A day in the life: Photo (almost) every hour edition

Engie had a photo by hour post up today (ahem, Thursday) and I thought, what a fun idea! I’ve done “Day in the Life” posts a few time but never with a photo every hour. I thought it might be fun to try it out. Thursdays are my longest, hardest days and this week is one of the longest, hardest weeks so far this year. Maybe this post will remind me that it’s not all as hard as it feels.

I finally get out of bed, 15 mins after my first alarm and way too late. I check on the weather through the window by the desk. I don’t even close the blind on this window when my husband is gone, because I’m worried I’ll forget to open it and my little tree will go without the scarce sunlight it gets in that spot.

I get into work a little late but I still score a spot in the parking lot right in front of my classroom, which is important because I need to leave right when class ends today to get my daughter to swimming on time.

This shot is a real snapshot into my life. As you can see I’m listening to Iron Flame in Spanish. It took me a while to get into it, but I’m liking it now. This shot also has my coffee and my new YETI full of cold water (that I keep in the car so I don’t forget it in my classroom). The space in front of the passenger sheet is full of my stuff for work today and my kids stuff for after work today. Finally my glove box is open so I can pick the lanyard I’ll wear today. Because I’m a crazy lanyard lady who picks her key lanyard based on what she’s wearing. Today I traded out the awesome Lucha Libre lanyard I got in Mexico City for a cute cat one I got in Japantown.

I get to school an hour early every day so I can get some work done before the school day starts. This time is important because most days I have to dart our minutes after the bell rings to drive my kids to things, leaving my room kind of a mess.

Usually I sit on the floor to work but with my knee I’ve been sitting at my actual desk to work. Which maybe I’ve never done before? Which is ridiculous because I have an obscenely expensive chair at that desk, one I spent an embarrassing amount of money on many years ago. And now I’m finally using it.

We’re filing a video skit of a story we invented together as a class in 5th period (which is the first class today because it’s our block day). We got scenes 1, 2, and 2.5 all in one take but scene 3 is a comedy of errors. It’s been fun and there has been a lot of laughing but now we only have 18 minute to film the rest of the skit so we need to get it right this time. And we do! We finish the skit with 30 seconds to spare and then we head out to the quad together because I have break duty this week.

We’re watching Encanto (in Spanish) in my 6th grade class because I just can’t teach them anything today. I haven’t seen this movie in so long and I’m really loving it. Oh and I’m starting this post, instead of getting some quiz scores uploaded. Better get on that now.

And I did! And then for the rest of the day I remembered to take some photos and not others and didn’t get anything else written anyway, but I’m going to try to finish it up now. As everything in my life is lately, this will be an incomplete and somewhat disappointing attempt. And yet, it’s better than nothing (or so I tell myself).

We had a Drop and Cover drill, followed by an evacuation, at the end of 1st period. It’s weirdly the least scary drill (for me), because I know it’s highly possible for there to be an earthquake at school, but I’d rather face that than an active shooter, which is another one of our common drills.

I tried to take a picture during 2nd period but it never happened. At one point I was holding my phone with the camera open and I took this by accident and I kind of like it. It’s my students’ (chosen) Spanish names so I can put them here.

Today I gave out prizes for free reading bingo and I set them up in the service closet that I’ve kind of taken over as my own.

I thought I took a photo at 3:10 when I pulled out of the parking lot but I guess I didn’t. I also didn’t take one during the 4pm hour because is spent 3:10 until 5:15 driving my daughter to swimming and then taking my son and I to the dojo. So much car time.

At the dojo, getting ready for test prep.

Still at the dojo, prepping for our test. At this point my son is done with class and watching a show on his iPad while he eats his dinner in the hall.

I stick my head into the bigger room to say goodbye before I leave. This room is usually full of people taking a class, but most classes are open mat this week to make space for test prep. I will be so happy when our test is over.

Oh my god these cats on this island will be the death of me. They drive me so crazy. And so does all the chores that happen in the kitchen. I like eating a lot but pretty much everything required to eat annoys me, from buying food to preparing it to cleaning up when I’m done. I’ll be glad when my husband is back to do pretty much everything in the kitchen.

At 9pm I’m doing the dishes from the day and prepping to make the kids’ lunches in the morning. They put together the non-perishables in their five Bentgo boxes every Sunday so all I have to do is add a sandwich and some carrots. Every night I get the coffee maker ready and fill up the water filter and empty the ice cube trays. My kingdom for an automatic ice cube maker. 🤣

My daughter realizes she has math homework and starts to do it. She is very upset because there is a lot and it’s late.

She is melting down. I am too. She says it takes her 10 minutes to do one problem. I time her and she finishes in just under two minutes. She asks me send her a screen shot of the time and I’m glad she does because I have a final shot to finish the day.

We head to bed around 10:45pm, MUCH later than I was planning. At least Friday is an easier day. I’ll definitely bring going to bed earlier the night before my belt test.