A Day in My Life (on a Tuesday)

6:08 a.m. Wake up. Head sleepily to the computer. I would shower first, but I don't want to wake up Angel with the lights from the bathroom. So I check Facebook and email and blog email and respond to blog comments and send messages to siblings or friends.

6:40 a.m. Shower, brush teeth, comb hair.

6:55 a.m. Bible time! I challenged the youth group I volunteer with to read their Bibles everyday for a month and if I challenge other people to do it, I better be prepared to do it myself. Today, I finish Nehemiah, chosen because I decided to spend the Bible reading challenge on obscure books that I'm not very familiar with.

7:10 a.m. Breakfast: cornflakes with chia seeds and The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio.

7:22 a.m. Final preparations for preschool, making sure I have all the supplies for any planned activities and making sure the right books are out and any books we aren't using are put away.

7:35 a.m. Chop up vegetables for lunch. I always try to get some food prep done in the morning before the kids come so that when it's time to actually make lunch, it's a quick job. Today we're having chicken tacos, and I've chopped a zucchini, an onion, a couple tomatoes, a couple cloves of garlic, and a bunch of green onions to cook up with my chicken later.

8:05 a.m. Kiss Angel goodbye as he leaves for work and start taking down the laundry and folding it and putting it away. However, I'm not able to immediately finish this job because...

8:10 a.m. The first kid arrives and we start the day with reading practice and then learning new spelling words. Later, while he copies spelling words, I attempt to finish the laundry task but am unable to put everything away because there's one sock leftover. This is ridiculous. Leftover socks happen to other people, not to me. I own a total of 6 pairs of socks that I bought in America in 2014 before we moved and they ought never to be separated. I have yet to discover the answer to this mystery.

8:55 a.m. The little girls arrive and group class begins with group storytime. We talk about what we do at different times of day and practice telling time. This week we're focusing on the letter W, so we make paper watches. Various sorts of educational activities progress over the next few hours.

12:04 p.m. The last of the kids gets picked up and I start cooking lunch. Staying in the kitchen while cooking during the dry season (when it's extra hot!) is unthinkable, so while the chicken, veggies, and spices cook on the stove, I clean the bathroom mirror and counters and put the new set of sheets on the spare bed. Never mind that the robot ended up upside down, at least the bed now has sheets that aren't on their last legs.

12:33 p.m. Angel gets home from work! Earlier than normal. He sets about making a banana, cinnamon, and orange smoothie while skyping with his brother on the laptop while I finish up lunch.

1:00 p.m. We sit on the couch for lunch paired with an episode of Castle from Iflix. The past few days have not allowed time for TV, so this was really fun. After I finished eating, I worked on a coloring page till the show was over.

1:45 p.m. Angel doesn't have any afternoon classes, but he has lesson planning to do for his 6 hours of class time on the morrow, so I leave him strictly alone so as not to encourage procrastinating. My early afternoon is not terribly productive. I even curl up to read more of The Prize Winner of Defiance, Ohio again.

2:30 p.m. I head downstairs to my parents' apartment to talk to mom about plans for some upcoming events. I'm surprised by an eerily silent house as the littles are napping and the big kids are all doing schoolwork. Tranquility!

3:00 p.m. I turn on a dance routine tutorial from Youtube--my preferred way to exercise, because y'all know I don't run. Then I do a little computer work, including email and updating this very blog post. I wonder why I didn't decide to do this 'day in the life' thing yesterday. Yesterday afternoon was way more exciting. We celebrated Shiloh's 5th birthday with Frozen-inspired activities, including building a snowman (pin-the-tail-on-the-donkey style) and making fake snow. See?

4:15 p.m. I get ready for my afternoon student to show up. Morning is preschool, but afternoon is high-school level analogies, writing exercises, and SAT vocabulary study. How fun!

5:45 p.m. Angel's done lesson planning for the day and heads out for a run with my sisters.

6:07 p.m. My student leaves. My sessions always seem to run slightly long. Her family gave me a bag of treats for Chinese New Year!

6:30 p.m. Angel heads off to night market with Rebekah to get dinner for everyone after taking orders from those too lazy to pick up their own food. For me? Roti canai. Others order wan tan mee or chicken rice. Angel goes because he loves the pearl tea. I stay home, upload these photos, and get a little computer work done.

7:00 p.m. I call Angel to ask if I can finish off the lunchtime smoothie (isn't it a sad surprise when you come home and find out that someone else has eaten the leftovers you had in mind? I wouldn't want him to be surprised). I gulp down the smoothie, and wash the blender and cup. We never have a sink full of dishes--both of us just wash whatever we use when we use it to avoid that dreaded phenomenon. Then I go back to my book.

7:30 p.m. Angel's back with my roti canai, and we sit down for dinner. Angel got himself a bowl of fruit, jellies, and ice instead of the usual pearl tea. He spent a total of 10 RM for the two of us  (about $2.50 USD). Roti canai is really cheap, and that's only one reason why I like it. Who wouldn't like fried bread? Then I keep reading my book and Angel reads the news--I'll never understand why anyone would do that for fun.

8:30 p.m. To bed. Early tonight, because we have no nighttime appointments, and we're early-birds anyway. Plus, we always talk ourselves to sleep, a habit picked up from hour-long phone conversations before bed back in courting days, one that we've never dropped.

It occurs to me, upon reflection, that my days seem to involve a large number of books and nearly as much food. Every day has a slightly different schedule--on this Wednesday morning, Angel won't be home from work till 6 p.m. or so. But every day is awesome in it's own tiny way.