A Day in the Life . . .

As fall approaches, I have been taking some time to reflect on where my life is today; how my days go; what I am doing.  I have been consulting now since February and it has been reasonably successful.  I am working part time, making enough to cover my expenses and save some.  But it is also an isolated life.  I am alone, except for Benny and Ruby, the entire day.

A typical day starts at 6 AM, when I get up and feed the dogs before I even start my coffee.  Benny and Ruby dance around and get excited because this is the only time they get fed during the day.  Sometimes I hear Ben's stomach growling as I wake up.  I am not sure if that is a function of hunger, or the horrible, old man dog gas he has perpetually!

Once my coffee is ready, they have finished eating, so out the door they go.  I head for the TV, turn on the NBC station, listen to news until the Today show starts.  It is also the time I review the emails that have come in from my east coast and European clients (yes, I have those!).  Some mornings I will have a conference call in that 7-8 AM time slot.  My earliest conference call was 5:30, which I don't recommend to anyone.  The gentleman I was speaking to was from Geneva, and with his accent and my still not really being awake, the call was challenging for a while.

Somewhere around 8 AM I get showered and dressed, make the bed and turn on the Roomba.  I have to tell you the Roomba is this great little robot vacuum that runs around my house, vacuums up the dirt, dust and hair from the dogs and, after an hour, goes back to the charging station by itself!  Love it!

I sit down and start working on whatever projects/calls are lined up with my clients.  During most weekdays, it is a combination of having project work to complete or getting calls/emails to respond to.  However, the amount of work usually averages about 20 hours a week.  So once I have done what I need to do, I will read, watch TV or work in the yard.  Sometimes Anya and  will work on a house project together or go shopping, but mostly I am tripping over the dogs.  I failed to mention that the dogs literally lay at my feet or follow me room to room throughout the day.  It is very annoying because I am always almost rolling over them with my chair.

Evenings could be anything from TV or reading, to dinner out with friends.  I try to have at least one social engagement a week so I have human contact.  Every Friday I start working out whether I want to head north to the cabin for the weekend (for a little more isolation) or stay home for more of the same week time activities.

The other day I was talking to Anya and she mentioned that I am always busy.  I was surprised by that because I feel like I am not really doing much of anything.  After  awhile I realized that I do have things that keep me busy, but the pace is so much slower than when I was working full time +, that I feel like I am doing nothing.

I still mostly stick to my healthy eating regimen - no grains, no sugar, no preservatives.  I don't exercise which is the one thing that I need to get less lazy about. 

That's pretty much it.  May sound boring to some and wonderfully peaceful to others.  I share both of those opinions.  Just depends on the day or the moment.  I have been giving serious thought to picking up the pace again by going FT with a company.  I worry about getting myself stressed (yes I now understand that I do it to myself), but I think, in the end, working in one company might be more satisfying to me than bouncing from one company to another as a consultant.  Time will tell, and it seems like I have enough of that!