A Day in the Life

When I was working, we sometimes kept a log of all our activities in a day or a week as a way to see who was doing what, if duties needed to be shifted, or for A Day in the Life of the Library--an annual count that libraries nationwide participated in to show the kind of variety of services a library offers.

Today I thought I'd give it a try here at home, since I knew we didn't plan to go anywhere. I stopped here and there to make this record of A Day in the Life of Two Old People.

So here's what we got up to today:

7:00 am: up and at 'em! Made tea and coffee, tidied up the kitchen, put things away, checked the weather report.

8:00: stripped the bed, started a load of wash, breakfast, listened to the news on the radio, caught up on Facebook.

9:00: Larry ran the sweeper and made the bed; I cleaned up the kitchen again, scrubbed an old suitcase and polished a silver butter dish.

10:00: checked email, Facebook, blog and ebay. Packed up sold items for the mail. Larry fed the dogs, cats, chickens and birds and took the packages up to the mailbox. Reported he'd used up the last of the chicken feed (why does he always wait til it's gone to say something? I was in town yesterday, could have picked it up! Never mind...his ways and mine sometimes just ain't the same.) I made up a mash for the chickens of oats, wheat, corn, stale bread and scrambled eggs. Larry took that to them along with some comfrey from the garden. I researched the possibility of homemade chicken feed (too expensive, probably). We'll go out tomorrow to get more feed.

11:00: coffee break, discussed plans for the day--never a lack of something to do around here. Larry went over the hill to look for morels. Talked to my son on the phone, checked online to see about using wet towels to take the warp out of a tabletop. Read some poetry and researched the poetry form ghazal. I might give that a try.

12:00: I started painting the head of an iron bedframe; Larry was still in the woods.

1:00: started painting the long deacon's bench Larry sanded and repaired yesterday. Kept thinking over the movie we watched last night (Victoria and Abdul) and musing over the relationship of the Queen with a Muslim servant. Why did his family keep his diary secret for over 100 years?

2:00: still painting. Larry came back with one mushroom; he loaded chairs to be painted next, to haul them from the garage to the painting area.

2:30: still painting. Lots of birdsong for accompaniment. Larry made fried potatoes and ramps, ham and lemonade for lunch. Break time.

3:00:  finished the deacon's bench painting. Started on the rest of the iron bed. Larry washed dishes and began spray painting the corner shelf he built, and the chairs.

4:30: finished the bed, rummaged around for hardware for handles for the chest of drawers I painted yesterday. Painted the handles. Larry still spray painting.

5:00: break for an apple and some porch time in the rocker. Thought about what I'd learned the other day about arthritis; feelin' it today.

5:30: paint a shelf? Why not? I'm covered in paint anyway.

6:00: the hardware for the drawer handles are missing pieces. More rummaging to find something that might work. Failure. Add this to the trip to town tomorrow. Larry finished up his painting, went up the hill to get the mail. I put a second coat on the shelf, saw places I missed on the deacon's bench. Touch-up tomorrow.

6:30: Larry found something in the garage that might work for the missing parts on the pulls. Yay! Second coat on the shelf. Porch time, even though it was chilly out. Everything so green and the trees starting to bud at last. Back inside to check with a Facebook group to see if anyone has casters for the cast iron bed.

7:00: ordered business cards for our selling business, Bird in Hand, from Vistaprint since they were running a sale. Revised the old ones, added a 20% off coupon.

7:30: reviewed my list of stories and songs for this summer's library programs. What to add? What puppets and other props do I want to use with the stories? Sent a message to a musician friend about providing a tune or two for the CD I've been working on. It's getting close to being finished, I think.

8:00: quitting time! Shower, brandy, fire and a movie.

That's pretty much how a lot of our days at home go. A little of this, a little of that, but the whole ball continues somehow to keep moving forward.


Copyright Susanna Holstein. All rights reserved. No Republication or Redistribution Allowed without attribution to Susanna Holstein.