A Day in the Life
I was at an event recently, where I was in the unusual position of making polite conversation with people who don’t know me well. Throughout the afternoon, I found myself asking and answering the same “small talk” questions over and over, as we do; what are you doing for work and how are your kids being the most common. And maybe it's my own insecurities or my own defensive reflexes, but I swear I started to pick up on a common reaction in people when I’d say I home school and I am a yoga teacher. The “ohhhhh… interesting!” accompanied by the weird face. You know the weird face; it's the semi-judgy and kind of confused look. And I totally get it; I do not have a super conventional life by today’s standards and there are many misconceptions around both yoga and homeschooling out there. But my life is actually quite ordinary and not that crazy! So let’s clear the air and get really transparent; here’s what my typical day looks like:
6:30 (ish) - Get out of bed. Stretch. Make the bed. Gigantic black tea in my Yeti, and a big protein breakfast. I usually have a gluten free bagel (Canyon Bakehouse makes the best ones), an over easy egg from my chickens, and a few turkey sausage links. I always wake up hungry, so I eat right away. I also track my macros, and a big breakfast is important for hitting my calorie and protein goals every day.

7:00 (ish) - Morning ritual. I light any spell candles I have going, do a brief meditation in front of my altar, pull my tarot cards and write in my journal. I might revisit my monthly intention, repeat a mantra that I need for the day, or select a crystal for my crystal grid, depending on what’s going on. All of this usually takes about ten minutes. On new moon days, my rituals take a little longer because I energetically cleanse the house and my altar and burn my spell for the month. Sometimes I get carried away and spend an hour in a cloud of smoke reorganizing all my animal skulls or creating sigils, but I try to stay on task most of the time. I got shit to do!
7:30 (ish) - Head to the gym. I keep my gym bag in the Jeep, so before I pull out of the driveway I take my sneakers out of my bag and put them on the passenger floor underneath the floor heater; that way when I get there my shoes are toasty warm. I usually blast metal music on the way there to get myself in the right headspace. I like Avenged Sevenfold, Slipknot, or Pantera most mornings. Lately the gym has been more crowded than usual (it's January, it happens every year), but newbies are usually on the treadmills so I still haven’t had a problem finding a bench or a cage to take over. I like free weights and I cycle through muscle groups each day, so I hit each twice in a week. I don’t like to waste time in the gym (I don't warm a bench while staring at my phone in between sets), so I can usually get my workout done in under an hour.
9:00 (ish) - Get home and get showered. Get dressed for the day. Usually jeans and a tee shirt, nothing special. I’ve been wearing the same blush since high school; Cover Girl Cheekers in Soft Sable. I don’t use a lot of hair products, just a tonic I made from herbs grown in my garden and an argan oil spray. I let it air dry or braid it wet. Put on mounds of beaded bracelets and essential oils, because that’s how I roll. Usually by the time I’m nearly done getting ready, Norah’s alarm has gone off (it's a freaking air horn, it’s hard to miss) and I can hear her moving around downstairs. She doesn’t eat right away but she fills her water bottle and washes up before school. She’s usually in the office and getting started on her work before I get there most days. We use a lesson planner to plan school work each week so she knows exactly what to do every morning.

10:00 - 1:00 (ish) - School. Right now for math we’re working on Trigonometry, which I secretly love because I’m a closet math nerd. Her science is Biology so we’re currently delving into the evidence of evolution, so comparative embryology and anatomy, bio-geography, etc. It’s interesting stuff and we use a combination of online curriculum and resources I pull for her. This week I got a new issue of The Sun, which is a literary magazine I love, and it had a great article about evolution, so we’ll be reading that together this week. In English she is working on literary devices in suspense and horror fiction (think Poe and Stevenson). Her college course this semester is American Government and Politics. She’s learning APA format and writing a lot of research essays for this course, so I help her with successful note taking strategies and editing her writing. At the high school level, home school is heavy. Every family does it differently, but at our house we are focused on the college track and a secular curriculum, so it's challenging content at a challenging pace. We also enjoy the free time and flexibility that homeschooling gives us; we can travel, take time off whenever we like, sleep in, take mental health days, and learn at our own pace (which in Norah’s case is fast af). During school we take lots of breaks for eating snacks and making weird pterodactyl noises.
Side bar: Because home school is the thing I get the most skepticism and questions about, I’ll address the biggie (which is honestly so annoying); how do home school kids socialize? And I think this is hilarious because in our case, we get to socialize more in home school! There are teen groups all over NH that get together on a weekly basis and do all kinds of fun things. Norah likes more casual hangouts with less parental guidance (and so do I), and there is a teen group that does the Mall of NH and downtown Portsmouth and Concord, where the kids get to go off on their own to shop and eat and hang out. There are park days and formal and semi- formal dances (the masquerade ball is coming up in February) that blow the public school dances out of the water. Home school teens get the museums and theaters and arcades and beaches all to themselves, while everyone else is at school. Norah practically lives at the dojo some weeks. And all of her friends are also home schooled, so they can do weeknight sleepovers and everything! There are endless opportunities for authentic socializing outside of public school. Do I sound a tad defensive? Yes, I know I do. Maybe it’s because I have to defend our choice constantly.
1:00 - 4:00 pm - This is the time of day when we go to appointments, do chores and errands, do fun stuff, hang out, etc. If we are staying home, I am usually cleaning or cooking or working in the yard and Norah likes to call friends to do online gaming or hang out in her room just being a teen. If we go out, it might be shopping or hiking with friends, or down to the lake in good weather for paddle boards or reading books in the sun. I also use this time to write blog posts, work on my yoga schedule, update my website, and plan classes. Most of my private clients like the 1pm time slot for their sessions, so I may be in the studio in the afternoon. I also take care of accounting and bookkeeping for King Construction, so I might be doing that in the afternoon as well. It all depends on the day!
4:30 pm - I start cooking dinner. We eat early because we have busy evenings! We never eat out; I cook every night. Our meals are always gluten free, dairy free, soy free, and we do not eat anything heavily processed or pre-made, so our dinner is usually a protein (we buy beef from a local farm and chicken from a further away farm), a vegetable (usually something from my garden - fresh in the summer and canned in the winter), and a simple carb like a potato or rice. I’ve been eating this way, single-ingredient food, for over a decade now and my husband is used to it. I make almost everything from scratch, right down to our condiments, and I can't remember the last time a meal of ours didn’t include at least one ingredient that we grew ourselves; we get more and more food independent every year as I learn new skills, and I love it!

6:00 - 8:00 pm - Norah is at the dojo, I’m in the studio, David is in the garage or the office or driving Norah or any combination of these things depending on the evening. I am in the studio 30 minutes before class starts to shovel the steps, and turn on the lights, music, incense, or candles. Depending on the class I might be rearranging or setting out props. I stretch out quickly and try to squeeze in a quick grounding meditation for myself before students begin to arrive. I love my freaking job and always come home feeling happy after class. Sometimes after class I just hang out in the studio for a while, basking in the afterglow. Sometimes I have to pee so bad I can’t get out of there fast enough, ha!
The family gathers in the living room at the end of the day. We play with the dog, eat snacks, listen to music together, watch a movie, talk, work on a puzzle, whatever. David and I head upstairs around 9:30-10, and because Norah is a teenager now, she stays up later than us and does her evening routine after us old folks are already asleep! I don’t like television or phones in bed (it’s bad for you!!), and I don’t even charge my phone near me in bed, but I do put on sleep sounds and meditate in bed for a bit every night. I’m usually exhausted from the day and zonk out in no time.
And here’s my brutal self examination: I still struggle with guilt for not contributing to our finances as much as I used to. I’ve been conditioned to tie a big chunk of my self worth to a paycheck, and that is a hard thing to shake. I worry all the time that I have made the wrong decisions or that I’m going to look back with regret or that I’m screwing up my kid in some way. I don’t know what I’m going to do in a couple years when Norah heads off to college, and that is scary for me to think about. I feel judged when I tell people what I do for work and how we handle education; I get defensive. I acknowledge how lucky I am and the privileges I am afforded. I know that people are out there struggling and that I am relatively comfortable and safe right now. But I also have to remember that I worked really freaking hard for a long time in order to get here. I gave things up, I still do. My husband and I made hard choices when we were young that got us here now. I don’t have a nice new car, I don’t have nice new clothes, I don’t eat in restaurants, and I do everything as homemade and frugal as possible in order to have this be my day and this be my life. I had a dream that turned into a plan that turned into a reality because I made it so. And I am happy! That’s what matters most.
This life plan actually started on fateful evening at the Hopkinton State Fair many years ago…. But that’s a story for another blog. Do one thing today that leads to your dream life. Tomorrow, do two. And be happy.

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