I feel like under the water…. Trying to keep afloat but keep falling back below the surface. The feeling of being overwhelmed is real but is it? So let’s do an objective review of my Tuesday which is typical since we moved to Jakarta.
5am I got up in the silent to start my day, reading blogs while letting my mind to wake up slowly
5:40am I went out for my morning run. My goal was 4-5 miles and ended up doing 5.2 miles averaging 9:10min/mile. Not sure if it’s the cooler weather or my urge to run faster to release anxiety, but I’ve been running faster since we arrived.
6:45am got home and found the girls having breakfast. I packed their lunch and they headed out the door 7:05am. I put the rice cooker on to cook steel cut oats for my breakfast.
7:10-7:45 gym. Did 30 min full body workout.
7:50-8:10 showered and got ready. Finished cooking my food, add pumpkin, bok choy, tofu to my oats and to the tapper wear.
8:25-8:40 to office while checking emails. I could have walked instead but having a rented car with driver and not using it feels wasteful.
8:40-8:50 plan my day in the journal, mainly about my must to do list from weekly to do list.
8:50-10 tackle first big to do list with Friday deadline.
10-11:20 team meeting.
11:20-30 eat late breakfast and made a coffee
11:30-14 continued working
14-15 meeting
15-15:20 eat leftover oat and an orange. Usually I have work lunch with people in the office but having two deadlines this Friday made me wanting to do as much as I can.
15:30-17:15 work
17:15-17:25 walk back home.
17:45-18:30 dinner time with the family
18:30-19 went down to buy girls breakfast as hubby forgot.
19-19:40 reading time with the girls in the room. Hug and they went to their rooms. Wednesday is morning running day for Sofia so she wanted to go earlier to bed (8pm is our usual time).
20:00 I turned the light off and fell asleep quickly.
Looking at this I think my day went normal. I didn’t work overtime, I exercised, I spent time with the family, I even read for a while. Few things that might have made it less overwhelmed:
– eat breakfast at home instead of office while thinking about work
– have a lunch break instead of work through it and only ate when starving
– meditate even if it’s 5 min
– not coming home with a grumpy kid. Sofia didn’t get to go to buy Halloween costume so she was negative and upset all through dinner. That made me mad at her. I worked my ass off during the day and rushed home to be with their for dinner, and she was negative whatever I said, so not helpful to transition to a calming evening. But again, kid is being kid, I should not have expected her to be soothing me.
On the positive side:
– Lizzy is healthy and happy and hilarious with her new costume.
– Lizzy did her piano trial out with a teacher and liked her.
– Our dining table will arrive tomorrow!!!
– Planned a Sunday meet up with someone who also just moved, cousin of my high street classmate. Such a small world.
Our New Journey 
That is a full day! Starting a day with exercise seems to really positively impact my day but that is happening so infrequently lately with me being in the office and needing to leave at 6:45… and now get up a bit earlier so I can blow dry my hair as it’s too cold in the morning to leave the house w/ wet hair. But my day is not as full as yours! But no matter how good my day has been, a cranky/whining kid really impacts me. I know it’s typical behavior but it’s still hard to stomach!
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That sounds like such a full day. I agree with taking a break away from your desk to eat; I often make the mistake of eating at my desk, and it ends up taking longer and not being restful as I pause lunch eating to send a quick email, etc. So tempting, though!
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I think it’s always so interesting to see breakdowns of other people’s days. One thing that always stands out to me is how there are always trade offs. As in, one person simply cannot do it “all”. When you really look at anyone’s day, you can see like, ok, maybe they exercised in the morning, but they didn’t need to be responsible for the kids during that time/ getting them ready for school. Or this person had a long time to read in the morning, but maybe they work from home and didn’t have to commute. Or, they have a stay at home partner who did all the dinner prep or cleaned the house. Or maybe this other woman does clean the house a lot, but never formally exercises. Etc etc. I think it is actually helpful for working women to read accounts of other people’s lives to sort of realize there are always trade offs for everyone, and no one person can do EVERYTHING without help either by paid help, a partner or whatever. One striking difference I notice in your life is how you don’t have to spend time driving your kids around!! Here, where I live, everything is spread out, and all of the kids’ activities require at least some driving/ picking up/ dropping off/ waiting/ etc. It’s a major part of most of our evenings, and it can really eat up a lot of time. There is no good way around it here, though. It seemed like at least in Manila a lot of things were either nice and close for you guys and many things were walkable, right? Do you do the piano lessons in your home?
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I choose to live walking distance to office, kids can walk to school too but currently daddy takes them with the driver, picks them up in the afternoon. I’m trying to minimize after school activities that need commuting because traffic is terrible en Jakarta. For mandarin, piano, art, tennis lessons they do it from home. Only kumon they go to the center which is 15 min drive. I agree that my case I have a lot of help at home I don’t spend time doing household tasks nor commenting with the kids, but only focus on work and spend time with them in the evening. Husband is not working so he’s taking on more now which is extremely helpful. Yet I still feel like needing more hours. I hope I get a hold of work load and find people who can do more of what it’s in my plate, I can do more at home.
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I know what you mean – objectively your day looks fine, but you are overwhelmed… it’s probably because you moved to a completely new country, and started a new job? Dealing with new colleagues, new supermarket, new schedule… That takes so much energy! I definitely would be overwhelmed if I were you.
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