My first day in the life past was way back in June and I’ve been meaning to do another for a while, but kept forgetting until last week. So without further ado, here’s a glimpse at what life was like for me on a pretty typical weekday last Thursday, November14.
5:45 Wha? What’s going on? Oh, it’s just Jose leaving for a super early telecon. I go back to sleep.
7:00 My alarm goes off and I struggle out of bed. For the last several days I’ve been fighting some kind of low level bug. The only real symptom is pronounced achiness, which goes away after a couple Advil. But every morning it’s back. Today I wake up all sweaty and clammy too. Lovely. I head into the bathroom to start getting ready.
7:30 I’m showered, dressed, and in the kitchen taking the afore-mentioned Advil. I can see from the monitor that Emma’s awake in her crib, but she’s content so I leave here there while I toast an English muffin for breakfast. Emma eats breakfast at daycare, and if she saw me with the muffin she would want food too, so it’s just easier to eat it before I get her up!
7:35 I head into Emma’s room to get her up and ready. I can never find any dang pants for her to wear! I don’t understand how this happens — I swear I have bought her DOZENS of pairs of pants. But she can never really wear them more than once since she always gets food or some other gunk on them, and I’m behind on doing laundry. I finally find a pair on top of my dresser. Whew.
7:50 I gather my stuff — backpack with laptop, purse, lunch bag — while Emma plays in the living room. It’s amazing how kids just bound right out of bed in the morning. I need some time to wake up, but Emma always hits the ground running.
7:55 We’re out the door and on our way to work and daycare. The daycare stops serving breakfast at 8:30, which is the big driver on when we need to have Emma there. Fortunately we’re leaving with plenty of time…except I’ll probably have to forego the Starbucks drive-through since the line has been crazy long over the last week for reasons unknown.
8:20 I drop Emma off at daycare where she immediately starts chowing down on a big hunk of banana. The building is crowded — turns out the older kids are going on some kind of field trip, so there are a bunch of parents hanging around to join them. It’ll be fun when Emma gets into the older rooms and gets to do that stuff too.
8:30 This week I’m supporting a TIM (technical interchange meeting) with the Russians that doesn’t start until 9:00 and is at a different facility a few blocks away from JSC. Since I have extra time, I go back to Starbucks for my caffeine fix. As I suspected, they are slammed. The drive-through line wraps around the building so I park and go inside…where I am at least 15th in line. Geez. Nonetheless, I stay, and just mess around on my phone until I finally reach the front of the line and can order my skinny peppermint mocha. I haven’t tried that one before. It’s not bad.
8:55 I arrive at my TIM, coffee in hand, and settle into my spot. The conference facility is booked solid this week, and this particular meeting ended up in a small room with limited seats at the table, which are taken up by the 7 visiting Russians, their 5 direct NASA counterparts, and 1 interpreter. I’m stuck in an uncomfortable plastic chair in the corner with my laptop on my knees. Woe is me.
9:00 The TIM begins for the day.
10:00 For the last hour, the Russian group’s lead, Yuri, has been talking about the “fast rendezvous” scheme that Soyuz and Progress spacecraft are now using to get to ISS. Yuri is probably around 65 years old and has spent his whole career working in the Russian space program. He has no charts, no presentation materials. He’s just talking off the top of his head about the entire back story of how the new scheme came to be. He also says things like “in 1987 when I designed the new rendezvous guidance scheme…” I love him.
10:45 We take a break. I have a pounding headache that doesn’t seem to have been affected by the Advil I took this morning. I’m so tired of feeling crappy.
11:00 The TIM continues. The Russians are providing a review of all of the Soyuz and Progress flights that have occurred since our last TIM in early 2012. There are lots of good things to talk about, like the fast rendezvous I already mentioned and some avionics testing that will be done on the next Progress flight at the end of this month.
11:45 I check in on Emma via the video app on my phone. They just finished lunch and it’s nap time, but she’s standing up in her crib (on the lower right of the screenshot above). On the weekends when we put her down for naptime, she always cries, so at least she doesn’t do that at daycare.
12:00 Lunch time! I brought a repackage My Fit Foods meal; I’ve been eating these a couple times a week lately and they are pretty tasty. They’re fresh, not frozen, and they’re kind of expensive…but certainly healthier than what I’d eat if I went out. Instead of going back on-site to my desk, I just camp out at a table in the common area of the conference center and get some work done for the other parts of my job.
1:30 Lunch is long because the Russians go back to their hotel and cook, but it was nice to not be rushed for a change. I got caught up on email and worked on a few other things, but now I’m back in the TIM room…and yet the main players aren’t here yet. Since we had 1.5 hours, I’m confused. But whatever, I busy myself with other tasks.
1:50 Everyone is finally back, and we get started again.
3:05 We’re taking a short break. One of the Russians is showing some photos from a trekking trip he took in the Himalayas. It’s making me SO nostalgic for some of the cool hiking trips I’ve done in the past. It’s been many years since I did anything like that. Why?
3:10 And it’s back to the TIM. Now we’re talking about the Progress 51P flight back in April, when the vehicle docked despite worries about a stuck antenna.
5:00 Whew. The TIM is done for the day — but this is only day 2 of an 8 day meeting. Being in an all day meeting combined with being off-site always makes me feel discombobulated, so I’m glad to be done for now. I do have to go back to JSC though since daycare is onsite and I’ve got Emma pick-up duty.
5:10 When I arrive, she’s being pushed around with several other kids in the “bye-bye buggy”, essentially a giant stroller that can carry 6 kids. The guy pushing them apparently calls it “peace buggy,” since even if they’re all going crazy in the classroom, they calm down as soon as they go for a ride. One day I walked in to pick Emma up and she was crying because they had just taken her OUT of the buggy. Point is, they love that thing! Emma is excited to put on her sweatshirt before we got outside — for some reason, putting it on is one of her favorite activities lately, even though today is only like the third day it’s actually been chilly enough to justify it.
5:25 I’m stuck in traffic on the bypass as per usual. I will never understand why, when they built this thing 4 years ago, they didn’t add ramps to and from I-45 south. There are ramps to/from the north but to go south, you have to exit the bypass, go under I-45, and then get on the highway. So unless I leave work by 4:30 — which isn’t usually the case — I always get stuck in stupid bypass traffic. It doesn’t take too long to get through, but it is just really annoying. But at least the sunset is nice tonight…
5:45 Home at last. Jose already has baked potatoes in the oven for dinner, and immediately starts talking about broken thermostats. The unit that heats and cools our main living areas isn’t responding to the thermostat. This has been an intermittent problem for a while but we haven’t had time to figure it out, and the weather’s been mild enough that it hasn’t really mattered. Jose goes outside to check for any tripped circuit breakers, but there are none. I dig out the user manual for the thermostat…and start thinking that maybe this is an excuse to get a Nest thermostat?
6:20 Jose’s still doing stuff with the thermostats. He swapped the one downstairs with the one upstairs, but the downstairs unit still isn’t responding which means the problem is something different. Joy. While he’s doing that, I’m hanging out in Emma’s room as she plays.
6:45 Time for dinner! Emma races to the table at the mere mention of “eat.” We top the baked potatoes with chicken and cheese and dig in. Emma eats plenty but also ends up throwing several pieces on the floor which is her usual process these days. I don’t know how to get her to stop, so I’m just hoping she grows out of it soon.
7:10 Dinner’s over, which means plenty of cleanup since Emma is not exactly a neat eater. Jose hangs out with her in the living room while I clean the table AND floor, and put the dishes away.
7:45 The bedtime routine begins — I change Emma into a nighttime diaper, put on her jammies, then tell her it’s time to brush her teeth. This gets her on her feet and speed-walking to the bathroom, where she pulls up on the counter. I make a mental note (for the umpteenth time) to find some sort of step stool that she can use, instead of me lifting her up to sit on the counter. After teeth brushing, we go out into the living room to say good night to Jose, and then it’s back to her room to read 2 books. Her current favorite is The Going To Bed Book — she likes to point at each animal, and the moon in the sky on the last page.
8:00 Emma’s in bed and I’m parked on the couch. The evenings feel so hectic, and tonight wasn’t even bath night, which made things a little easier. I’m ready to just relax, so I pick up the cross stitch stocking and pull up last night’s episode of Survivor on the Tivo.
9:10 I’m still on the couch and have moved on to last Sunday’s Amazing Race. Jose made me some decaf coffee with pumpkin spice creamer, which has been an evening ritual for several weeks now.
9:15 I pause the TV while Jose calls his mom. Still cross stitching.
9:35 Back to Amazing Race. This girl Marie with pink hair is CRAY. ZEE.
10:40 Well, I’ve now spent almost 3 hours straight doing nothing but cross stitching and watching TV. I’d planned to do a few other things tonight, like get a bunch of excess stuff ready for the Goodwill run I’m planning to make this weekend, but oh well. Sometimes you just need a good night of doing nothing, you know?
10:55 I climb into bed and pick up The Night Circus, this month’s book club selection. I’m about 1/4 of the way through and I like it so far, although I have a ton of questions about what’s actually happening.
11:15 I’m falling asleep while reading. Good night!
