A Day in the Life...

This is my schedule for a "normal" day. Or at least, what's on the list for this cool winter Monday. People always ask what I do. Well, I'm not allowed, legally, to work in Brazil. But that hardly means I sit around and eat bonbons and go to the beach every day. Just on Thursdays, people! Because we're in a different culture, certain things take much, much longer than they would in the US. Like going to the bank or the post office, both tasks that can take up half a morning if you go on the wrong day and have to wait in line. Or grocery shopping. I go almost every day, because a good portion of our diet is fresh fruit and vegetables. And since we have limited cupboard space and I can only carry so many bags at one time, my kitchen holds about 3 days of ingredients for balanced meals, tops. Unfortunately, everyone else has to go grocery shopping too, and since they raise prices on the weekends, if you CAN go shopping during the week, you go! Our neighborhood grocery is packed during the week, with cart traffic jams and confused shoppers wondering where they've moved the milk to this week. Since nothing is ever in the same place for more than a few weeks at a time, there's no way to plan your route through the grocery store, and I'm forever backtracking. It's too bad I don't qualify for the eldery, infirm and pregnant line, as it would greatly reduce the number of hours a week I spend tapping my feet impatiently and inspecting the contents of my neighbors' carts. :) Nosy me.

So without further ado:

7:00 am The alarm clock rings. So does the snooze. Repeatedly. We finally kick each other out of bed, still groggy. I dislike mornings.

8:00 am I check my email, addicted, then shuffle into the kitchen to make breakfast.

8:30 am Hubby leaves for work, and I put milk on to scald, oats and nuts in the oven to toast, wash the dishes, fold the laundry that's dried on our two ceiling clothes racks and put a load in the washing machine. All while mentally writing my blog and contemplating my monthly writing goals. We just bought our tickets for Mexico last night, so I know what I'm shooting for this month. I need to write 106 articles. That's 4 articles a day until the end of the month. Ick.

9:00 am I make the bed and hear a snapping sound. The drawstring from my comfy pants has snapped in half. Great. Another item for the ever-growing pile of "stuff that needs minor repairs." I put the expenses from the weekend into our budget tracker and shopping list calculator-I'm trying to get a mental list going of what's a "good" price for the things we eat, but until then, I'm writing it down in a nice little spreadsheet. Finished with my coffee, I ponder drinking the rest of my husband's, which is now cold. Maybe not. The granola toasting smell is strong, so I open the windows to let a breeze in and remember that I haven't watered poor Basil in forever. There are four water bottles scattered around the house, so I give him a drink from the collection en route to the kitchen. Back to the computer, I pick up four or five new article titles and start writing this blog entry.

10 am The granola is in the oven and the milk is almost cool enough to make into yogurt. Time for breathing exercises (over 800 counted breaths with a metronome-exhilarating AND exhausting simultaneously), vocal warmups, my morning devotionals, and some stretching. Phew.

11 am Gym, post office and grocery store.

12:30 pm This would be lunchtime. I'll probably grab something out of the fridge, fruit salad and guacamole with saltines, maybe? (We don't have corn chips, nachos, anything here. I haven't seen Garitos in a long time.) Oh, and the laundry needs to be hung up to dry...

1:00 Wait, have I not taken a shower? Yeah, let's remedy that...

2:00 Dilemma: head to Recreio for some gemstone shopping for my winter collection, since I'll be back in the US at Thanksgiving to sell some stuff? Or write articles?
Regardless of what I choose, it will take most of the rest of the afternoon. We're having a BBQ with friends tonight, so I'll need to plan a good hour on the bus during rush hour traffic to make it there on time. If I get a seat, I'll read. If not, I'll listen to music, try to pray, daydream or work on a character dilemma in a story I'm currently writing. Tomorrow's a holiday, so we don't have to worry about getting home too late, though we'll still probably try to be in bed before 11:00. We don't know how the Brazilians do it--most people I know are just getting home or finishing dinner around this time!