Jaime

I started my morning at the gym, where I brought my laptop to get work done. I’m graduating from graduate school in the spring, so I’ve been sending out a lot of applications for fellowships and jobs for next year. Writing artistic statements makes time on the elliptical go by faster, and being on the elliptical while I write helps get my brain working in the early morning.

Afterwards, I showered, got dressed, and made myself breakfast and coffee. Our Nespresso machine is broken, so I’ve been making my coffee in a mocha pot, which takes a bit more time. Still, I took the time to make some pumpkin cold foam to top off my iced latte— I love making “fancy” coffee drinks at home. I also made eggs and toast, which I have almost every morning. I work as a teaching assistant, so I graded my students’ homework while I ate my breakfast.

Next, I tried to start my writing for the day. I’ve been getting more easily distracted lately, and my fiancé was doing the dishes, so I moved my keyboard out of our kitchen/living room and into the office. By the time I finished moving my keyboard, it was time for my first meeting of the day with a colleague from school. We FaceTimed as I played her some music on the piano (I write musical theatre), and we made a game plan for when we would meet again (tomorrow). That’s how we end most of our meetings, by scheduling a meeting for the next day or the day after that— we’re collaborating on a project that demands constant communication, so I rarely go more than 24 hours without speaking with her.

After we ended the call, I started working on a song I’ve been a little stuck on (I write musical theatre), and went over the same thirty seconds of music over and over. I got hungry early so I had an early lunch (chicken sandwich and pita), and ate it while reading a libretto my colleague sent me that morning.

I got back to writing after lunch, but worked on a different song. Still feeling very stuck. I’m prone to overworking myself, so I have a general time cap that I try to give myself. Today, I decide not to follow it and go over my time limit. It’s okay though, because in that extra time I finally made some progress.

I took a break to chat with my fiancé about wedding planning - we’re getting married next year and have our first meeting with the wedding planner tomorrow. We debated over if we want to get a hotel block (something that has seemed to go out of style with AirBnb), talked about setting up a honeymoon fund instead of a registry, and planned what questions we needed to ask our planner. While we chatted, my fiancé ate a scallion pancake and dumplings from Trader Joe’s. I took a few bites of her scallion pancake.
After, I snuck a little extra writing in before my final meeting of the day. It was nice and short— truly no longer than 15 minutes, so I got even more writing in before dinner (so much for trying to cap my time).
My fiancé made salmon with pineapple and couscous, which we ate together while we chatted about the concert she was going to that night - Maggie Rogers. We finished eating, and we drove to Center City to pick up a family friend and my sister, and I dropped them all off at the concert.
On the way home I stopped for gas. The machine wouldn’t take my credit card, and after the third time I thought I was gonna have to go inside to pay— which in my eleven years of driving, I’ve never had to do, and am absolutely terrified of for some reason. But I tried my card a fourth time, and it finally worked. I stopped at CVS for a couple extra groceries (my fiancé and I’s shared grocery list had an issue syncing with the cloud, so I still needed chocolate chips and milk for the pumpkin muffins I wanted to make that night). Of course, I got home, and realized that the pumpkin puree also had not synced with the rest of the grocery list, so with almost all my ingredients mixed, I had to put them in containers to save for the next day. Driving to the concert had stressed me out more than I thought it would, and I couldn’t fathom leaving the house just for some pumpkin puree. It was around then that I realized I would not be able to take a photo of my pumpkin muffins, which I had hoped I could include in my journal entry for today.

I may have to settle for a photo of whatever I end up eating as my bedtime snack tonight— we’ll see if I remember to take a picture!
Update: I made a mug cake with Oreos, but once again, forgot to take a picture.