. I’m proper nosey and I love to see what people get up to in their day. It’s also a great chance for you to find some more blogs that you might like to follow.
Today we have Emma from Wanderlust and Wet Wipes. Emma is married and they have 2 children, they are currently expats out of the UK.
Here is what a typical day looks like for her…
04.45 – If it’s a Tuesday or a Thursday the alarm goes off for us to go to the gym. We have a group of people on our compound who meet for bootcamp with the most amazing trainer. He’s hugely in demand and this was the only time we could get him. Its always so hard to get up for but I feel so much better for having done it and in a funny sort of way it means I can feel good for the rest of the day. The other side of it is that I am exhausted for the rest of the day haha.05.30 – If we haven’t worked out early the kids (affectionately knows as The Things) are usually up around this time. In the holidays it kills me as it makes for a really long day but in term time we get up at 6am to leave for school anyway so then its not quite so bad. They know they aren’t allowed out of their rooms until then but that’s getting harder and harder to enforce as they get older. People tell me that one day they will be teenagers and I will be longing for the days of early wake ups…I’m sure they are right but for now I wish they would sleep just a little bit more!
06.00 – We are usually all up by this time no matter what the day is so it is the usual rush of getting ready for the day. We try to eat breakfast together but invariably the Things have finished theirs before we get a chance to sit down!
07.00 – The aim is to leave by 7 for school although it never works out like that! We are usually on the road by 7.10 and luckily it is only a 10 minute drive. I used to drop Thing 1 off and then take Thing 2 on to nursery (3 days a week) or back home (2 days a week) but now Thing 2 is at school, it’s just one drop off.
08.00 – By 8am the day is usually mine so I head off to do grocery shopping or to grab a cuppa with a friend. It sounds so much cooler to say grab a coffee but I can’t drink the stuff so it always has to be tea ☺. I find it so odd that there is this huge mad rush from 6-7.30 and then suddenly it all stops!
09.00 – If I am grocery shopping then I will still be there over an hour later. One of the parts about living in the UK that I miss the most is the online shopping. Groceries here can be a little bit erratic in terms of stock so it means constantly re-inventing the weekly menu in your head or reading new packets for nutritional information. I find I can’t ever just go in on auto pilot and grab the same stuff every week as it is always changing! Since some of the other GCC states have put embargoes on Qatar we have been quite low on chicken and the milk has been really random. Oh and Diet Coke (my vice!) is almost completely out of stock in the whole country. I quite often have to go to one shop for some things and another for others. I sometimes also have meetings in the city with people – I organise events for a women’s network so I often need to meet with new speakers or venues or partners.
10.00 – I try to be home by 10 if I’ve been shopping and haven’t met up with anyone else and then try to do at least something on the blog. If I have no plans I sometimes park myself in a café somewhere with wifi and do some blogging there instead. Last year on the days when Thing 2 wasn’t at nursery we would head off to the pool or for a play date.
13.00 – Now that we are napless I get very little down time in the middle of the day. School finishes at 13.45 so its around now I have to start thinking about having a snack ready for when we get home and heading back out in the car.
14.00 – On a good traffic day we can get home by 2pm but it can vary quite wildly, especially if the Things have been slow to get in the car. We have a snack together and they usually get to watch a bit of TV or iPad to decompress. I will use this time to catch up on emails or read articles on blogging or related to my blog so I can share them on social media with my followers.
15.00 – We sometimes have a play date after school or some sort of after school activity to keep us busy. If there is nothing then we will play or do some baking. I’m NOT a good crafty mum so that very rarely happens but we like playing board games or doing activity books as well as playing things like school or holidays (can’t think where they get it from!). In the cooler months we go to the playground and the pool.
17.00 – In the holidays I start dinner a little later for the Things but in term time we eat early so there is enough time for homework. I’ve found the idea of homework in reception (4-5 year olds for those international readers among you) a little difficult to swallow but it has generally been quite light work and meant to consolidate what they have done that day so its not too bad. Thing 1 was actually thrilled to share with me what he’s been doing. Mr Wanderlust just got a new job so he gets home later but the last job had had some quite cushy hours so it was nice for him to share the homework task with me and to get some one-on-one time with Thing 1.
18.00 – We try to be upstairs by 6 in term time. In the holidays I will let it go a bit more. The Things aren’t so tired in the holidays as we aren’t doing so much. That concept is completely foreign to me as of course we were all out playing all day when we were kids. And we would be outside and active if we were living somewhere else but it’s hard to do much outside when it is 45-50C and humid.
19.00 – Ideally the Things are asleep by 7. Thing 2 has dropped her nap so she is always exhausted but Thing 1 has been lying in bed chatting to himself recently so we might need to change his routine up a bit. I’m going to wait and see what the term time routine brings us first though. If we haven’t worked out already we might work out together, if not we get into cooking dinner and admin. Invariably there is something to discuss – the next trip, a visitor coming to stay, plans for the weekend or something financial like house insurance coming up for renewal. It seems like there is always something! If I can I will do some more blogging but I really find I have lost my mojo by that time of day. I’m lucky that I have other times to blog throughout the day. If I really want to make it a good blog, though, I think I am going to need to start working in some of my evenings.
21.30 – If you’re lucky I’m not asleep on the sofa already and we head to bed. With such early starts we try to go to bed at a decent hour even though I feel like a total loser!
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