From Hip To Housewife

At the end of every day, I feel like I have done nothing. Oh I’ve been busy all right. But doing what? So one day last week, I decided to keep track of my day — how could I have been so busy during all those hours when the kids were at school and have nothing to show for it?

Here’s how.

6:50 am – Wake up. Stumble into bathroom. Throw on workout clothes. (It’s a fact that just wearing the clothes confers exercise points, whether or not you make it to the gym.

7-7:35 am – Say “get dressed, brush your teeth, eat your breakfast” over and over and over and over as if it were a mantra, instead of just a daily battle to get the kids out of the house.

7:35-7:45 Walk kids to bus, realize we are late. Run to bus. Marvel at how, once again, neither of my children has seen fit even to say goodbye before getting on the school bus.

7:45-8:30 Walk dog. See? That’s exercise….ish.

8:30-8:45 Shower/Dress

8:45-9 Coffee, breakfast, email. Multi tasking is my friend. Except when I spill my coffee on my computer as I email. Then mulit-tasking is a multi cursing, multi-hours on the phone with customer service enemy.

9-10:30 Do breakfast dishes. (yes, email takes priority over dishes in the sink.) Make beds, straighten up. Notice the kitchen floor feels sticky. Don’t want to know why – just mop it. Ditto for the Dining Room, which needs sweeping and mopping.

10:30-11:15 Get Fresh Direct delivery. Open up pantry to put everything away, and nearly get killed in the avalanche of cereal boxes, pretzel bags, and precariously balanced cans of Organic canned tomatoes that falls on my head. Re-organize pantry. Find food I probably should have thrown away in 2007.

11:15-12:15 Research our next vacation: Africa. Ok, I admit, this is the fun part. A bit overwhelming, perhaps, but fun. We are going on a big trip for my husband’s 50th birthday, and I’m responsible for putting it all together. The number of companies offering Safaris is astounding. And each one looks better than the last. Hey, somebody’s gotta do it.

12:30-1:30 I forgot to mention that during the entire day, I’ve been short of breath. Seems my lovely swine flu/pneumonia experience has left my lungs a little less than perfect. Spend this hour at the Dr.’s office taking a lung capacity test, reading ancient magazines in the waiting room (I think I saw an advertisement for that food I should have thrown away in 2007!), and being handed a handful of prescriptions. Fun Fun Fun.

1:30-2:15 Walk the dog again. Take him to the Pet Store to buy more poop bags and more training treats. Use said poop bags on the way to the pharmacy with the dog to pick up my prescriptions.

2:15-2:30 realize I haven’t had lunch. Eat, standing up in front of the refrigerator: a tangerine, a hunk of cheddar cheese on a piece of leftover Challah, and a chicken leg.

2:30-3:00 Receive package with new bedding for my bedroom.( Note to readers: do not get new bedding just before getting a new puppy. Your new bedding will instantly become old bedding, and you will need to get new new bedding way too soon.) Take dog stained and chewed old-new-bedding off the bed, replace with new/new bedding. Spend at least seven minutes trying to figure out if it’s worth saving old-new bedding, and if so, where I can store it. Decide to toss it. Dog pee and puppy-teeth sized holes just don’t say “sleep comfortably” to me. Call me crazy.

Hey look! It’s 3:00 already. Time to get the kids, start dinner, help them do their homework (the evening mantra: sit down and do your homework/sit down and do your homework, sit down and…), etc. etc. etc. See how busy my day was? And see how much nothing I did? A lot of nothing. Plenty of nothing. And after a day like that, I’m not so sure that nothing is plenty for me.

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