The non-trad wife.

I read a twitter thread the other day about a stay-at-home-wife and how she fills her time. She accomplishes more by 7am than I do in a week, essentially. Oh, to be that domestically-driven.

I'll tell you what I did when I was a stay-at-home-wife (with a deployed husband). I slept til 10am. I'd go to the gym with a friend. I'd maybe have lunch out or go to a Bible study in the evening or go shopping at the mall downtown. I'd eat cookies and watch The Bachelor in the evening. 

I kind of wish I were kidding but that's how I filled my time post-getting married and moving to Alaska and pre-blog when Scott was deployed in 2009-2010. 

After I got a job, I was busier and happier and life was much better because I had much to fill my time while he was always working. Because then he deployed again and I needed all of that to keep me going. 

In the summers, I'd fall back into my pattern of gym-shop-clean-cook-blog-TV-books and I was always bored. Always. 

Once having kids, life was different. 

But, basically, my life as a SAHM is not quite so industrious as hers...

8am- wake up. husband has already made himself breakfast and is walking out the door for work as I'm getting the baby out of bed. I had handed the 5 year old the iPad at 7am so he could watch something while I slept in. :D 

i "make" cheerios for the 5 year old and make an egg for the 1 year old and also hand her a banana.

start prepping for a park playdate.

drive to the park with two kids and my two bags of whatever we may need while arriving only 9 minutes late :D 

12:00noon arrive back home after a few hours at the park and splash pad. make lunch. pb&j, fruit, and zucchini bread. after cleaning everything up, the kids watch tv and play while I eat chips and hummus and drink topo chico while coming across a twitter thread on how an industrious SAHW spends her day. get the idea for this post.

1:30pm after doing a few things around the house (who knows what), i put the one year old down for a nap, tell the 5 year old to be good, and go outside to weed-eat and cut grass while i have some time. also set up a kiddie pool in the backyard. 

2:30pm take a quick shower and do whatever around the house. waste time on social media.

3:00pm start dinner, wake the baby up, snacks (strawberries). take everyone outside to the "pool".

4:30pm finish dinner after coming inside. kids play independently. consider using this pocket of time to dig out my lesson planning materials or do some pilates. i don't. 

5pm feed everyone. then baths.

7pm husband gets home. almost immediately has to leave again to run an errand.

8pm both kids are asleep. consider digging out my lesson planning materials or doing some pilates. i don't. clean up the kitchen and fold laundry instead. vacuum the living room. 

9pm husband is home. my whole body hurts from my minimal hard labor of the last few days (outside work, hiking with the stroller). pull out lesson planning materials and do a few things while watching Suits until 11pm. 

never did get to pilates, yoga, putting *all* the clothes away, writing blog posts, or reading a book. 

*not included: the multiple podcasts i listened to throughout the day, the many diaper/clothes changes, the multiple picking-up and putting away of things, the many dishes i washed, the dog duties, the phone calls and text msgs and emails that comprise a day. also the multiple negotiations over everything with a 5 year old, which takes up at least half my day and all of my mental bandwidth. 

**this was just a random tuesday. monday had been more organizated as i'd had a book group in the morning and a dentist appointment in the afternoon. much less free time.