Week of Money: Where I dream about making over my home

DAY ONE

6:06 a.m. — I log in and start working. I am starting earlier so I can do direct calls with teams instead of emailing back and forth.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time. The day passed by in a blur. I have a To Do list with 50 little tasks. All of them are not that long but it adds up.

6:40 p.m. — I log off for the day

5:12 p.m. — We are browsing different looks for rooms and I am thinking about what I’d like to do in mine. It seems like my style is very Scandinavian meets Mid-Century Modern with some splashes of colour. Very clean, nothing fussy… and practical.

Some ideas:

7:45 p.m. — I see this post from Abra Belke. Don’t mess with wild animals, is all I can say.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $

DAY TWO

6:08 a.m. — I log in and start working. Then I get this text which is obviously a scam. NO PARKING TICKET is EVER texted to you to pay. Never in my life. But I suppose people who are afraid of being in trouble would click on this link, and immediately be hacked.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:00 p.m. — This is really an awful ad. From the past, women were being shamed for their own bodies, naturally made. I guess it is a human practice as old as time.

It says on the first line – Just as I have known the horror and humiliation of having a flat chest, with a look of a woman but on a body of a man! ….

A man wrote this for sure. 100% written by an ad man.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

6:25 p.m. — Little Bun tells me he is scared of ghosts and hates sleeping by the bathroom door. As the room is small it is the only place he can go. Really, he just wants to sleep beside me and snuggle in between us. To break him of his, I get him to set up his Stuffie with a “candle” (yellow block) and a “sword” out of a paper towel roll, to fight any ghosts that come in at night in the dark.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY THREE

7:30 a.m. — I log in and start working.

8:08 a.m. — I decide to take Little Bun out for an impromptu break in the morning. We walk around the neighbourhood and see this super cute installation. It says to take a paper bird (a paper crane), and tie it to a tree, and make a wish!

How lovely is it!?

12:22 p.m. — We end the day with staring up at the sky, underneath the shade of a tree.

12:01 p.m. — At home, he goes down for a short rest in the bedroom while I log in and work.

5:12 p.m. — I do all the dishes, and wipe them all to put them away. What I think gives me anxiety is looking at these dried dishes out on the counter in the morning and not being able to put them away (makes noise and wakes my partner). So I think it’s better if I dry as much as I can at night, put it away, and only leave the things out (like lids) that have to air dry overnight because it would take too long to wipe up all the drops.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

DAY FOUR

??:?? — I wake up before everyone and come out to start my day. I cannot oversleep.

??:?? — Everyone wakes up a few minutes after me and I run to Little Bun and snuggle hug him in the hallway, showering him with kisses.

6:15 a.m. — I start answering emails while in meetings. If I don’t do this, I will never make it.

8:47 a.m. — I am reminiscing back to when I was a kid and I got glasses for the first time after not being able to see for the better part of the year.

My father did not want to spend the money (he had it, but he was more focused on gambling it rather than buying things for the family) and thought I was able to “work through” the eye muscles to cure my sight naturally (look, if he and my mother were not able to “cure” their own eyesight by not wearing glasses, what makes you think a child can, but I digress), and I went for most of the school year without them.

The day I finally got glasses, I wanted to cry. Everything was so sharp. I could read signs, everything wasn’t a big blur and it was CLEAR.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

1:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom.

3:40 p.m. — Time for a short break. I make a tea with extra milk today.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

8:54 p.m. — Little Bun suggests we stretch a little first. So we do some yoga with the Stuffies. He leads the ‘class’ saying: “Stretch high up into the sky! STRETCH! Grow!!!” … He’s mimicking what I say when I lead the yoga sessions, and it’s kind of cute.

Spent: $0

DAY FIVE

5:50 a.m. — I start working for the day. I have to mail things in, so I block off some time in the morning and inform everyone as a courtesy. They do the same as well, which is the nice thing about working from home as people can run personal errands during the day.

8:08 a.m. — I have meetings back to back all morning. Little Bun is working on his workbook in the bedroom, singing a made up song off key as he is flipping through the pages (it’s actually kind of cute), and only asks me to explain the word “clause”, which I redirect him to looking up in the dictionary, and it turns out to mean “section”.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time, as I watch an extremely interesting documentary (free on CBC for Canadians here but you can watch it on Netflix I believe). The whole documentary is about gig workers – the ones who deliver food, run errands, do small tasks, and how their lives are affected by this way of working or being treated. A really great watch.

12:22 p.m. — Lunch time.

12:55 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom.

5:12 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery as usual, then he goes and folds all the towels. Then he begs for some Mr. Bean videos with my partner, and they both laugh like hyenas, so I retreat to the bedroom to read.

6:30 p.m. — My partner goes to lie down, he has been getting headaches on and off since the vaccine, so he goes to rest, and Little Bun runs in after him. Turns out, he hasn’t finished all of his pages either!! So he sits there working as my partner is lying down, listening to French radio.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine after I ask him if he wants me to check his pages today (“No, tomorrow”), we play our Wordle round AND LITTLE BUN IS THE ONE WHO GETS THE WORD! It was “RHYME”, and then we go to bed. In bed, he asks me to name vegetables we love. I start with zucchini, but specify it has to be grilled. He tells me he likes cauliflower.

Spent: $0

DAY SIX

??:?? — I wake up to Little Bun snuggling me. I whisper to him the week is going so slow, it has been a lot! He tells me forlornly that he feels the same (it took him forever to do Workbook pages last night). I tell him it will be a new day today!

5:55 a.m. — I log in and just sit there, watching videos and blog.

7:30 a.m. — I log off and start working.

8:08 a.m. — My partner tells me a dream (nightmare?) he had. He told me he was at the office working (strike one, he’s early retired on Lean FIRE lol), and then he was working, but then he looked down and thought he had normal wool grey trousers on, but then looked again and realized he was in SWEATPANTS AT THE OFFICE.

But he hastily clarified that they were sweatpants that were NOT the ratty kind that looked like sweatpants, but the more elegant style that is a work athleisure cross where they look like trousers but they’re secretly very comfortable. I told him this was the French-est dream I have ever heard in my life, as only French people could be horrified wearing elegant sweatpants to the office as they apparently all normally all dress in suits WITH A TIE to the office. A TIE.

12:10 p.m. — Lunch time. I eat some mashed potatoes and Little Bun asks to share them with me. Of course! We crush up rosemary, and sprinkle oregano on, and we eat together. He asks shyly if he can share my own bowl of food. He really likes eating with me, where I feed him a spoonful, eat a spoonful, then feed him another. I think he feels more connected when we share from the same bowl rather than when he gets his own. He also really likes mashed potatoes and I think he gets more of them this way.

12:57 p.m. — Down for his Quiet Time / Nap. I am on a call.

2:51 p.m. — Up from his nap, he bounces out of the bedroom but quietly because he stops and sees my partner is in class and I am on a call. On calls, I like to bead because it lets me do something and still pay attention to what is going on – it keeps me creative and happy, and keeps my hands busy at the same time because on calls, I sometimes can’t work at all as I need to concentrate on the content, so beading is the best option.

3:40 p.m. — Little Bun is coming up with games with his Stuffies (kids really don’t need a lot of toys, this is proof), and with a few blocks and imagination, he creates a whole event and world for them. Sometimes I will even hear him run off to play by himself in the bedroom, with his imagination, coming up with stories and games.

5:25 p.m. — We are back in the bedroom this time, reading books and doing the next book in the Stuffie Series. He loves made up stories and fantasies but it can be exhausting as the parent to come up with it all the time, so I encourage him to join in with the creativity.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine, and then we go to bed. Little Bun whispers: “Mommy, tomorrow there’s a feast! Daddy is making it. There’s yummy avocado just like you like, and lemonade“. I whisper back: Excellent, now time for bed.

Spent: $0

DAY SEVEN

??:?? — I wake up when my body no longer can sleep, I have to start sticking to a real schedule or else I won’t feel rested.

6:32 a.m. — I log in and start blogging. Lots of emails and messages to clear out, and things “TO DO”.

9:45 a.m. — I take a break to make scallion pancakes for the first time with Little Bun. Turned out surprisingly easy, and they were fresh and chewy afterwards. I had no scallions so I took the insides of the garlic cloves I chopped up, and used basil.

12:01 p.m. — Lunch time, we eat all the pancakes after they are fried.

3:40 p.m. — I am watching a new show called Outlaws. I liked it but then it was too sad for me. Too real. Not witty/funny enough to keep me interested.

5:47 p.m. — Dinner, dishes and laundry. Little Bun is wiping down cutlery.

6:05 p.m. — We head into the bedroom to play in the closet as I puzzle out different things to do with what I have created. I also try to move into other creative spheres but right now I am just 100% focused on beading because it’s quite repetitive and soothing. In the closet, I like to play music and arrange items together of how I think they should go. Definitely will need an artsy creative room of some sort where I can lay everything out and leave it all out to work on, rather than having to constantly shove things aside and put things away.

7:31 p.m. — We read our books together. I have the Stuffies participate in every story, as a way to quiz him on whether he knows what words like “predecessor” means.

We come across an article about the 52hz whale that is the loneliest whale in the world in the book we are reading about the ocean, as other whales cannot communicate at such a high-pitched level (they only go up to 50hz).

Some think that maybe the whale is deaf, and I seize the opportunity to talk about deaf people, their world, and what we have as hearing people.

We watch a video about how a deaf person sounds when they speak, and I explain to him that as she was not born hearing, she doesn’t know how to pronounce the words, use the nose, air, mouth palate, and tongue to create the words as hearing people know them to be.

Her tones are flat because she has never heard them!

I can see it click in Little Bun’s head, somewhat. I also bring up an example of how when he was smaller (even now), if he doesn’t pronounce the word very carefully, or my brain isn’t attuned to the context, I do not know what he is saying and make him spell out the word for me. He sort of gets it.

It’s nice to have opportunities to branch off into other areas of life, based on what we read, and I think that’s what I love best about reading with him at night.

8:54 p.m. — Bedtime routine of double tucking him in, checking to make sure his Stuffies and a new “baby: (it’s a big soft cuddly pillow to snuggle) is tucked in beside him, and then we go to bed.

Spent: $0

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Want more? Read all of my previous Week of Money Diaries.