DITL #1/7: Wednesday

Wednesdays are work days for me, but generally they are the least busy work days. In our practice, every provider gets 1/2 a day of “admin” weekly. I generally get something like 1/3 of a day instead of 1/2 because of my part-time schedule.

This used to always be a Friday thing, but our institution decided to change this. Initially I was . . . not thrilled, but I honestly don’t mind this time being on Wednesdays now. It’s usually in the afternoon but monthly it is in the morning because one day each month I staff our weight management program along with one of our dietitians.

TL;DR –> Wednesdays are a shorter clinical day for me as compared to Mondays and Fridays which are full patient days.

Anyway! HERE WE GO! I will try to stick to the present tense for consistency’s sake!

4:30: Alarm goes off, I get up

4:40: I have assembled coffee (with 10g collagen), water, vitamins (currently using Ritual, no affiliation I was just influenced by some podcast ad), and graham crackers (2 sheets). This plus book + various planners is my usual morning spread.

I do my journals from the day before (Experience journal and 5 Year — both quick) and read ~15 page of The Covenant of Water . The medical “punchline” has been revealed and I have to admit I was hoping for something even juicier. Ahh well. It’s still a great book. Then I set up my planner page for the day with various to-do items.

5:35: After 10 minutes of Headspace and failing at connections (@($*@#, I’m usually pretty good) I head out for my run. Today I am meeting my friend Jacy but also 3 others (3 guys, one younger than me and 2 that are 60+). We meet at 5:50 and I get to run ~5-6 mi with the group before heading back home.

7:03: I arrive home and help out a tiny bit with the kids’ breakfast including giving G Zyrtec for ongoing hives. Oh, and one random hiccup is that the entire town of Cooper City is on a boil water order because lightning struck some water processing structure and things may be contaminated. We got a few gallons of bottled water for drinking / tooth brushing / etc.

7:15: Thankfully the water is still deemed safe for bathing, so I shower and get dressed while listening to Up First. I get ready really quickly and put on my designer outfit. JK, they are FIGS scrubs. So glamourous.

7:30 I am dressed and out of the shower, and ready for LAUNCH. I remind (gently and then maybe not as gently) the kids every 2 minutes what time it is and start moving stuff towards the door (lunches, their shoes) so they know I mean it. We make it out at 7:50 which is ~10 minutes later than I prefer, but I know I have some flexibility so I don’t push tooooo hard. We play Taylor Swift in the car and arrive at school around 8:05. I also eat a Perfect bar during this commute (mobile breakfast). I walk G to her classroom. The 2 big kids go off on their own which is new, but fine with me!

8:10 I place my mobile Starbucks order and drive to work (thankfully, the kids’ school is more or less on my way).

8:32 I arrive at work, grab my Starbucks from the hospital lobby, and walk across the street to the outpatient building where I work.

8:40: I sit down and attack my inbox. I spend 10 minutes making an appointment for a patient’s peer-to-peer and decide that next time I am delegating that job (I don’t mind DOING the peer to peer of course, but I don’t need to be the one sitting on hold making the appt!). I call a bunch of patients and answer patient questions on our EMR. I handle a couple of things that I had been waiting for some less structured time to tackle — calls with a Haitian Creole interpreter, and some required compliance modules. I also pre-chart for my afternoon patients.

11:20: INBOX ZERO, baby!

I have about an hour before my first patient, so I eat lunch (frozen Amy’s broccoli & cheese pasta, baby carrots, apple) and write a blog post, attack my gmail inbox, do my Duolingo, and read a few blogs. I text Kae back because her post made me happy (we text frequently and have a 3-way chat with Coco too!).

12:30 Patients! Today I see a combination of weight management patients (we have a yearlong program that involves our dietitians and trainers, it’s new and pretty cool!) and regular patients. I finish with a family I’ve known for years and then a telehealth. Somewhere in there I eat some TJ’s honey wheat pretzels and a string cheese. It is a good clinical day and also not that busy compared to some. I finish up notes by 5:10 and then spend 10 minutes clearing garbage out of my car (needed to happen) before driving home!

5:50 Home!! Our cleaners came today (this happens every 2-3 weeks) so it’s particularly nice to walk in the door. Only A and G are home because our nanny (who is also G, but I will refer to her as MM as those are her actual initials) took C to soccer. I let G finish watching a few more minutes of Nicky Ricky Dicky & Dawn while heating up dinner (MM had prepped this on Monday — she basically made 3 dinners at once using modified PrepDish instructions) for the 3 of us.

It was a very pasta-heavy day, what can I say. I am embracing carbs anyway right now. This had ground turkey, chickpeas, kale, and mushrooms + parm on top — the original PrepDish version was vegetarian but I wanted to add a bit more protein.

G complained about the chickpeas but everyone else was fine with this.

6:30 I clean up from dinner, let the kids eat some candy (they are still slowly eating their Halloween candy, omg) and eat a leftover tahini cookie (yum). Then I asked G if she wanted to do piano with me vs A, and she chose A, so I sat on the couch and read for a bit.

7:00 Somewhere in there Josh got home and headed out for a run. After ~5ish minutes of piano (trust me – even this is a challenge) G was done and moved onto playing with some old craft stuff. These are her Simpsons character (the middle one DOES look like Milhouse and I think he inspired the rest!).

7:30 C gets home! I heat up his dinner and he gets in the shower. MM finishes up folding some laundry and heads out (I am actually not sure when she came, maybe 1ish?). Then Josh finishes up his run shortly after and eats dinner with C.

A asks me to do double French braids so I do. I am not sure what C was doing on his tablet here — maybe it was homework (?). Will report back.

7:50 I start the bedtime routine with G. Teeth / bathroom and then I lie down in her bed to read. We are currently reading the literary masterwork Diary of a Wimpy Kid: No Brainer, which is all about Greg Heffley’s middle school experience. It’s actually somewhat entertaining.

8:20 I end our reading session and lie with her for about 2 minutes. She puts on her sleep mask and goes to sleep. I check in with C & A and say goodnight. I talk to A for a bit as A she is starting to get ready for bed and doing skincare; C is watching a sports game on TV (Heat?) with Josh.

8:45 I do my own skincare (Fresh soy face wash / Alpha H Liquid Gold / Elemis Marine Cream <– okay I just looked up the price and am horrified, mine was part of a $26 Allure beauty box and seems like it is full size!?) / flossing / brushing teeth with bottled water (really hoping this boil water thing ends soon!). Take out contacts.

9:00 Lie down and read . . . for about 15 minutes . . .

9:15 Make sure alarm is set and go to sleep.

STATS:

pages read –> 30

screen time minutes –> 68 (very low for me, I am sure having to track my time helped me here!)

hours of sleep –> 7.25