A Day in the Life – May 3, 2009

I didn’t sleep last night, so woke up later than has become usual, around 9:30. That would have been early not long ago, but since we moved into our new apartment, I’ve been getting up probably around 8:30 on average. As my feet hit the floor as I was finally rolling out of bed, I heard my phone ringing in my office. So I went and answered it and it was Eric wanting to know if I wanted to do a bike ride, just a “short” one, up the mountain.

Part of me said, “You should stay home and get some work done.” But then another part of me said, “You know, you need the exercise, you lazy ass.” And I had really enjoyed the ride we’d done the day before. I felt like I’d found my pace pretty well finally, after having been riding again the past couple months after a long period of letting my bike collect dust.

So I said, “Sure, that sounds good.” And he said, “Okay, then,” and we set 10:30 as our departure time. So I got dressed, put some coffee on, and made a bowl of granola cereal and yogurt. As I was eating that, I checked my e-mail, checked Facebook, checked the Den, and then popped into the Google group of journalists and bloggers I’m a member of to see what people had to say for a bit.

By then, the coffee was done brewing, so I got a cup and returned to my computer. I looked at Google Analytics to see what yesterday’s traffic to FPJ looked like. Then I checked my AdSense account to see how much my ads had made. The total crept up past $100 last week, so I should be getting my second check from Google at the end of the month. Which is cool, because I just got my first check in March, so that pretty much means I’ve hit the goal I set back at the end of November or so to make $50 a month. Up until that time, I made maybe a couple bucks a month. So now I guess I’ll have to set a new goal. So I guess I’ll  say I want to make $100 a month.

I also took Leia up to the roof to do her thing somewhere in there. And then Eric rang, so I finished filling my bottles up with water, threw on my iPod and helmet, and headed down to the lane.

We headed up the mountain at a decent pace. I felt sluggish, but I’m sure I chugged up to the intersection at a much stronger pace than the last time we’d headed upwards. We cruised up to the “Beware of Monkey. No Feeding” sign and took a breather. Then we cruised on up to the 7-11 intersection, where we took the road that heads back down.

We got off the main road onto a lane that heads off rather vertically down the mountain valley, back down to meet up back down the road we had come up, in a big loop. It had taken us twenty minutes getting up, but it took about four getting back to the point where the lane met up with the main road again. But it’s a fun ride. It’s pretty steep in a few places, but in others it levels off with some nice turns and a little up and down, so you get flying pretty fast and cruise through. It gets the adreneline going.

Then we rolled back here, and Eric continued on down the lane. I got in feeling pretty good. I pushed it pretty hard and definately got a good workout, but I hadn’t exhausted myself so that the rest of the day I was just dragging myself through like I had done yesterday.

My initial thought was to sit down at my computer and get some work done. But I realized when I got in that the apartment was a bit messy. The floors needed mopping. Dishes needed doing. So I did the dishes, then got the vacuum out. I usually sweep the floors, but the last few times, it seems like after sweeping and mopping, it’s still so dusty and Leia’s hair is still everywhere. So I figured I’d vacuum, instead.

And so long as I had the vacuum out, the ledge of the board on the wall and the upper edge of the floorboard needed vacuuming. And the inside of the sliding windows needed done. And then I took the vacuum over the entire floor before mopping. This place is quite a bit bigger to mop than our last place, but it’s also more enjoyable to mop because it’s less working in around near spaces and more just attacking big open spaces, which reminded me as I was doing it of my days painting, and how I used to sometimes really enjoy rolling out walls. Cutting in edges and corners with a brush could be enjoyable at times, but I mostly considered it the brussel sprouts I had to choke down before I could have my desert.

When that was all done, I took the trash and recycling out before finally getting around to jumping in the shower after the ride. And I finally sat down at my computer, but I decided to write this post before doing what I’d had planned to get done today, which is, first, to do the final edit on the video of our trip to Boracay I’ve done and, second, to at least get a start filing my U.S. taxes, which aren’t late because I get a two month extension because of having a tax home overseas an being able to get the foreign earned income exclusion and all.

I also thought I need to work on collecting people’s addresses and other contact information and organize an address book on my computer because, well, it’s about time I actually had an address book that actually had a bunch of people’s addresses in it.

And that’s about where I am right now. Joanne is supposed to be home from class (she had a couple of privates today) in about an hour or so, and we’re going to go to Costco because Leia needs food and we figured last time we were there the food they have there is the best food for her at the lowest cost. And we could use more coffee beans soon. We’re still pretty stocked from our last trip, but some more chicken would be good, too.

So now I’m reluctant to get into my editing project, because I know I’m going to just be getting into it and making some headway and Joanne is going to get home and I’m going to have to put it down again for a while. And I really hate starting something like that and having to interupt it just when I’m beginning to get my groove on with it. I particularly hate that when I’m writing. It really breaks my stride, and when I return to it again later, it takes me another half an hour to get my thoughts back together in order to continue where I left off.

So that’s undoubtedly part of the reason I decided to write this post. The other part is because I thought it might be interesting to start doing “A Day in the Life” blog posts so people can have an idea of what goes on in my life.

That’s all for now. I guess I’ll get going on the video now.