A Day in the Life Series: Angela Brown

Welcome to the premiere of A Day in the Life Series!

Facebook forcing you into a fugue state with amazing vacation photos?  Social network sending you into yearlong Seasonal Affect Disorder with everyone's cooler clothes and cooler lives?

It does me!  When I first started blogging, I couldn't understand why everyone was always talking about how perfectly matched their husbands are, how charming their children, how gorgeous the vista they write in front of.

I must have signed on the wrong line.

I started this series because I'm deathly curious how people actually spend their days, when they're not raving about their perfect families and picking strawberries on the coast.  I hope it helps you feel "normal" too, and I hope you'll be next!

A Day in the Life of an Aspiring Writer 

by Angela L. Brown

There’s this cute little thought that writers are starving artists living off meager wages, just getting by or they are able to sit around all day seeking the muse and drinking lattes.  Well, I’m a single mom so the starving artist gig is an option I say “No” to, not when I’d have a starving kiddo as well.  So, as an aspiring writer with a full time gig, I have a bit of a hectic schedule.  But getting things in balance is worth it for me as I pursue my dream of publication.  So join me on a Tuesday:

6:11 am – The alarm blares.  Grunting, I free myself from my blankets and slap the Snooze.  Then I remember why I have it set at that time.  So I turn it off, roll – seriously, I am NOT a morning person – out of bed and commence the “Time to get up, Danielle” nag that has to go on for a bit because my daughter is even LESS of a morning person than me.  After some time of nagging and “But I’m sleepy, mom” repeated more times than I care to count, the chipmunk finally gets up.

6:30 am – by now, I’ve gotten to the kitchen and am preparing breakfast and putting her lunch together.  She finally trudges in, thankfully dressed, to eat then I hop on the laptop to check on a few e-mails I’ve gotten, mostly blog posts that have been sent.

6:55 am – chipmunk has eaten and freshened up and it’s hair time.  If she were a boy, I could brush it in two minutes flat, but she’s a girl and it requires a bit more.

7:30 am – make sure kiddo and her best bud are dropped off at their school then back home to steal a ten minute nap before I’m up again, doing my morning stretch and getting ready for work (the morning stretch is new.  I eventually want to incorporate actual exercise into this busy-ness somewhere).

This is what I wish I could do instead of heading off to work:

BUT…

9:00 am to 6 pm – I’m at the paying gig with coworkers surrounded by non-inspiring Hayworth, a guppy twisting my tail in a sea of gray

Yeah, that is what I get to stare at all day.  Yippee!  Not.  I usually take my lunch during my first fifteen minute break while reading blog posts then do more blog reading at lunch and normally get too busy to take my last break of the day.  Thankfully, I have some chipper coworkers who help me with that waking-all-the-way-up process like Christie Dolley J

6:20 pm – pick up my chipmunk from her friend’s house then speed home to fix something uber-fast for her to eat.

7:15 pm – her basketball practice

8:30 pm – make sure to review her take home folder and review any teacher’s notes, follow up on homework and reading assignments the chipmunk has while she does her nightly duties.

9:00 – if we’re lucky, which isn’t always the case, we say our evening prayer and tuck chipmunk in for sleep.  Then I’m on the computer to do more blog reads, blog prep for my posts and some writing.  If I finish my blog and writing stuff before 1 am, I grab a book or pull up a book in my kindle app for PC library and read a few pages.

Somewhere between 1 am and 2 am - When I start seeing double, I finally go to bed.

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Thank you so much Angela for being my brave first profile and sharing your day with us.  I'm so impressed by how much you get done and I really want to gift you with a nap.

Will you share your day with us?  To be profiled on this series, click the email button in the right sidebar and let me know!