This post is courtesy of my husband. He’s noticed that a lot of us in the blogging world have given up or are contemplating giving up there employment to focus on building our family and recovering from whatever we have been through (IF, RPL, miscarriages, adoption, etc.).

So, he suggested that I compile a list of all the things I do during the day to keep myself “busy” and engaged with the world now that I am not working in a professional capacity full time and we don’t have kids.

So here it is:

1. I sleep until about 8am. I am pretty sure that I have never slept in before in my life. I have always been an early riser, at was always one of the first people to arrive at the office – usually I’d be there between 6:30 and 7:00, and if I had a busy day I’d go in even earlier. So, sleeping through the night and sleeping until 8am is a huge change for me.
2. I read the news. I love internet news because I self-select the stories I want to read. I never read about things like car accidents – they do nothing for me but make me sad. I tend not to get too focused into bad news stories on a global scale either. I always read a bit about them just to be aware of the world situation, but I stay away from the gore because I believe in many ways the gore is sensationalizing the story and I fear that our modern western world perspective is starting to become distorted because we are so consumed with these messages, when we should be focusing on how to actually help. So, I focus on world news, technology news, and politics. I have an addiction to reading about politics on the municipal, provincial, national and international stage.
3. I can usually spend a bit of time each week on grocery shopping and running errands. This could mean a trip to one grocery store or multiples depending on the day. This may also include a trip to my favourite store, Costco.
4. I go for lunch with both friends and professional colleagues. While I like to joke that I am a now a lady of leisure and so I can just lunch, in all honestly, I do this for a few reasons.  One, I like my friends so it’s always nice to see them.  Two, it gets me out of the house and helps ensure I do not become a hermit.  Three, I will return to the professional world at some point and staying in touch with my professional network is critical.
5. I help my husband with his work, when I can. He is self-employed, so anything I do to speed up his work, just means more money for us. Some weeks there will be virtually no work for me, but other weeks I can be quite busy helping him out. I should point out, none of the work I do with him is related to my professional field, and none of it can negatively impact his profession either. It is usually relatively simple and straightforward tasks that I help on. Some days, I think a trained monkey could do the work I help with.
6. I read. I read other blogs and I read the odd book.I used to read books constantly, but I’m in a bit of dry spell right now and nothing seems to be captivating my attention.
7. I blog. I read and comment on other stories and I actively keep up on comments on my own blog. It is rare that I am logged into my blog all day, actively reading posts as they go up, but someday, when I don’t have a lot to do, I read actively and comment frequently. Other days, I save reading and commenting until later in the day or even the next day. (I do this in an attempt to lead a balanced life, in which blogging isn’t the focus).
8. I write. I hang out in my favorite chair in my little reading nook in our living room, with my computer on my lap and type away. Someday I do this virtually all day.
9. I do work part-time. Last week I worked about 4 hours, the week before I worked 0, and before that I worked about 15. So, it’s minimal and sporadic. Given the unexpected increase in our adoption costs ideally, I would like to find a few more contacts so that I can make some more money while being able to decide when I will work during the day.
10. I cook most of the meals during the week. More often than not I forget lunch, so my husband’s on his own for that meal. But, I try really hard to make our morning drinks (his preference is a coffee and mine is chai tea latte). And many days figure out super and spend time preparing it.
11. I generally take care of the household stuff.  I wash our laundry, I eventually fold our clothes (I hate folding laundry so I put that off as long as possible), I generally keep things tidy.  Some days I’m even wash our cars.
12. I walk the dog. In good weather, we go almost daily for at least 25 minutes. Sometimes our walks are upwards on an hour. It just depends on the weather and my mood.

One great bonus of me not working a regular 9-5 job is that by doing household stuff during the day (i.e. prepping for dinner, buying groceries, walking the dog) I free up our evening time. So in the evening Mr. MPB and I can enjoy working out together in our home gym and spend time relaxing. I would work out during the day, but we’ve found it really helps to motivate each other if we go at the same time. (And I cannot count reps or the life of me, so it’s an added bonus that Mr. MPB can count to 15 for me).  Having previously worked 60-70+ hours a week, I never had time to just enjoy an evening without being purely exhausted, so our weeknight evenings have become something both Mr. MPB and I love.

Selfishly, a large part of me really wants to find a job that will work with this new found flexibility.  I really do not want to go back to working like mad and not living outside of work.  The adoption costs have put a wrench in my ability to be picky about my next real job, yet I really feel the need to honour myself and not go back to my old, very unhealthy ways.

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