Day in the Life, 4/25 Thursday

The new blog trend is DITL posts, which I enjoy reading. Everyone thinks their day to day is boring while the rest of us think it’s super interesting because although we all have 24 hrs, our life circumstances are so different, which makes this kind of posts so interesting.

Thursday was a quite typical work day for me.

4:21am: I woke up naturally (I never use an alarm unless I need to catch a flight). I slept very well, either because I took Calm the night before, or because I didn’t have evening meetings. Lovely. I got up, did my morning routine (mate, check my leisure email inbox, mostly subscriptions), filled 5 years journal, planner, and time tracking sheet, a la Kae). Then I meditated for 9 minutes. This is how my HR moved along those 9 minutes. Interesting 😉

I head out for an easy 6 miles run. It was 90F, 92%, but I was grateful that I could run outdoor thanks to decent air quality. I listened to an audiobook for 40 min before switching to music. This book is overdue and I am enjoying it a lot!

I got back 6:30am, Sofia finished her breakfast and is preparing to go to school, Lizzy still in her PJ and eating. I packed their lunch (leftover pasta with a piece of bread) and snacks (a bar), made them ponytails, and they left 7am with daddy.

I changed my running attire to a new gym attire as it was soaked, and went to the gym. I did 10 min stretching, 15 min runners’ specific exercise for hips and core, and 20-25 min upper body strength, while sipping on AG1.

8am back home, shower, dressed for work, and had my oatmeal while chatting with hubby about his extended family

8:45: ready to go to work, hubby drove me to office (5 min) before he went to get groceries

9am: got coffee, water, took a look of my to-do lists (both for household and work), scanned Lizzy’s year book contribution, ready to start. This week and probably until the first week of June, I’m quite busy at work so need to be very focused and intentional during the hours I am in the office. My strategy is to close mail and WA when I need to focus. Today I needed to prepare a ppt for a big presentation, summarizing key results from 7 papers.

I got 2 hrs of focused time before opened my inbox to deal with emails.

12pm: I went to get a cake as it was secretary/assistant day the day before, which I didn’t know. So I wanted to get a cake to celebrate with our assistants. They are so amazing.

12:30pm: back to office, continued to work as I wasn’t too hungry yet.

1pm: lunch break. Sometimes I have lunch with colleagues, but when I need to focus on finishing my tasks, I bring lunch so I can finish quickly. I brought leftovers from dinner, broccoli with egg tofu, green beans, over rice.

still a bit hungry, so I heated up a corn that I brought from china. They are not the sweet corn kind, they are chewy and hard, how I like corns.

2pm: time for a mini gathering in the corridor. It is a fresh cream strawberry cake. We chatted for a while when having the cake. The assistants appreciated the gesture.

3pm: remembered to text helper about dinner plan.

4:10pm: I left the office. I was happy about my ppt progress, and had less attention-required work that I could do at home. When I arrived, Lizzy was in her piano lesson. Practicing the sequence for her upcoming “competition”.

I had a quick chat with Sofia before her mandarin teacher arrived. I did the rest of my work while observing Lizzy’s piano lesson. Then prepared one dish for dinner, our helper Sri prepared the rest.

6pm: dinner with husband while Lizzy was at her mandarin lesson and Sofia practiced piano. She practiced for 45 min. Dinner was rice cake with chicken and cabbage, and 3 more vegetable dishes.

Sofia finished piano and I sit with her while she had dinner. She shared about her day, her embarrassing puberty lessons, the upcoming birthday sleepover with her friend, and the street cat she has been feeding. She had some of the cake I brought home for dessert. Shortly after Lizzy joined us and we continued the chatting.

7:10pm: I did my skincare routine: balm to take out light makeup, foam wash, serum, and moisturizer. Girls did theirs

7:20pm: I went to bed with a cup of tea and read for 10 min before girls joined me. This is an unusual early go to bed day, which gave us more time for more chatting.

Lizzy came after her shower and I applied eczema cream

Sofia did massage on my legs with the massage gun (my hamstrings are so sore after lower body strength session on Tuesday), while I had a heating pad on my lower back (PMS makes my lower back sore). Girls continued chatting about random things, while I started to relax and get to the mood to sleep. I think I heard Sofia saying: I love that I can tell you anything and everything! 😀

7:50pm: girls left, and I read for exactly 7 min before feeling sleepy.

Super nice day, productive at work, a lot of quality time with the girls and husband, a good combination of running and strength, did something nice for others (cake), and chill evening.