I’ve long been inspired by Ali Edwards’ Day in the Life and Week in the Life adventures, but have preferred to keep it simpler. For 2010, 2011, and 2012 I created 8×8 collages of my Week in the Life photos and called it good.
In 2012 I also managed to take 12 photos on the 12th of every month. I even printed them all, but somehow forgot to finish up the album. (Note to self: Add that to your Start Fresh workbook.)
Apparently, I like grids.
Last year I didn’t do anything specific, though one could consider my Instagram feed a nice Year in the Life documentation. (Perhaps that’s why I didn’t feel compelled to do more.)
This year I decided it would be fun to do a Day in the Life exercise once each season. Four times during the year seems like just the right amount to capture how life shifts and changes.
This winter has been so cold, with lots of snow. We had a big snowy day yesterday and it seemed like the perfect time to check off “winter” from the list.
Day in the Life | Winter
1:00 am – Go to bed late, again. Did manage to watch some shows on the DVR with Steve but then went back to work a bit.
6:45 am – Receive text message that Emily’s daycare is opening late today due to the snow.
7:15 am – Steve is already up and showered. Comes in to wake me up. Emily still needs to get up so she can have breakfast at home today.
7:20 am – Emily does not want to get up and she tells me as much. I check email on my phone.
7:30 am – Started working on getting Emily out of bed. There are lots of tears and hugs, which is the case anytime she doesn’t wake up on her own.
7:40 am – The great sock catastrophe of 2014 occurs as Emily does not want to wear pink socks, but the purple socks are in the laundry. She also does not want to wear blue socks so she settles on the pink ones. More tears.
7:50 am – Steve comes in from shoveling the snow and we’re cuddling in the chair.
8:10 am – I pour Emily some Cheerios and do up a bowl of overnight oatmeal for myself with raisins and almonds. Thankfully we’re not in a hurry because Emily takes 40 minutes to eat one bowl of cereal. Steve and I both check email at the table.
8:50 am – I peel Emily a clementine.
9:15 am – Time to get ready to go. Emily lets me put her hat on but wants to do the boots herself.
9:30 am – Steve remembers he forgot to warm up the car.
9:40 am – Steve and Emily kiss me goodbye and go off for the day. Can’t believe how late it is. They usually leave around 7:45am.
9:45 am – I sit down at my laptop in the kitchen to get started working. Remember that I have oatmeal in the fridge and pull that out.
11:45 am – Publish blog post (running behind this week) and head off for a shower. Set up iPhone to play a video during my shower since I like to multitask.
12:05 pm – Time I actually got in the shower because I got distracted by more than one thing on Facebook.
12:30 pm – Back to work. More writing to do today.
3:30 pm – I really need to eat lunch earlier. Forget that I had a mini pizza in the oven. Use extra Sriracha.
3:45 pm – Move from kitchen to office to work on some photo editing.
5:30 pm – Steve and Emily arrive home. The first thing I hear every day is “Mommy, mommy, I pee on potty.” Except this only happens at school. She won’t pee on the potty at home yet.
5:40 pm – Put on an episode of Caillou for Emily. Have Steve proofread an important guest blog post I’m working on.
6:30 pm – Heat defrosted chili on the stove. Emily doesn’t like it and has nachos, ham, and applesauce instead.
7:00 pm – Work on dishes while Steve reads Emily a book. Google for some information on Facebook ad conversion reports.
7:30 pm – Start bath for Emily. Steve washes her hair even though Emily absolutely hates getting her head wet.
8:00 pm – Help Emily brush her teeth and get ready for bed. She doesn’t want to stop brushing. Tears.
8:15 pm – Emily asleep. Sit down to laptop and respond to some emails.
9:00 pm – Fix a snack and re-locate to living room to watch Bones and Big Bang Theory on DVR.
11:30 pm – Head to bed.
I plan to combine the collage and my journaling on a 6×12 page. I’ll share how it turned out when spring finally arrives.
Will you document a day or week in your life this year?
just love the idea Jennifer…how do you remember to jot down all those moments? I’d be a gonner before noon! Is it just discipline? I would love to try that..
I sat down about 3 times during the day to write everything down. It was just keeping this idea present in my mind during the day and having a place to write it down. I don’t think I could keep up with more than one day.
Love the peek into your day. I was thinking I wouldn’t do this again this year but you and Alissa have me inspired will have to think about it.
An even-simpler idea would be to do a seasonal recap page that reflects what life is like during those 3 months of the year.
Great idea, love the seasonal approach. I also love that I’m not the only person just getting to lunch at 3:30pm 🙂
How refreshing to read a “normal” day documented like this. It seems to me that many people wait until the Queen comes to visit, they win an Oscar AND have dinner with Brad pit before doing this exercise 😉 It’s far more important to save the small memories as those are the ones we so easily forget. Thanks for sharing.
Oh gosh if Brad Pitt was coming I’d be too busy making myself pretty to document the day! Thanks Amanda. 🙂
Doesn’t anyone have dust or pet hair or crumbs or wood ash or pet food crumbles or kitty litter or vegetable peels or sour milk or rotting fruit or stains in their lives!? I look at not just your photos but photos of dozens and dozens of scrapbookers and think, “If I took that photo there would be paper scraps or moldering tea bags or cat puke or leaves or dirty snow or hair in the drains or crumbs on the counters or worse, in the photos. Everyone’s lives seem so clean!
But, that said, I love the inspiration and ideas for creativity you offer us all, over and over!
Yes, we definitely all have those things! Here’s the reality behind these photos (top left to bottom right)
1. Cropped tight so you can’t see that the neighbor’s garage has mildew stains running down the back of it.
2. Cropped right so you can’t see the box for the consignment shop I should have taken in during December and is now being used as a foot stool to get to the light.
3. Cropped above the waist so you can’t see that our baseboards are a mess due to the carpet we pulled up.
4. Cropped so you can’t see the basket on the porch full of the weekly papers we don’t read.
5. I cleaned off my desk and shoved many items behind my computer to be able to get the shot. Also pretty sure my hair was still wet.
6. The photo of my husband and daughter reading from this specific day was blurry and really dark, so I used one from a couple of days earlier. We don’t live in Alaska and it’s not summer, so there should not be sun coming in the windows at 8pm.
I can think of a zillion other things that I chose not to photograph, like the box of clementines that seemed to rot just a few days after bringing them home or the filled box for Goodwill that’s been sitting out for two months. Or that even though I wrote about burning the pizza, I chose not to take a picture because I ate it on a red plate and red doesn’t photograph well.
I can’t speak for others, but I enjoy the artistic value of photography as well as the memory keeping. Yes those things are part of everyday life, but not the things I necessarily want to remember. I want to remember the ways we spent our days (working and playing) and the people that were most important.
Perhaps more significantly, memory keeping is an exercise in gratitude for me. So focusing on the best parts helps me better cope with the cat puke in the window sill and the cobwebs in the corners.
Oh, my, did I laugh at your response! I could not agree more that I want to focus on the “best parts.” I try, everyday, to voice for what I am grateful. When I peruse other people’s photos it can sometimes bring me down thinking “there is something wrong” with me or my life; that no one else has the dusty, dirty, moldy bits.
Your sharing a behind the scenes look made me laugh and helped remind me that dust is also stardust!
Thanks!