A day in the life

I always want to write more about our day-to-day lives, but I'm always so far behind in blogging about our activities and whatnot that I just never find the time. I should really fix that somehow, shouldn't I? Last week, my friend Tobi requested a "day in the life" post and I figured that's an easy enough place to start. Plus, my life has been so different over the past five months than it ever has been and ever will be again that it's probably worth documenting.

See, my daily schedule has been the complete opposite of a normal person's because of my work schedule... which is the complete opposite of a normal person's (3-12 instead of 8-5). So instead of getting up, going to work, coming home and then having free time, I get up, have free time, then go to work and come home. It definitely took a whole lot of adjusting. Here's the basic schedule I finally figured out, through the eyes of last Thursday:

(Note: Please add a huge "ISH" next to all the times. I believe in structure when necessary, but I would go crazy if my free time were actually scheduled to a "T." Or scheduled at all, really. This just tends to be about how it breaks down.)

*12:30 a.m.: Pull into the garage from a long day at work.

*1:30 a.m.: Fall asleep.

*7:30 a.m.: Matt wakes me up with a quick kiss goodbye as he leaves for work. I fall back asleep.

*9:30 a.m.: My alarm goes off after 8 hours of sleep. I eat breakfast and then snuggle up on the couch with my scriptures.

*10:30 a.m.: After reading scriptures and checking e-mail, bank accounts, etc., my stomach is ready for a workout. I turn on Jillian for a 20-minute warm-up and then lace up my running shoes and head out the door.

*11:30 a.m.: Shower and get ready for the day. I've never liked putting my makeup on in the bathroom--I always felt like I was missing out on the action at home--and nothing has changed. I tend to either use the mirror above the piano in the living room (because there's a ton of natural light in there) or just wait for the car (because I'm lazy).

*12:15 p.m.: Get a few things done around the house.

*1:00 p.m.: Matt comes home for a late lunch. He often has noon meetings but instead of taking a lunch, he chooses to starve himself and just wait for them to end. Otherwise, we wouldn't see each other at all--literally--on my work days. He's the best. We watch Chuck on Hulu as we eat leftover tortellini, and then Matt heads back to the office. I always love having dinner-type food for lunch because I'm only able to have lunch-type food for dinner. Trust me, sandwiches twice a day gets old.

*2:00 p.m.: Matt's back at the office and I have a little bit of free time. This is when I might play the piano, call a friend, blog or read friends' blogs (or I'll switch that productive morning chore time around with afternoon computer time), but this day I was busy with homework for the photography class I'm taking from UCLA. The assignment was focused on macro photography, which is something I never really do, and I chose fruit. I also never take pictures of food, so it was all the more challenging.

*3:00 p.m.: Gas up and hit the road for a soccer game that's an hour away. Get to the game early only to have it start late. Take notes while watching some pretty great high school soccer.

*5:30 p.m.: Halftime. Run to the car and turn the heat up full-blast. The high may have been 65 that day, but the sun was down and therefore the temperature was, too. It was probably just under 50 degrees and my layers and down comforter just weren't cutting it. (Translation: I'm a sissy when it comes to sitting in the cold.)

*6:45 p.m.: Once the game is over and I've interviewed the coaches and a couple athletes, I drive to the office and eat a PB&J sandwich for dinner as I write my story.

*8:15 p.m.: With my story saved into the system, I proceed to spend the rest of the night taking calls and writing little game capsules, proofreading other journalist's stories, pulling stories off the Associated Press newswire, and working on a feature article for another day.

*10:45 p.m.: We're getting closer to deadline, so we start proofing pages and making changes as needed. To help this all make more sense, here's a summary of the process: write stories in Text Edit, save to InCopy, transfer to copy desk where they're placed on an InDesign page, proof the InDesign page, send to FinalProof for (you guessed it!) the final proof, then send to the newsroom where it's turned into a newspaper.

*11:15 p.m.: This is deadline, so cross all of your fingers and toes that the pages have already been sent! After this, we'll head back to our desks where we'll wrap up stories that we're working on, put in photo assignments, go through e-mails, etc. This all takes place in our office, which looks a little like this but 40 years newer and with a whole lot of Mac computers.

*12:30 a.m.: Roll into the garage after a long drive home. Go give Matt a kiss goodnight and say couple prayers. Depending on how awake my brain is, I'll either get ready for bed, read, or catch up on blogs and whatnot (I'm sure plenty of you have seen a comment from me at one in the morning!). Finally fall asleep around 1:30 a.m. Repeat.

Once again, though, I'd like to point out that my life is SO not this structured. Some days the schedule works out about like this, other days it's totally different. And other days, I don't really feel like doing much so I'll just read my scriptures, work out, hang out and work. It just really all depends, you know? Oh, and one last disclaimer--this post is sort of already outdated because I'm swapping out my salary for student loans. (This is the only reason I felt comfortable posting any sort of schedule on the internet--the fact that it's no longer my schedule!) More to come on that later.

There you have it, Tobi! A regular, boring ol' day in the life of Ashley over the past five months :-)