Day in the Life of an Imperfect Eco-Mom | Mid-January

This post is part of the Day in the Life Series.

While I wax poetic about sustainable living and share all sorts of tips and ideas to include in your own life, I know that sometimes it’s helpful to see it in real life. What does sustainable living actually look like?

My days aren’t always the same, but here’s a peak into one day this week. Today happened to be a day when the boys were at school and my husband was traveling for work, so I had a lot of time home by myself. During these rare days when I’m home alone, I tend to focus on creating content for the blog and social media because it doesn’t get interrupted by curious bystanders.

Along the way, you’ll see a bunch of the small, eco-friendly tidbits of my day. Without further ado, here is a day in the life of my imperfect, eco-friendly life with kids.

7:08 a.m. – I woke up, checked a few text messages, and crawled out of bed. I’m not really a morning person.

7:15 a.m. – I’ve been trying to stretch or do a bit of yoga in the morning. Before the boys woke up, I did 10 minutes of yoga in our living room. Sometimes I really feel like I’m getting old…

7:30 a.m. – I got dressed and started to get ready for the day.

7:35 a.m. – I spent a few minutes cleaning up the counter in our front room. It was quite a mess. I put things away, separated a few things that belonged in our donation pile, and put the last remnants of holiday decor away.

7:48 a.m. – I woke up my younger son. My older son was already awake. I made breakfast sandwiches for them with egg and sausage on a bagel, one of their favorites.

8:05 a.m. – While the boys got ready for school, I looked through the fridge to make a plan for dinner. I cleaned out and organized a few things, including cutting up some overripe strawberries to put in the freezer for smoothies before they got moldy.

8:10 a.m. – I put a load of laundry in the washer, the first of several loads of laundry I did that day. Because we have time-of-use rates for our electricity, energy is much more expensive in the afternoon. So I try to start laundry early and finish it before the 2:00 p.m. peak rates kick in. The peak rates are much more expensive than our rates for the rest of the day.

8:31 a.m. – I made lunch for my older son. He took a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, homemade dried apple chips, raisins, and some Goldfish.

8:38 a.m. – I noticed we had several end pieces from loaves of bread in the back of our cabinet. One piece was moldy, so I threw it in our WasteWell compost bucket. The others were still in good shape despite being a little stale, so I put them all in a bag in the freezer to save for homemade bread crumbs. I tend to create our grocery list throughout the week as I realize what we need, so I added bread to our grocery list now that all of the remaining pieces were in the freezer.

8:50 a.m. – I drove the boys to school and listened to my current audiobook, The Future Is Analog by David Sax, on the way home.

9:11 a.m. – Just after getting home from dropping the boys off at school, I pulled the clean clothes out of the washer. I separated those that I planned to dry on our rotary line dryer outside and those I dried in our dryer. In order to keep the laundry process moving quickly, I put a new load of laundry in the washer before taking the wet clothes out to hang them up.

9:20 a.m. – I put on a bit of makeup for the day.

9:35 a.m. – We received our Misfits Market box, so I grabbed it from the front porch and put everything away.

9:45 a.m. – I typically eat breakfast earlier, but it got away from me today. I finally sat down and had yogurt for breakfast. I love the Painterland Sisters yogurt. Painterland Sisters is a regenerative dairy farm in Pennsylvania, and you better believe I’m always pumped to support local farmers. While I was eating, I made a few notes in my Remarkable for this post.

10:05 a.m. – I switched another load of laundry to keep things moving while listening to my audiobook on Libro.fm.

10:15 a.m. – I took the rest of the clothes outside to hang them on our rotary line dryer. Particularly in the winter, I don’t dry everything outside. I often only dry the larger items that take a long time in our dryer.

10:35 a.m. – I spent a few minutes cleaning up the kitchen, tearing up cardboard for our compost, and taking the Misfits box out to our recycling bin.

10:47 a.m. – I got the mail and was happy to find Mootsh photos in the mailbox. I hung them up, replacing the photo display where we previously had holiday cards.

11:09 a.m. – I prepped for a podcast interview and then recorded the interview with the podcast host. I’ll be sure to let you know when it goes live!

12:10 p.m. – I posted a few things on Instagram, responded to some comments, and made a few notes about ideas for future posts.

12:32 p.m. – After finding out that Madonna is doing a world tour, I scrolled through Madonna’s greatest hits on Spotify and added a few songs to my playlist. I’m not much of a concertgoer, but there’s something about the Madonna concert that intrigued me. After listening to a bunch of her songs on Spotify, I’ll see how I feel about the concert in a couple of weeks.

12:35 p.m. – I transferred another load of laundry and hung a few more things on the line outside. I needed to get one more load of laundry washed before the 2:00 p.m. “deadline.”

12:55 p.m. – I finally sat down to work for a bit. I created a handful of video and image content to prepare for some upcoming social media and blog posts.

1:25 p.m. – I had a quick bowl of cereal for lunch.

1:30 p.m. – I took a few photos for an upcoming post, cleaned up our kitchen a bit more, and took the last load of laundry out of the dryer to fold later in the day.

1:39 p.m. – I was still hungry, so I made a salad for lunch. While I ate the salad, I read The Persuaders by Anand Giridharadas, my current book.

2:37 p.m. – I sat down at my computer to review and edit a few pieces from contributing writers for the blog.

4:20 p.m. – My boys got home from school, and I drove my older son to his friend’s house to hang out for a bit. I stopped at the library on the way home to return a book and pick up a new one that was on hold for me.

5:05 p.m. – I took all of the clothes off the drying line outside, cleaned up the house a bit, and started to prepare dinner. Why does my kitchen always feel messy???

5:46 p.m. – In need of a snack, I grabbed some cheese and crackers while I made some notes about this post. Although I had started getting dinner ready, I knew we wouldn’t be eating for another couple of hours.

6:28 p.m. – I drove to pick up my older son from his friend’s house and snuck in a few more minutes of my audiobook on the way over.

6:50 p.m. – I made dinner and also put a load of towels in the washer. Our towels take quite a while to dry, and we don’t really like how they feel when we line-dry them. To avoid those peak energy rates, I tend to wash towels in the evening and run them through the dryer late at night.

7:20 p.m. – We sat down to eat dinner together. We had pasta with Fra Diavlo sauce and apple and orange slices. It was nothing fancy, but I’m always a fan of family dinners.

7:55 p.m. – While the boys played somebody video games, I edited a few photos and videos from the day and organized the content for the upcoming blog post on my phone.

8:17 p.m. – I made protein milkshakes for the boys, and my husband arrived home from his work trip.

8:35 p.m. – I sorted the laundry by each member of our family. This always seems to make the folding process a bit easier and helps us delegate folding to the boys. Although it’s not an issue in the summer, in the winter, I sometimes have to put a few of the clothes we dried outside into the dryer for 3 to 5 minutes to finish the job. So I added a handful of items to the dryer while I was sorting clothes.

8:50 p.m. – I folded my clothes and put the last load of towels into the dryer. The boys usually fold their own clothes, so I left them in their respective buckets to fold the next day. If they don’t care about their clothes being wrinkly, then neither do I.

9:05 p.m. – I put the boys to bed.

9:15 p.m. – I washed my face, brushed my teeth, and got ready for bed.

9:25 p.m. – My husband and I sat down to watch one episode of The Mindy Project.

10:04 p.m. – I plugged in our Tesla so it could charge overnight. The battery was pretty low. We use the Tesla app to schedule the car to start charging at midnight (even if it’s plugged in before then). From midnight to 6 am, our time of use rates are the lowest. Charging during the middle of the night helps to minimize the cost to charge the car and uses energy when the electricity grid has the lowest demand (good for our budget and the planet!).

10:10 p.m. – Time for bed. Goodnight!