Day in the Life, 4/26 non-running morning

Friday is a non-running day, and it was a day with some drama. Not everyday is as “perfect”, “smooth”, “chill” as the day before, as it’s real life. 🙂

4:22am, natural wake up, feeling energized thanks to chill evening.

I did my quiet morning routine: mate while reading leisure emails/blogs, meditate, update time tracker, 5 yrs journal, planner, then it was 6am and Sofia and Cookie wanted some hug time.

10 min later, we started the morning. I made French toast for Sofia as it’s better when freshly made. On running days, she usually heat up something in the fridge, this week has been apple cake that I made last weekend.

6:20am: I went to wake up Lizzy with tons of kisses.

6:30am she was ready to tackle her breakfast: hashbrowns

then I packed girls’ lunch and AM/PM snacks as both had swimming after class. Dumplings, fresh bread, pistachios, bar and cookie.

After the girls left with daddy, I did 30 min strong vinyasa yoga. I do 30-40 min yoga on my non-running days and it’s really a good complement as it combines balance, strength, and stretching.

quick shower and 3 min make up. I use this super BB cream that I got in Paris (got 4 bottles after trying it), eyebrows, brush, and lipsticks. Super easy and quick.

I glanced through my work inbox, got 2 sets of comments on my paper I am co-authoring. One commenter was nasty!!! I was annoyed but told myself to handle it later.

then had my oatmeal, the usual, with some scoop of each of these.

I walked to office as hubby was busy emptying his office to receive his new chinese style shelf

I called my mom during my 12 min walk to office. She is excited for her upcoming 15 days trip with her friends. For the last 3 times we chatted this week, she had to go instead of me having to start to work. This means she’s having a busy, fun life, I love when she has to go 🙂

I dived right into my work to-do list. I had 6 items on my list.

#1 Provide comments to someone else’s project document. I started the day before and spent another hour to finish it. After writing all the comments, I went back to each of them to make sure they don’t come out in an aggressive tone. Constructive feedback is the ONLY way to give feedback, in my opinion.

I took a coffee break at 10:30am while catching up with some blogs and book family’s dengue vaccine appt.

11-12pm: #2 work meeting with external visitors. It went well and I chatted with my colleague that joined me for a while after we finished.

Diving back to #3 which is to deal with the comments received. I went through them and again, I found one commenter’s tone arrogant, coming from his own ignorance of the topic. I was so annoyed that I chatted with 2 colleagues not in the country, and 2 colleagues in the office. They were all surprised by the person’s tone but all agreed that he is someone with low people’s skills. Yet, I think there’s basic decency to be respectful at least. Anyway.. .I felt much better venting out my frustration. Fortunately, the other commenter who is the expert of the topic gave super constructive comments, almost opposite to the first person. This is reassuring that our work is solid.

1:40pm finally hungry and ready to have lunch. Rice with leftovers.

2pm back to work, #4 review and provide feedback to a draft that is her 4th submission. I was pleased with the revised draft and gave her positive feedback.

#5 was review something in preparation for the 6pm meeting.

#6 update a figure to the ppt I am preparing.

3:45pm: done with my to-do list and headed home.

4pm: Lizzy also just got back from swimming and asked for a smoothie.

4:30pm: while Lizzy did her homework, Sofia was at swimming practice, I took out cookbooks to think what to make/meal prep this weekend. While doing that I realized some cookbooks are old and I never use them.

These are books to go to someone else. I don’t need them.

5pm: a bit hungry but dinner not ready so I had some mixed roasted beans while browsing a new novel. 10 min later abandoned it.

5:40pm: dinner was ready. vegetables and homemade fries and chicken nuggets, all prepared by Sri, our helper.

6-7pm: work meeting online.

7pm: I went out to check the family. Girls were playing piano and doing mandarin homework. Hubby came to me and started talking about an investment idea. I was mentally tired so I responded in a dismissive way, which upset him. I felt bad about it few minutes later when I realized what I did. For the next hour, I assessed how mad he was as he was in his office and not coming out. I did what an adult should do, apologize, I did and went to bed. Girls came to say good night and went to sleep. I read for few minutes, and felt sleepy, still a bit worried, but knew whatever happens I will be in a better position to tackle it the next day after good sleep.

So there you have it, a real life day with some mini work and relationship drama, Nothing out of ordinary, just normal ups and downs.