Photojournaling My Day

Early to bed means early to rise. 3:30am to be exact. Busting rump trying to get the tax job done did my back in. Me and most chairs do not get along. When your torso makes up 75% of your body and leaves your legs dangling like a preschooler’s from any normal-height chair, spending any length of time sitting is as uncomfortable as biting into a cherry pit—except replace your teeth with vertebrae and the cherry pit with what’s left of your crushed discs. Ow. So anyway, I laid down to rest my back and pretty sure I passed out at around 7pm. I was beyond grateful for the message I received while I was unconscious that extended my deadline.

As I was getting ready and waiting until my Dunkin opened, I decided I’d do a photo journey of what my average day is like. So that’s what the first collage is below. In the car at 4:45am to head to Dunkin for coffee and eggs. Some mornings it’s closer to 5 when I leave, depending on when I wake up since I don’t need an alarm clock anymore to wake up by 4. I still managed to be early for breakfast, so I snapped a clearer angle of the new hair cut as I waited for 5am. The girl at the window is usually there each morning when I pull in and is the same one that dashed across the parking lot to give me my extra coffee last week. I asked her if I could take a picture with her since I was documenting my day. Before I even had my phone ready, I hear a grunt and turn to look at her and she is hanging halfway out the window, tongue stuck out and ready. Her energy matches mine, man. No wonder I love seeing her every morning. Snapped the pic and got my food to go eat in the Walgreens lot next door.

As I’m chomping my eggs and scrolling through Facebook, I hear a loud POP! I looked around and an accident had happened just in front of me on the highway. I was so distracted by the happenings surrounding that. I looked down after what felt like 20 minutes and an hour had gone by! Normally I would already be at the gym by 6, but it was now 6 and I was still sitting in the parking lot. Knowing everyone was fine, the fire truck had already arrived, I headed out to go to the gym. Quick picture to document my arm progress, then sat on the bleachers to slip on my swim shoes to avoid the blisters I gave myself last week. I was proud of those blisters, because I don’t think I’ve ever heard of someone going so hard in a pool that they blistered their feet, but I don’t particularly want to do it again.

I only got an hour of my usual 2 hours in before Amanda arrived. She came early! She was so excited about whatever surprise I had for her that she got there an hour before class started. She got out the same equipment I was using and hopped in the pool with me. After asking how she was and getting her usual sunshine answer from her, I asked if she was ready for her surprise. She reached for the workout equipment and asked which one she needed. Backstory—last time she showed up early, I made her workout with me. By made, I mean she walked in and I barked at her to grab a pool noodle because we were going on an adventure which was 30 minutes of bicycling in the deep end because I wanted some extra cardio. I laughed at her and said “none of that! Me and some of the girls in the group got together and sponsored you to join E2M next round!” She bounded at me to hug me and nearly cried from being happy and overwhelmed by the kindness, especially from those who don’t even know her yet. I’m BEYOND excited for her to join us and hope her husband does it along with her.

I stayed after class to finish up the other half of my workout, then showered and headed back to the house. Since I was late getting home, my kiddo was awake already and greeted me with the sweetest “Hello, Mommy! Had fun exercising?” I scooped her up and kissed her all over her face. She asked to take silly pictures so you can see me being goofy with her as part of my normal day. I usually get about an hour of her being sweet and cute before the terrible three torture begins and lasts the rest of the day. Starting school with her week after next is going to be its own kind of exercise, that’s for sure.

We decided to go out for a drive and met up with my grandfather for a few minutes and I snapped a picture of him loving her. That’s a normal thing too. My daughter has an amazing family who loves and cherishes her. I hope they still do if she ends up being like me when she grows up. After a bit of driving and exploring, we headed home. I asked my husband to snap a couple of comparison pictures (the second collage below) before we headed in with my Torrid workout clothes delivery. I’ve been shopping their further reduced clearance to try to keep up with how quickly my sizes are dropping. A few of the things that came today are already too big in the 2 weeks it took for the order to arrive but the shorts you see there, thankfully I had ordered those in a size too small so my little Lisa Frank inspired bike shorts will be around for a while! The rest of the day is just family time, a Paw Patrol marathon and more tax work.

I hope you all had a fantastic start to your Week 0. I put in just as much work today as I did last Monday. And I’ll do just as much every day the rest of this week, too. Don’t stop making progress, don’t just wait for the next round. There is never a better day to be better than today.