Spend a Day in My Size Tens

Pamela wrote about her day and said she'd like to hear from the other authors, so that prompted me to give you an example of how I spend my day. Remember, I retired in 2003 to spend more time writing. Right!

To give you a little back story, my children are grown and married and my husband and I had a house all to ourselves, freedom, and occasional money left over after paying the bills. When my grandson was diagnosed as developmentally delayed with autistic tendencies, we made the decision to come to leave California and move to Tennessee so that I could be his caretaker. So much for retirement. :)

12:00 AM - Wake up hubby for work. He drives truck and leaves around 1:00 AM.

2:00 AM - Crawl into bed after spending a whole hour of quiet time for just me. I usually do some critiquing or editing during this time, but sometimes I sneak over to Slingo.com and play mindless games.

6:00 AM - Drag myself out of bed to "Whoop, There It Is", the ringtone set for the alarm on my cell phone. Shuffle to the bathroom and finish up by brushing away my morning breath. Run a comb through my hair so I don't scare my grandson when I go to his room to wake him up.

6:10 AM - Pull myself up the stairs, literally, cause I'm so stiff in the mornings. Pass my son and daughter-in-laws bedroom and wonder why in the heck I'm up and getting THEIR kid dressed for school. Wake Spencer and get his wardrobe approval for the day. Follow him downstairs.

6:15 AM - Turn on Max & Ruby, cover Spencer with his 'Cars' blanket while I traipse back upstairs to the kitchen to make his chocolate milk and decide which food I can bribe him into eating for breakfast. Usually, it's a chocolate go tart.

6:30 AM - Dress Spencer then myself. Shuffle him to the bathroom and beg him to pee, fight with him to get his teeth brushed. I'm successful 90% of the time. He goes back and climbs under his blanket for more of Max and Ruby.

6:40 AM - Shoes on both of us, I scurry outside in the cold to start the car and warm it up. Usually pass my son who is starting Momma's car and wonder why he can't do the same for me.

6:50 AM - Put Spencer's coat on him, load up his backpack, argue over toys he wants to take and shuttle him outswide to the car. Run back inside because he decides he wants to finish his chocolate milk.

6:55 AM - Begin drive to school. We play I spy along the way or sing the raining song, if it is. I get him to repeat words after me to try to improve his speech.

7:15 AM - Arrive at school. Remove him from his car seat and hurry him into the gymnasium. He's really good about going to school. I'm lucky...his dad was horrid.

7:30 AM - Back at home. Make myself coffee, turn on the computer and weed through my emails. Check my blog, decide what I'm going to post for the day.

8:30 AM - 12:00 PM - Do laundry, vacuum, dust, clean kitchen, fold laundry, clean up Spencer's toys, decide what to have for dinner, recheck email, update MYSPACE and check a few promo sites.

12:05 - Sit and watch midday news until time to go for Spencer

12:40 - Leave for school

1:15 - Back with Spencer. Afternoon of Max and Ruby and Yo Gabba Gabba begins. I try to do some writing in between requests for snax, taking play breaks, and looking for lost toys. Answer more emails, try to catch up on critiques and edits.

4:00 - Start dinner, although to be fair, I have a wonderful husband who does more than his share of the cooking and prepares far tastier dishes than I.

5:00-6:00- Depending on time everyone gets home, we have dinner.

7:00 - Clean up kitchen, then retire to my corner of the world with laptop and try to finish up everything I didn't get to during the day.

8:00 - Take a break for shower, hoping there is still hot water. I've given up shaving my legs, no one ever sees them anyhow...unless of course, I go to the doctor.

9:00 - Kiss Spencer good night, and hurry back to my laptop where I spend the rest of the night. One eye on the computer and the other on the TV, trying to follow the programs I recorded during the day and evening.

The whole cycle starts over again. I may not have the free time I planned on, but I am so loved. I'm Spencer's "Nee Nee" and I love that I'm making a difference in his life.

So, there you go, Pamela.