Behind The Scenes: A Day In My Life!

I’ve always loved peeking behind the curtain and seeing how people live and spend their days (which might explain my embarrassing addiction to shows like Vanderpump Rules and Million Dollar Listing) but today the tables are being turned on me. Yikes! My friends Amy & Christy of 11 Magnolia Lane put together a fun blog hop where we each document and share a typical day in our lives. Honestly, I came super close to saying, “Thanks but no thanks” when they asked me to join along because a day in my life is seriously about the least glamorous thing ever. But here I am, jumping on in to share what my typical day looks like! I’ll share a few ideas and tips along the way but honestly my day is mostly just about survival – getting done the things I absolutely have to do, trying to at least put a small dent in the “things I’d like to get done”, and having the whole family alive, fed, and happy at the end of the day.

If you’re new here, welcome!  I’m Kris, a wife and mother of two teenage daughters along with a third furry one (“Hope”) living in a 1940’s home in Connecticut that we moved into five years ago (you can take a tour and get sources for each room {here}). Turning dated “befores” into stylish “afters” is my passion and as I update our home room by room, I share it all on Driven by Decor along with my best home decorating tips and tricks! I’m so glad you’re here – you’re in good company because my “regulars” who have visited the blog for months or years are a pretty awesome crew! Are you ready to get to it? Here we go, crappy on-the-fly iPhone photos and all…    (post includes some affiliate links – full disclosure statement available {here})

Morning

My alarm goes off at 7:00am which is actually luxuriously late compared to the time I had to get up and get my daughters on the bus when they were younger. My girls are both in high school and one of them (my youngest) is an I-take-forever-to-wake-up-and-get-ready type of girl and my oldest is a just-give-me-15-minutes-to-eat-and-roll-out-the-door kind of girl so they end up coming down for breakfast in shifts. My youngest is the first one down and since my husband, Jeff, is a morning person and typically up by 5am, he’s usually the one who hangs with her and helps get her breakfast while I’m scraping my I’m-so-not-a-morning-person self out of bed. After saying good morning to the two of them, I make a beeline to the coffee maker and throw in a Nespresso pod to brew while I take Hope outside. I only recently converted from a regular coffee pot to {this Nespresso coffee machine} and am 100% hooked! So hooked that I dedicated a chunk of one of our cabinet drawers to them (you can peek behind the rest of our cabinets in {this} recent post on how we organized things in our newly remodeled kitchen):

Once Hope and I come back in from outside, she heads straight over to my sleepy daughter to see if there might be any scraps falling her way while I snag my freshly brewed cup of coffee morning lifeline.

I start working on packing both of their lunch boxes (they pack EVERY day – it’s mostly a good thing because I know they’re eating a healthy lunch but packing lunches ranks up there with cleaning toilets for me 🙂 ) and then when my oldest daughter rolls downstairs I help her get breakfast together too. They both have alarm clocks in their room and are really good about waking up and getting downstairs on their own – it’s a habit we started way back in primary school and having them independently get up and going works so much better than me spending half my morning trying to drag my kiddos out of bed.

At about 7:50 my kids head out the door to catch the bus for school. Lucky for us, the bus stop is the end of our driveway so when it’s cold or rainy out, we just wait until we see the bus rounding the corner before they run out to catch it.

Once they’re on the bus, I grab my phone for a quick check of any emails or texts since last night. This morning, I’m actually texting back and forth with two of my best blogging buddies, Sarah and Kelley, who are both part of this hop too! It’s garbage day so I go around the house emptying all of the garbage cans and snagging any recycling to put out in the garage. Here’s a weird thing about Connecticut – since we have so many animals (including bears) that get into garbage cans overnight, the garbage collectors here typically have your garage door code so they can open your garage and collect the garbage cans straight from your garage without you having to roll them out to the street. When we first moved here I thought it was nuts for these random people to have your garage code and even though I still kind of know it is, it’s also really nice to not have to deal with putting our cans out or bringing them back in (especially in bad weather) so I roll with it. There’s a LOT of trash and recycling for them to take today because we spent hours cleaning out this crazy mess of our garage over the weekend (you can check out our new organized garage “after” {here}):

When I come back inside, my little furry friend is whining and giving me her cutest, most pathetic face, asking to be fed:

She’s a bit of a princess and gets cooked chicken mixed in with her food for both meals which I batch cook at the beginning of each week #spoiled. Then I sit down and have my usual breakfast of champions – a huge bowl of Cheerios with almonds and fruit. I’ve been eating this every morning for years and somehow never get tired of it! Now it’s time to tackle the kitchen while Hope sleeps off her full belly because after the morning fray, it’s not looking too pretty:

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop Our Kitchen:

My whole house can be a disaster and I can live with it but my kitchen is the one room that I have to clean up every morning or it will drive me nuts. In the process of cleaning up, I find some school forms that I need to fill out so I knock that out and I also get a call from my best friend so we chat for a few minutes while I finish up.

Then I get an hour of laptop time in including scheduling a bunch of pins to Pinterest, responding to some personal and blog emails, and working on a blog post on our kitchen organization that will go live the next day. I need to make a run to The Container Store to return a few things I didn’t need for our garage organization project and buy a few that I do need so I sit down and make a list (I’m a big list maker!) of what I need to get:

By the way, can you see how many zillion tabs I have open on my laptop? I typically have at least 20 tabs going at one time and flit back and forth between them knocking things out. It’s totally ridiculous but one of my ninja life skills is that I’m a skilled multitasker!

It’s now about 10:30 and I hop on Instagram and answer questions/comments that came in overnight and check my Instagram messages. I love interacting with people on Instagram but it never fails that there’s a bizarre message or two in the mix, like this one that I had this morning:

Apparently weird men think IG direct messages are a great place to pick up married women?! If I get these all the time, I can only imagine what the cute, young fashion bloggers deal with – ha! As I’m wrapping that up, my mom calls to talk about planning a spring break vacay for our extended family (we still haven’t figured it out so any of you that have suggestions for all-inclusive getaways for families with teens, I’m all ears!). Then it’s time to hop in the shower to get ready to head out. Up until now I’ve been in my PJs – staying in them until the last possible moment is how I roll!

Afternoon

It’s about noon and I remember as I’m heading out the door to The Container Store that I forgot to share an IG Story update I promised yesterday on our garage project so I take a few minutes to do that. Then I let Hope out, throw my returns in the back of the car, hop in, and before I take off, I order Panera to-go through the Panera app so I can just swoop by and grab it on my way. My go-to if I’m heading out on errands is half of a napa almond chicken salad sandwich so that’s what I order today. If I’m picking up Panera on my way home from errands, I always go for a salad – right now my favorite is the green goddess cobb salad but my #1 is the strawberry poppyseed salad that they have in the summer (I was so sad a few weeks ago when I opened my app and that salad had disappeared as an option!).

On the way to get my sandwich and trek to The Container Store, my blogging buddy Kelley calls which is perfect timing since it’s a 35 minute trip. We chat about both blogging and non-blogging stuff, bouncing ideas off each other and catching up on our weeks. We have these “business calls” frequently throughout the week! I arrive at The Container Store at about 1pm and sign off from our phone call and head in to make my returns and buy the rest of the Elfa items that I need for my garage.

This should have been a 20 minute in-and-out but The Container Store sucks me in EVERY time so I didn’t get out of there until 2pm to head toward home. No photos to document what I did in there because I have no clue how an hour passed – it’s like a time warp that sucks you in and spits you out an hour later!

Since my youngest daughter has an orthodontist consult appointment about getting braces I drive straight to my girls’ school to pick them both up right when school gets out so my youngest can get home early and grab a quick snack before we head out. We arrive at our 3:15 orthodontist appointment and after the consultation I got THE ESTIMATE. You guys, I mean seriously… why didn’t I become an orthodontist? The cost of braces in Connecticut is nuts (yes, that first digit is a 7!):

We leave the orthodontist and head to the library to pick up a book that my daughter needs and then to the grocery store to get a few things for dinner and arrive home at 4:30. Once we arrive home, my girls both get going on their homework and I do a few quick Instagram Stories (including one celebrating the fact that a friend of ours shipped us some of my favorite Graeter’s ice cream – the best mail day ever!!) and hop on my laptop in our home office to answer emails, including one about that came through from a brand about a potential collaboration. I actually get several emails from brands each week about working together ranging from bizarre ones that I simply delete (“we would love you to do a post about men’s underwear”), ones that are legit but I’m not interested in (so I do a quick reply and say thanks but no thanks), and then a small number that really interest me. I typically end up moving forward with less than 5% of brands that email about working together because it has to be a company I love and feel good about recommending to my friends before I’ll think about doing it. But weeding these out from all of the other emails can be pretty time consuming.

It’s 4:45 and I’m starting to get super sleepy which is pretty typical for me at that time of day – I head to the couch for a power nap which is something I do about every other day. I think I could live quite happily in a Spanish country with siestas because I can fall asleep in about two minutes flat, take a 15-30 minute nap, and feel like a new person when I get up. The couch in our living room is my favorite napping spot and of course little Hope always joins me (I thought of asking the girls to sneak in and snap a pic of me napping so I could include it in documenting my day but #creepy so the spot itself will have to do)!

Evening

I set my napping alarm for 5:15 and when that goes off I see that I have a message from a blogging friend who’s having a problem with her site that she wants advice about. You guys, the backend techie stuff of running a blog is no joke – there is SO much to learn and a lot of it is from each other. We message back and forth about it and then I get a text from my contractor asking me to send him some pics of the problem area of our gutter that he’s coming out to fix the next day so I run outside and do that. Now it’s 5:45 and I start working on cooking dinner while also scrounging up some leftovers to give my youngest a quick meal since she has to be back at the school for theater before our full dinner will be ready. Jeff is arriving at the train station a little after six from a business meeting in NYC so my oldest daughter (who thankfully can drive now – it’s the best!) takes my youngest to school and picks him up at the station. We have three drivers in our house but get by with two cars through a lot of juggling and a little bit of Uber. We realized that even if we have to use Uber from time to time when we’re short a car, it’s a whole lot cheaper than the cost of buying a third car, maintaining it, and paying for gas and insurance (especially with the sky high rates for new drivers!).

By the time that Jeff and my daughter arrive home, dinner is about ready – we’re having fish, rice, and baked cauliflower and broccoli:

Do you like the type A division of the cauliflower and broccoli?? I have one daughter that likes only cauliflower and one that likes only broccoli so we keep those suckers separated 🙂 I actually picked up this super simple way of prepping veggies from Joanna Gaines – you just chop both veggies up, toss them with some olive oil, and bake them in a fairly thin layer until they start to turn brown. Super simple but also really tasty – we all love it! And don’t get too impressed that I do this Betty Crocker from scratch meal every night because I don’t. I cook a nice dinner about twice a week, a quick dinner (spaghetti, tacos, frozen skillet meal etc.) twice a week, do leftovers 1-2 times a week, and then eat out the rest! Regardless of what we’re having, we eat together as a family in the kitchen (with no phones allowed at the table) every night we’re home. I’m a huge believer in it – it’s when we get to hear about each other’s days, talk about any upcoming family plans, and simply joke around with each other. Definitely my favorite time of the day.

My oldest daughter sets the table as Jeff and I finish getting the meal together (she looks thrilled with the responsibility doesn’t she?!):

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop Our Eat-in Area:

I just realized that I’m giving you a little preview peek of the other side of our kitchen that I haven’t shown yet! As you can see, the banquette stayed but we have {this new table} and {this new capiz pendant} – more details (and some better photos with my good camera!) are on their way to the blog later this week!

One little table setting tip to share with you – after deciding not to hang the wall mounted herb crates back up in my new kitchen (I love them but they no longer fit with the style of our kitchen), I was missing having extra silverware close at hand. I decided to keep a simple mason jar with some extra forks, knives, and spoons on our marble lazy Susan so whenever someone finds they need an extra fork or spoon, they don’t have to get up from the table to grab it. It’s so simple but also a nice mini time saver.

Scroll & Click/Tap to Shop Our Tabletop:

After dinner, my oldest heads up to change for sports practice while Jeff and I clean up the kitchen together and catch up. After my daughter heads out, I rope him into helping me work on the garage for about half an hour since I’m determined to wrap up our garage organization project in the next few days. Then at about 8:15 we go crash on the sectional in the family room. Jeff usually gets about 30 minutes into watching something on TV before he gets tired enough to go to bed while I’m a night owl so I let him watch whatever he wants – it’s always short lived! Tonight it’s a few minutes of sports but on evenings like this when our kids are both gone we’re actually usually more likely to watch an episode of something on Netflix (right now the show we’re watching together is Jack Ryan). This is the typical scene with me in the corner spot of the sectional with my laptop, Hope in between the two of us, and some sort of candy next to me. It’s a terrible habit but I love sugary candy and usually have some Twizzlers or Good & Plenty close at hand:

Side note: why does everyone in my family look so glum in the pics I took of them?! I guess that’s what I get when I take pics on the sly! I swear, we are a much happier bunch in person than it looks from the pics!

At 9:00pm it’s time to pick up our youngest, so Jeff heads out to get her right about the time that my oldest daughter gets back home. She has her senior photos at school the next day so we spend about half an hour trying to figure out what she’s going to wear. When Jeff gets home with our youngest, he heads to bed and I feed her a mini dinner #2 since she missed our big meal. She then joins my oldest daughter to finish up her homework and I FINALLY get a few uninterrupted hours to knock some blogging work out. I’m able to finish up my blog post, write up the email that I send to my subscribers (you can sign up {here} if you don’t already get it!), edit some of the photographs I took yesterday for an upcoming post, find a few new cute things to add to my Shop page, and hop on Instagram for about 15 minutes. All of the sudden, it’s after midnight, everyone else in the house is asleep, and it’s finally time for me to head to bed myself.

So there you have it, documented proof that I’m crazy busy all day, yet accomplish hardly anything 🙂 But seriously, even though there are never enough hours in the day, I’m so lucky to be able to do what I love on a flexible schedule from home and am so appreciative of each and every one of you who have followed my blog over the years. Through the blog I have thousands of like-minded friends who totally “get” me, share many of the same interests as me, and would no-doubt be good friends of mine if you lived down the street – that’s a pretty amazing thing!