A Little Background First

I am a fifty one year old woman living in S. California (Anaheim). I'm also a practicing witch, a mother of 2 grown daughters, and have lived in many cities in CA, but also in NM and NV and OK. I got divorced in 1999 and live with my boyfriend. I still call him my boyfriend even though we've been together for ten years give or take. We also have 2 cats, some fish, and I think there is one hermit crab left.

Now on with my day

Sometimes I envy people that have their day all scheduled out. You know the kind...chicken on Wed., fish on Friday, But I'm self-employed and I don't seem to have the same type of day two days in a row. So just for fun, I thought I'd write about my day today.

8 AM Woke up after having weird dreams about a pirate role-playing game. Fiipped on my computer because it takes forever to warm up.

8:15 Fed one cat wet food mixed with pumpkin for his colon problem and the other cat dry food for his urinary problems.

8:30 Visited the Etsy chatroom to see if anyone was interested in my art.

8:45 Jumped up to see my boyfriend off to the day job he hates.

9:00 Took the two leftover baked potatoes and made hash browns with fried eggs over them for breakfast.

9:30-10:13 Realized no one took the trash out so went to do it but got distracted by the computer. Checked my article for comments and approved them. Started this Hub. I better go take the trash out now before I forget.

10:30 Put laundry in the washer out in the garage. Put the ice chest and drop cloth in the garage that got left on the front porch over a month ago. I see the gardener's the owner hires to do the front yard have not only edged the flower bed, they've cut off all the yellow dusty miller flower buds right as they were starting to bloom. I also grabbed the mail from the mail carrier as he walked by.

11-12:00 Reading Morrigan's Circle by Nora Roberts. I have a goal to read 100 books this year. If I don't schedule it into my day I don't do it.

12:15 Have leftover tri-tip for lunch. Brush and floss my teeth. Put clothes in the dryer.

12:30 to 2:00 Practiced with the scroll saw. Last time I tried it was almost dark out and I had miserable luck. So I tried again with a new blade and after about 30 minutes of trying to figure out how to clamp it to the bench so it wouldn't run away every time I turned it on, I managed to get 3 wooden shapes cut out. I was hoping to sell them, but considering all the time it's going to take to cut them out, sand them, wood burn them and put a finish on them, I'd have to charge $20. a piece. So let's just hope I get faster at it. At any rate, even if I only make a few my grandson will be happy to have them. But my hands are tired from all the vibration and trying to hold the wood flat while cutting.

2:00 Write on the Internet. Catch up on my daily blog.

2:30 to 3:00 I just spent about 30 minutes responding to this hub: http://hubpages.com/hub/Have-You-Gotten-Comfy-with-Frumpy . I guess it really pushed my buttons. Now I'm worried that I hurt her feelings, but I thought someone really needed to say that there is a better use for life than constanting berating ourselves for not looking like a fashion show. In fact, all that make-up, overspending on new clothes, fancy shoes and so on can just be a way to mask self-esteem problems, not give us more self-esteem. You don't get self-esteem from Nordstrom's. You are not a better person because you wear Jimmie Choos.

3:00 to 5:00 I feel stressed out. I'm going to have a cool drink and go back to the Etsy chatroom and visit with some online friends before I have to tackle making dinner.

5:00 to 5:30 Updating blogs and Twitter and Plurk. Here's my archery blog: http://paleoarts.blogspot.com/ Blogs are a great way to 'remember' what goals you are working on. A stale blog is a sure sign I dropped the ball somewhere.

Time to get some fresh air. I feel like a mole when I'm online too much.

The weather is beautiful and the sun is getting ready to set soon.

5:30-6:00 PM Filled the dishwasher and cleaned the sinks. Fed the cats again.

6:00-6:30 Belly dancing practice out on the patio. I try not to annoy my neighbors too much so I didn't use music or finger cymbals. I had the idea to choreograph a gourd dance to honor the Goddess and fertility so I picked out a gourd and practiced with it. Then I came in and gave it a good bath so I can do some woodburning on it on another day.

6:30 A refreshing hot shower. Now I feel nice and relaxed. I posted my self-portrait of the day to Flickr. I'm trying to get up the nerve to post full body shots instead of just my head. Maybe tomorrow.

My boyfriend emailed and already had plans to grill burgers, so I'm going to go mix up the burger stuff for tonight. If you mix a little milk and bread and make a mush and add it to the burger, the burgers stay nice and moist even if you use low fat ground beef. I usually add dry onion soup mix as well. Serve on onion rolls.

7:30 Moved one of the cars into the driveway. Street sweeping tomorrow. You can't park legally on any street in the neighborhood from 8AM to noon on Wed. so every Tues. night/ Thurs. morning we play musical cars.

8PM-10PM Dinner The burgers came out great. My boyfriend is doing his laundry now. When he took his out he brought mine in. That was super nice of him. The rest of the night I'll do some more reading, check my email for any sales, hang out at http://www.etsy.com for awhile doing some more marketing. I got another rug hooking book from the library so I want to read that before I start my first rug.

Summary

I was writing about my life today in a timeline. And just the fact that the list was going to be public made me not be such a slacker and squeeze more into one day. But then I felt like I still looked like I didn't do all that much, plus I'm really tired right now. Does that make any sense? It's sort of like when you make a food diary and then can't bare to admit what you've actually eaten, or you eat less than you would have because you don't want to have to admit to it in the list. So even though I tried to live my day as usual, I'm not sure that's possible since the very act changes my perception of my day. This was a day where I stayed home. I want to do another one on a day where I'm running around. It's quite different.

Then again maybe this whole article was boring to everyone but me. But I know I'm always curious about how people around the world spend their time. What seems commonplace to me might seem interesting to someone living on a farm in Ireland or someone building robots in Maine.