A day in the life…
I’m obsessed with reading about how other people live their days and if I’m interested in this maybe you are too. So here it is. A day in the life of me Cass McCrory.
6:00-6:20 – Wake-up from our human alarm clocks
I love the idea of having a morning practice. I’m a morning person. I even have a morning song. But the kids have radar on my eyelids, and if they’re open, they believe that they too should be awake. So the morning practice waits in this season and I wake up when someone else comes inches from my face to ask me: “is it time?”
I work from my office at College Town two-three days a week and then I’m home at least one day a week. I moved to a 4 day work week when Braeden was born and I’m never going back. In 4 days I’m focused, productive and fresh. That fifth day we get to spend with the kids enjoying them and managing house stuff without it filling our entire weekend. For us that 3rd day in the weekend allows us to really relax rather than the weekend just getting us ready for another week of work. Work to live; or live to work as they say.
6:20-7:00 – Get ready
I take the time to do my hair, put on makeup and perfume because it makes me feel good and ready to face the day. I usually wear a necklace and most of the time it reflects the phase of the moon. I weigh myself (I know, gasp) because it’s part of the noom protocol and I’ve been using the app for a few weeks and with Leora done nursing I’m feeling really committed to being in this body again which means I’ve got some work to do but I feel great about it and I’m comfortable with it being a journey that I enjoy.
7:00-7:20 – Brown chair time
George and I enjoy coffee together in the brown chairs in our living room. I can’t begin to tell you how great these chairs are but everyone that sits in them agrees they are the best and it’s a wonderful time for us to connect on the day, pull a Tarot card, I share some randomness about my dream, a kid will crawl up in our laps with a book, we check the weather.
7:20-7:55 – Breakfast
We eat breakfast as a family every morning. George makes the best scrambled eggs with feta (seriously, try it and then thank him because he’s a genius) and usually a slice of 27-grain toast from Wegmans – when we have ripe avocado we avocado toast and we’ll frequently have a spinach salad on the side because I make better choices when I eat something green in the morning.
8:00-8:15 – Welcome Keira!
Kiera is our amazing nanny and we welcome her and translate who slept when, who ate what, and so on.
8:15-8:40(ish) – Drive to College Town
On my drive, I either immediately call my Mom and lose all sense of time and talk to her the entire time about 15,000 different things or I listen to a podcast. I love Good Life Project by Jonathan Fields, Online Marketing Made Easy from Amy Porterfield is always very action-forward which I appreciate.
8:40-12:00 – Work work work
I eat the frog. There’s usually a frog – something I don’t REALLY want to do and I have to decide if I’m going to look at that ugly frog all day or just eat it and be done with it. Usually, I eat it. Then I go through the list that’s been flowing through the week, deal with email, most days I’ll have a client call or two in this window.
12:00-12:30 – Lunch
I’m trying to bring my lunch to work more but recently I’ve mostly been hitting Tai Chi here at College Town because they make THE BEST Shrimp Ramen I’ve ever had and it’s so warm and delicious.
12:30-3:15 – Work
I tend to get in a good groove with working in the afternoons so I’ll usually save writing and some other more full-brain tasks for this block of time. If I have a call in the afternoon I’m always wishing it gets canceled so I try to avoid them.
3:15-3:40 – Drive home
I either listen to music or a podcast or if I haven’t talked to my Mom I’ll call her on the way home. Sometimes both. Some people will not understand this….you don’t have my Mom. If you did you’d call her as much as I call, just trust me on this.
3:45-5:00 – Hanging Out
There was a time I’d try to “get something done” in this window and then I had four kids and the expression shoveling in a snowstorm comes into really clear focus. We hang out in this window, yesterday I did a workout in the basement and the kids joined me, sometimes we work on a puzzle while the chaos swirls around us, sometimes we do art.
5:00 – 6:30 – Dinner prep & Dinner
Most nights we make dinner and all eat dinner together. Some weeks we’re good at having a plan of attack and sometimes we are at Wegmans every single day picking up groceries. Everyone must try dinner and then if they can’t even we’ll provide a PBJ. Sometimes it is really awesome with funny stories and lots of talking and sometimes multiple cups of juice are spilled in quick succession. But every night I look across the table and I’m grateful I get to share this time with these people. It’s fleeting and I love it. Tonight we’re having this Ina Garten pasta dish – Colleen will roll her eyes at this but we’ll make the rigatoni homemade. It’s fun, we play music and chat and the kids help and I love it. I think part of the appeal to the homemade pasta is how tangible it is. All day long I’m making digital things that existing in the internet….to get to make something real and delicious feels fulfilling on a different level. George and I have a weekly date night that I treasure and it’s usually on Thursday’s making it my favorite day of the week.
6:30-7:15 – Bedtime Prep & Bed for the Kids
We get the little kids in pajamas and each read them two books altogether – it’s a lot of fun and something I hope they remember. Lex will read or practice her clarinet while we’re doing this.
7:15-9:15 – Whatever we Want!
Some nights I read or a do a bit more work but most of the time we hang out. The new Mario Party for Switch is awesome and we are really liking this season of Top Chef. Mostly we share space and reset the house for tomorrow by cleaning up the toys, wiping down the surfaces, prepping the coffee, letting the dogs out, starting the dishwasher and all that good stuff.
9:15 – Bed
George will frequently stay up a little later. I’m sound asleep. It’s true that Leora and the little kids are often up a couple of times a night and that broken sleep makes me feel more entitled to go to bed at 9:15 but the reality is I like to sleep at 9:15 – sleep is wonderful. We have a Westin Heavenly bed and it is worth every single penny.
That’s a day in the life. Will you share your day in the life with me? I love them so.
Cass, I love this (no surprise there!)! It speaks to how you live the intentional life, you make space for the important things… it’s very busy and very beautiful, this day you describe. And it reminds me of ways to juggle my days to hold more space for the sacred family stuff.
So on any given morning, I’m up at 5:30 (or 5:45 if I stayed up too late reading), and since Charlie my dog sleeps right next to my bed, he gets up and stretches his old body and we head off to turn on the coffee. THIS IS KEY. As the coffee brews, I feed Charlie breakfast and let him outside; I like to go out on my front walk at the same time and stand barefoot while he’s there. It grounds me and I can see the beginning of the sunrise, or smell the breeze… the only time I don’t do this is when it’s bitter cold. Charlie and I head in and go for the coffee…
6:00 am Wake the girls for the first time. I say first, because I have to go do it again in 15 minutes– that’s the absolute latest they can get up for us all to make it to school and work on time. I don’t let them sleep with their phones (they’re plugged in my room to recharge at night) and I personally think alarm clocks are fairly wicked, so to me, I know they’ll have years of waking to an alarm. I enjoy waking them with a kiss and hearing them grumble, moving their hair from their faces and looking at them while they’re still sleepy. They have the same looks that they did as babies, just bigger and with longer hair… just something sweet in the morning.
Then I’m off to shower, put on makeup, and make the lists I make incessantly (note: take action on these lovely lists!).
6:15am Wake the girls again, this time being sure they’re awake, and then I finish getting ready. I also scramble eggs or toast bagels or chop fruit for breakfast.
6:45 Everyone meets in the kitchen to have breakfast and the phone frenzy has begun– I hear stories from both girls about things that happened on Snapchat overnight (!!!), we discuss our days and plans, we might argue over who wants what for dinner. Family talk.
7:05 We’re all in the car. The girls go to two different schools and they can take buses, but I relish this time of day… listening to music they like, talking about any and everything, just being together. I drop Marisa off at 7:20, then Lauren at 7:45, then I call my Mom (I totally understand your mom calls!) and drive to work. I get there depending on traffic anywhere from 8:10 to 8:30. Then I get off the phone with Mom and go in…
8:30 ish until 4:30 to 5pm Work. I bring my lunch and a snack from home, but some days I treat myself and grab a salad or ramen, or just a cup of soup from the Barnes and Noble Cafe. When I get stressed at work, or I need a major break, I take a walk in decent weather, or I browse at Barnes and Noble for a while. This is dangerous, because I will often leave with a small gift for someone or a book for myself, but that down time I get where I’m not in my office is priceless.
Leaving work: I sit in still quiet as I make my way out onto Elmwood traffic madness… the cars are pouring out of URMC and everywhere else, so I go in stillness and focus. After I’m further away, I either call my Mom, call my sister in Boston (who tells me delightful stories of my 3 year old and 6 month old nieces), or I listen to a podcast if I can get my aux cord to work… I like Ted Talks or Oprah’s Super Soul Sunday, or NPR anything…
5:30 Home. Charlie is always the first being to greet me at the door, followed by both my girls, and every day I am grateful for this. Every day I am delighted that we all love each other with this enthusiasm. There are about 20 minutes of nonstop talking and people following me around, then one person gets to help me make dinner (Lauren loves to do this, Marisa does not), Charlie falls asleep on the kitchen floor (so helpful), and we’ll have dinner either at the table or while sitting in a circle on our couch and love seat. We talk. Surprise. There just is not much quiet in my life. I could not have it any other way.
After dinner, there is reviewing homework if asked, dishes, I do work of my own, then there is always laundry, vacuuming, or other household things that didn’t get done that day at chore time.
8:30 Lauren goes to bed (like clockwork, this girl). I sit with her and we talk, or I rub her back for a few minutes, and then she is asleep. Marisa likes to go to bed at 9:30, but I like to get in bed and read and do nothing else around 9:15, so Marisa comes into my room. Sometimes she falls asleep in there, sometimes we (shocking) talk, sometimes she’s very anxious about a situation and we try to work that out. I usually don’t go to sleep until after 10 or sometimes 10:30 if I write in my journal, and as I immediately fall asleep, I think, “I really should have gone to bed before this…”.
I hadn’t thought about my day in these terms. But I love the structure of yours.
5:15 alarm and cats (they actually wait for the alarm to go off before they start begging for breakfast), shower
5:30 breakfast with Hubby – face on, get dressed
6:20 leave for train
6:36 – 7:30 meditate on train and walk to work
7:30 – 12 work – no meeting mornings if at all possible
12-1 lunch – sometimes this is much shorter – we bring lunch to work most days, since we work in the same building I get to eat lunch with the husband and share what has happened in the morning. We also try to get in a few steps as I am attempting to get to 10,000 a day and walk up 10 flights of stairs daily.
1 – 4 work – I block time to get work done, attend meetings listen to webinars etc. On Friday I try not to have any meetings with people in the department that I work in – pretty easy as some work from home. I would love to work from home one day a week but this spouse has to be in the building everyday.
4:05 – 5:25 walk back to train station, read on the train on the way home – I read over 50 books last year, yes the type you have to hold in your hands.
5:30 – 7 dinner and clean up
7-9 listen to book or watch some TV, sometimes its time to do that little things that have cropped up during the day
Not as much fun without kids around – my son will sometimes come upstairs to be quizzed about his day. I think he likes to have us around to talk to which he didn’t have when he lived alone. I am hoping that he tires of the basement but I will miss him as he does so much around the house.