A Day in My Life
Sustainable Eats tagged me to do a “Day in the Life” post. I’ve been thinking about doing one of these, so I figured I’d give it a go yesterday. My days are often very similar, get up, work outside when it’s warm and sunny, do my office work when it’s dark or raining, make lunch and dinner, read and go to bed. On days we film we get up early, leave, spend all day filming and then arrive home too late, often after midnight. I tried to pick an interesting day that was indicative of my “normal” day to share in this “Day in the Life of” for you. So here goes, my boring life broken down in hourly segments.
4:15 am – up at at ’em. This wasn’t really the plan, we were going to make good use of the time change and start getting up at 6 (which was the same as 7 which is when we were getting up), but we both woke up super early. Mr Chiots made us some coffee and we both got to work in the office. I like to work inside in the morning when it’s cold & dark outside, then I can spend the warm sunny afternoons outside. It was cold this morning, in the high 20’s, with a very heavy frost on the ground, there was even a skim of ice on our small pond. I chuckled and thought of Thomas Jefferson saying “Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.”
5:00-8:00 am – Since Mr Chiots and I both work from home, we spent our extra hours this morning working in the office. I worked on accounting and receipting some donations. I work for my parents who are missionaries, I take care of all the donations, receipts, accounting, newsletters, publicity, etc. for the Colombian Christian Mission. Mr Chiots and I also have a small production company (2nd Mile Productions), so he spent his morning working on a website and rendering out some videos.
8:00-8:30 am – Usually I’d just be starting to work in the office at this time, so I’m happy to have already put in a few hours of work! Generally we eat a simple breakfast of scones or toast with our coffee. Since we were out of bread, I decided to make some scones. I had pulled some sour cherries out of the freezer earlier that morning, and used them to make a batch of cherry macadamia nut scones. (for all of you wondering, that is a cast iron pizza pan that I baked them on) Mr Chiots made some coffee and we enjoyed our breakfast.
8:30-10:30 am – More office work, accounting, bills, lists of things to do in November, answering e-mails, etc. Not very exciting, but it pays the bills and I enjoy it.
10:30-11:00 am – Spent some time chatting with my dad, he came over to head down to Cabela’s with Mr Chiots to get some supplies for hunting season. When they left I mixed up some sourdough bread dough.
11:00am-1:00 pm – I noticed it was warming up nicely outside, now sunny and 45, so I headed out to start crating the hydrangeas. The large hydrangea up front had some beautiful dried flowers on it so I cut a 2 bushels of blooms. I won’t use these in my house, I usually save them in the attic and give them to friends or sell them at a garage sale. While I worked outside Miss Mama and Little Softie scampered about being very entertaining. During this time I was wearing a stop watch so I could remember to come in and fold my sourdough at the appointed times.
1:00-1:30 pm – Around one I started to get hungry and came in to warm up some lunch. I had 2 small potatoes in the fridge, so I fried them up in some bacon grease with some onions. I roasted some cauliflower in the oven and ate part of it as a side, the rest went into the fridge for tomorrow. As I enjoyed my simple lunch I spent some time checking e-mail, blog comments, writing a bit on this post, and a few other little tasks. (recipe for roasted cauliflower over at Not Dabbling today)
1:30-3:30 pm – Back outside to water the hydrangeas. I’m making sure I give each hydrangea 30 gallons of water since it was such a hot dry summer. I wan to make sure they go into winter in the best condition, and I have to empty my rain barrels for winter. This is hard work, the 3 gallons watering cans are heavy, so I usually do 5 trips, then work on another task for a while. During these breaks I took some photos and I added some burlap over my garlic and shallot beds to keep the cats from using it as a litter box. This works like a charm if you have trouble with cats using your beds throughout the winter. Dexter came out with me after lunch and spent the rest of the afternoon enjoying the beautiful day.
3:30-3:45 pm – Came inside for a short break and to enjoy a cup of afternoon coffee. Mr Chiots made me a latte before he left, a big thanks to Mr Chiots!
3:45-5:45 pm – Spent more time watering and wrapping hydrangeas, plating a few remaining plants, emptying pots, moving things into the garage that can’t be left outside throughout the winter and I also spent 10 minutes looking for Dexter, who decided to go on an adventure into the woods.
5:45-6:30 pm – Downloaded all the photos from today, tagged them and picked out a few for this post. Spent some time reading and responding to e-mails, approving comments for my blog, and of course writing this post.
6:30-7:00 pm – Enjoyed a nice hot shower after a day of gardening. While warming up some leftover venison roast with carrots and potatoes for dinner, I unloaded the dishwasher and formed the bread dough into loaves. It was nice to spend some time sitting down to eat! While doing this my printer was busy printing off some newsletters to give to my dad when he got back with Mr Chiots from a gun auction.
7:00-8:00 pm – Selected photos, did some editing, uploaded them and put the final touches on this post. Mr Chiots arrived home from Cabela’s and the gun auction and told me all about his trip. I gave my dad a few little plants I had started for him and he headed home.
8:00-10:30 pm – More work in the office, receipts, invoicing, answering e-mails, stuffing envelopes and other things on the to-do list. I also took a few more photos to fill in a few spots in this post, like the alarm clock one at the beginning, there’s no way I would have been cognizant enough to take that at 4:25 this morning. During this time I also baked the 4 loaves of sourdough that I started that morning. We enjoyed a cup of mulled cider and a quick slice of sourdough with butter for an evening snack.
10:45 pm – Off to bed, so tired from getting up early and an active day. I’m not always this busy, some days we spent an hour or so watching TV or reading in the evenings. I am, however, not much of one to spend a lot of time sitting during the day unless I have to. I prefer to busy myself with things, so I love days like this! We had a beautiful sunset this evening with just a tiny sliver of a moon, quite lovely and a perfect way to end this post.
As I was proofreading this post last night, I thought about Thomas Jefferson saying “Whether I retire to bed early or late, I rise with the sun.” I must admit, getting up early really helps me be more productive during the day, I feel like I get so much done before breakfast. I don’t think I’ll be getting up at 4:15 every morning, 6 is good for me right now. Perhaps after hunting season we’ll start getting up earlier as Mr Chiots will be used to getting up at 5 am.
Are you an early or a late riser?
What about at the end of the day – night owl or early to bed?
I’d like to encourage you to do a day in the life of post on your blog. If you do, link back in the comments so we can all go check them out.
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Friday Favorite: Keen Footwear
When trying to decide what to write about for my Friday Favorites today I looked down and noticed what shoes I was wearing and knew. I had to write about my LOVE for Keen Footwear.
I have 3 pairs of Keens that I’ve acquired over the last couple years and will be replacing a few of my other shoes with Keens when they wear out. I’ve been looking for a pair to replace my gardening shoes (remember those), but I have yet to find a pair.
One of the reasons I love Keens is because of the roomy toe box. I have wider feet, so these shoes are super comfortable and I have no toe squeezing as I have with most other shoes. I also love the way the toe box is protected with rubber, this really helps the shoes look better longer and helps protect your toes, especially in the sandals & flip flops.
Keens are pricey, but they’re worth every penny. They last forever, so they end up being cheaper in the long run than less expensive shoes. The comfort factor is huge as well, my Keens are the most comfortable shoes I’ve ever owned, all three pairs.
I’m a barefoot or free foot person, so sandals and flip flops are my shoes of choice. I’ve found myself lately on our chilly evening walks wearing some wool socks with my sandals so I can continue wearing them as long as possible. Unfortunately I don’t have a pair of Keens to give away today, but I do have the winners from last week’s Friday Favorites giveaway of Al’s Beanery Coffee. Our winners are: Kat from Food, Literature, Philosophy and Susan. If you don’t get my e-mail contact me through the contact button in my sidebar.
What kind of shoes do you prefer, sandals, tennis shoes, no shoes? Do you have a favorite brand of footwear or do you just wear whatever?
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Getting There
As I wrote about earlier, Mr Chiots and I are headed on vacation to New England for a while. We have a GPS that we use for our business. It makes our lives much easier when we’re heading out for a job knowing that we’ll get there and we don’t have to worry about printing out maps and directions. About 99% of the time it gets us right where we need to go.
When traveling on vacation however, we much prefer to use a road atlas, particularly county road maps if we can find them. We like to take the road less traveled, and the GPS doesn’t like that too much. We’ve also found that when trying to find camp grounds and other out of the way places it’s not as accurate as it is in the city. And sometimes depending on the weather it quits all together.
I also love maps because you can see the bigger picture unlike our GPS. I love having the atlas on my lap and enjoy charting our progress along with way with roads, exits and towns. When you’re driving the back way it’s also nice to be able to watch the roads to make sure you’re headed in the right direction.
Are you a GPS or a map user, or do you use both?
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Making Nail Soup
When I was a little girl, one of my favorite stories was one called Nail Soup (also known as Stone Soup). It’s a traditional Swedish folk tale, here it is in my words as I remember.
There once was a traveler that came to small village carrying nothing but the ragged clothes on his back and bent rusty nail. The villagers tried to run him out of town saying that he was going to steal from them. “Oh no, I was coming to share some nail soup with you. All I need is a pot filled with water and I’ll make some soup to be enjoyed by all,” he said. One curious villager brought him a pot filled with water.
The traveler built a fire and got his rusty nail out of his pocket and dropped it in the pot. Soon the villagers started gathering around to see what nail soup was. After a while, the traveler tasted the soup and said, “If only I had some onions, that would really make the soup wonderful.” One of the villagers ran to grab a couple of onions. After adding the onions and cooking the soup for a while, he tasted it again and said, “If I only had a few carrots and maybe some peas, then the soup would be so much better.” Another villager ran to get a few carrots and another got some peas.
The stranger kept tasting the soup and each time he’d mention something else that would make the soup “just right” and each time a villager would run and get that item for the soup. After a while the pot was bubbling with the best smelling soup the villagers had ever smelled.
The traveler fished out his nail, wrapped it in a handkerchief and put it back in his pocket. Then he served up the stew to all the villagers, it was the most wonderful stew they had ever tasted. They were very impressed with the Nail Soup, although they could never replicate the recipe themselves.
Here’s another version of the story if you’re interested.
Last night I made a batch of nail soup, my version is a simple soup made with all the things I have that need used up. I thawed a venison steak and then proceeded to check in my freezer for anything else that needed used, I found a container of corn left from last year. I also found a head of garlic left from last year’s harvest in the basement pantry. Then I looked in the vegetable drawers in the fridge and came across some cabbage and a handful of the peas from the garden. I remembered that I had picked a pepper along with some onions and potatoes at my mom’s on Tuesday. I had a few beans from my sister’s garden and a big zucchini on the counter that I harvested a yesterday. I kept adding things as I’d find them, and pretty soon it was smelling quite delicious. After cooking in a pot for a few hours, I added a jar of my homecanned tomato soup and a few herbs from the garden to finish it off. It made for a lovely dinner with a side of freshly baked whole wheat bread.
I searched on-line trying to find the copy of the Nail Soup I had as a child, I think it may have been This One. This version of Nail Soup is updated and looks great as well. If you’re ever looking for a great children’s book to give someone, I’d highly recommend finding a copy of nail soup.
Did you have a story that you loved as a child?
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Something to Think About
Every now and then I feel like sitting down with a good book, not just any good book, a good classic. My favorite author is John Steinbeck, I have never read a book of his that I haven’t thoroughly enjoyed. He has such a wonderful way of writing that is perfectly descriptive, yet not too wordy. I like that his stories are true to life, not always ending happily and not every story works out neatly in the end. They are at times very harsh, but that’s what I love about them. I love that his endings have a way of making you think.
Yesterday I finally found some time to sit down with a cup of coffee and one of his books I haven’t read before, The Red Pony. I especially love the last last little short story in this book titled: Julias Maltby. It’s a wonderful story that makes you wonder about happiness and cultural norms and whether poverty has anything to do with money. This is why I love his books, they usually give me something great to think about and contemplate while I’m out working in the garden.
I have a few other books from the library on my “to read” pile and I can’t wait to find some time for them.
Who’s your favorite author? Do you love any of the classics?
