In any case…For many people, the year starts with a lot of vim and vigor and then around now reality starts to set in. Various surveys find that a lot of people have abandoned their goals and resolutions by now (if not earlier).

There are reasons for this. Sometimes goals just aren’t that appealing. Sometimes they’re vague. Sometimes they’re not compatible with life as it is. It may work to exercise for an hour a day on a normal workday when nothing goes wrong, but not on a snow day when several family members have the flu…which is just as much life as any other day (and is probably more likely to happen in January than other times).

I have learned not to set unrealistic goals like that for precisely this reason. But, with the first month of 2025 over, I can report that my (more realistic) goals seem to be going fairly well.

I have listened to the first 33 days of the Complete Beethoven calendar (with a bonus listen to his 8th and 9th symphonies in Boston). I am not sure if I set this as an “official” goal, but I’m also reading through Anna Karenina, one chapter at a time. I have read 33 chapters. I continue to write 2 lines a day in my sonnets. I wrote one called “For the birds” with a nod at the Eagles that I might share later this week.

My “healthy living” goal was to eat produce for breakfast every morning. I can report that I have done this 33 days in a row. A lot of times this has been apple slices, so I’ve needed to make sure we have apples in the house at all times. Some mornings I’ve just grabbed a few carrot sticks to munch while I’m making my eggs. At my hotel in Boston I had a lot of cantaloupe from the buffet. One morning I had avocados, and another morning I had a full mushroom omelette… but it tends to be apples.

I set a goal to go to three professional sports events: A Sixers game, an Eagles Game, and a Phillies game. I thought this would take me to fall to complete, but thanks to the Eagles’ post-season run, I have now been to three events (one Sixers, two Eagles, but not the Phillies yet of course). So this goal is mostly done and I’m sure I’ll be able to get to a baseball game this summer.

As another fun goal, I planned to buy some more dollhouse furniture for my miniature scenes in my office. I ordered some from a place in Australia before Christmas, but this has yet to arrive, so I’m fearing that may have gone missing in the vagaries of international shipping. But I got a tip about a place called Flip This Dollhouse in New Bedford, MA, so I might need to make a road trip there (and maybe tack on some Moby Dick tourism too with the area?)

On the professional front, my major goal is to finish Big Time (my next book). My deadline is April 1 and I can see the finish line. I’ve basically collected everything I need to collect for the book itself, so now it’s a matter of piecing things together. I found the fascinating tale of a Soviet scientist who tracked his time for 56 years so…that’s going to get a mention. I also added up my hours spent on various things in 2024. It was eye opening, even for me. I’ll write more on that later, but one major insight is that I don’t think I’m working enough, and I worry I’m not going to find stories like that Soviet scientist precisely because my days are fragmented but…we shall see. The good news is, unlike with my first book, I’m now regularly emailing 50,000 people and many of them have ideas, and have come across things of interest, so there is some leverage. Wish me luck on finishing…

Finally, I set a goal to do one extra strength training session each week beyond the one I do with my trainer. I’ve been doing this by combining it with my treadmill workouts (how I tend to run when there’s snow outside).

Anyway, I’m sure life will intervene in various ways, so we’ll see how this all goes. But at least the resolutions are good through January. I’m enjoying all these resolutions enough that it doesn’t feel too onerous to stick with them.

How are your resolutions, one month in?

Anyway, I worked until 5:30 p.m. yesterday, then worked on my puzzle for 30 minutes, serenaded by the 15-year-old’s alto sax lesson. B left at 6 p.m., so I went and hung out with the 5-year-old while he played Roblox. The lesson ended at 6:30, and then I got the kids organized and took 4/5ths of them (minus the 17-year-old) out to Olive Garden to celebrate the 10-year-old’s birthday. This was about a 15 minute drive. We ate from 7-8:15 (it took me a while to figure out that we were supposed to pay at the little tablet at the table; what can I say, it’s been a while since I’ve been to an Olive Garden! But the kids could all get something they liked and my salad and pasta were just fine so yay). Then I drove them all home, arriving 8:30 p.m.

This is normally “in room with no devices” time. But since we had been out to dinner so long I allowed everyone extra time. The 10-year-old called his video gaming friend in CA, and they played together for a bit. I had to help the 17-year-old print something for a competition in a very exact way. Eventually I got the 5-year-old to go to his room, and I read him a story (Bear Snores On) and sat with him until he conked out (at which point he snored on…). I got the 10-year-old into his bed. It was an exciting night because we changed from our old goodnight ritual, which involved 9 quick hugs, 9 quick kisses, a bonus hug, and a bonus kiss. Now we are up to 10! I think we started this when he was 6 or 7. So that was cute…and then I remembered the trash.

This is a Wednesday night thing, and is normally my husband’s chore, but he was gone, so I got the 15-year-old and the two of us dragged three trash cans and two recycling bins (“comingled” week) down to the curb. It was very very cold, but it was nice to have company. I made it back in around 10:15 p.m., worked on the puzzle for 30 minutes and finished (see photo), then got ready for bed 10:45. I was in my bed 11/11:10 and asleep as soon as I hit the pillow.

I woke up at 4:30 but managed to get back to sleep. So then I was up with the alarm at 6:40. I got the 13-year-old up, took my shower, and got her in the van and down to the bus stop. 19 degrees! I came back, woke up the 15-year-old, ate, chatted with B when she showed up, then worked for about 15-20 minutes until it was time to drive the 15-year-old to school. Normally the 17-year-old does this, but he has a “free” first period on “A” days – the upshot is that he goes in an hour later every fourth day. Meaning his brother has to get to school in some other fashion. Since he had to take his alto sax back to school today, I agreed to drive him. We left at 8, and I made it back at 8:22. I got the 17-year-old up and worked in my husband’s office because the cleaners were here doing mine.

I worked straight through from 8:30-12:30, more or less. One fun hour of this was spent looking back through my entire 2024 logs for something I’m writing. The one interruption was a call to the pediatrician’s office (they never did call me back yesterday) to the nurse’s line. I left a message for them with a live person this time and a promise that I would be called back.

I practiced choir music from 12:30-1. My church choir is singing Howells’ An English Mass and it is a beast. I do like Howells, so I guess I’ll be spending a lot of time with him! (A note: I would like “Take Him Earth, for Cherishing” sung at my funeral, maybe with some language changes to “her,” but it needs to be sung well, so likely with a small professional chamber choir). I did some more work from 1-2 (with a small interruption to talk to the nurse- booking a visit for my kid for tomorrow, and heat up leftovers in the microwave; I ate at my desk), then did a Before Breakfast podcast interview from 2-2:30. I was really glad this one happened because it had been rescheduled from last week when this person was evacuated from her house in Los Angeles. Very scary – she and her family are back and all right. I dealt with the sound files from 2:30-2:45, then put on my exercise clothes.

I did my combo treadmill/strength workout upstairs. This involves running 2 miles on the treadmill in 4-5 minute spurts, and then doing various strength/resistance exercises in the interludes. It’s less boring than trying to run miles on a treadmill. Also, I listened to Kathleen Paley’s Minimalish Mom podcast episode on travel points hacking. At 3:25 p.m. I changed and freshened up, then chatted with B and the 5-year-old, who were in the kitchen. At 3:45 I went to my office with the intention of working, but B went to go get the 10-year-old from the bus stop, so the 5-year-old wound up with me, and so we hung out for a little bit. She was back in a few minutes and they went up to do Legos, and so I decided to post this before getting back to figuring out what people will want to know about how I spent the 8784 hours of 2024. (Normally a year has 8760 hours, but it was a leap year.) I spent more than one of those 8784 hours waiting in line for the Haunted Mansion at Disney. Good times.

I hope your time tracking is going well! Here’s the past day in log form.

Wednesday

5 pm work
5:30 puzzle
6 hangout H/video, check S
6:30 kids ready, to Olive Garden
7 Olive Garden/A’s b-day
7:30 Olive Garden/A’s b-day
8 Olive Garden, home
8:30 kids, J printing, etc.
9 kids, H ready, stories, out
9:30 A down, kids, trash!!
10 trash (S), puzzle
10:30 puzzle, ready bed
11 in bed/sleep

Thursday

4:30 up, bathroom, sleep

6:30 6:40 up, R, shower
7 get R’s stuff, van, S
7:30 b-fast, B chat, work
8 drive S, home
8:30 work (some boys)
9 work
9:30 work
10 work
10:30 snack, work
11 work (page through logs)
11:30 work (logs)
12 work
12:30 music practice
1 work, book doc visit, lunch
1:30 work
2 work (BB)
2:30 work/files, ready, run
3 weights/run (2.0), change/freshen up
3:30 chat BP/H, H entertain
4 work

Yesterday, I worked until 6, then cooked dinner (chicken and rice). The big kids and I ate this around 6:30. The 17-year-old took off for his tutoring gig at around 6:45, and the 15-year-old and 13-year-old and I hung out talking for a bit, until the 15-year-old cleaned up the dishes (his night; I helped some).

After that there were 90 minutes of amorphous 5-year-old time. He wanted me to watch him play some video game for a while, we wandered around the house, I got my laundry out at some point, etc. I gave him a 5-minute bath (we call these “world’s quickest bath” for nights when they won’t be long play baths) and he went to his room at 8:30.

We did Legos for about 30 minutes again – a Spiderman set this time. Meanwhile, the 9-year-old came home and went up to play on the Xbox for a while. He is not supposed to be on screens after 8:30, but since he didn’t get home until 8:40…I didn’t go enforce it. Anyway, after Legos and a very quick story I sat with the 5-year-old. He was asleep in about 5 minutes. Then I went and printed some things for the 17-year-old, dealt with various things (who knows what) and so forth.

Around 9:30 I was in the 9-year-old’s room because he and the 13-year-old were having a discussion about summer camp. The 9-year-old has been to sleepaway camp; the 13-year-old has not, but she just agreed to go with a friend for a week, so they were discussing what you pack, what bathrooms tend to be like, etc. I joined this conversation, then the 9-year-old announced that he wanted to take a bath instead of a shower. Since it was his birthday eve, I decided this was OK, so he went and took a bath with a bath bomb (with a glow-in-the-dark toy inside it) in my tub.

He went back to his room a little after 10. I said goodnight to all the big kids, went to my room and read/scrolled/etc. More scrolled really. I brought up a copy of the Economist, but didn’t have the energy to read it. I was asleep at 11.

I woke up, on my own again, at 5:45. I think I’m hearing the heater kick in or something. Anyway, this time I did not fall back asleep, so I got up at 6:15 and showered. This was supposed to be a quick rinse due to my haircut (with shampoo) later in the day but somehow it took as long as usual. I made coffee at 6:30, got the 13-year-old up at 6:40, then made my breakfast. As on the previous day, I took her down to the bus stop at 7:12. I was back at the house around 7:22. I got the big boys up, managed to work for about 30 minutes (hey, the little boys were still asleep!), then made birthday pancakes at 8 for my newly minted 10-year-old.

He liked his pancakes, as did the 5-year-old. I spent the next 30 minutes or so getting them ready and sorting through the growing mail pile on the counter. At least it is less big now! I drove them to school at 8:45. I stopped by the grocery store at 9:10, was back in the car and home at about 9:25. I worked for an hour, then it was back in the car to go to my 10:30 haircut.

The place is 4 minutes from the house, and I love the people and the place itself is lovely but…I wish my hair cut itself. I’m not one of those people who ever gets into a salon visit! I got home at 11:30 with fluffy blow dried hair, worked on various things (mostly email) for 30 minutes while eating lunch that I’d heated up (leftovers), then did the BOBW Patreon meet-up from 12-1. After that I did more email, then did a BB interview from 1:30-2. I did a few more tasks, then started working on something I’m writing on how I spent all 8784 hours of 2024 (because yes, I know!).

At 3:00 I went for a short walk outside. I intended to work again after, and did for a bit, but people were coming home, and the 17-year-old texted about going back to the doctor (he is still not feeling great). I tried to make a sick visit appointment online and the system wouldn’t let me. I called and was on hold for a while, and put in my number to be called back. An hour later I’m still waiting!

I walked down to get the 10-year-old (!!) from the bus stop at 3:50. We walked back together, and now I’ve been working since 4 on. I’ll probably stop by 6 again and then tonight we will have a little birthday celebration! Turning 10 is a milestone…and it’s also interesting to think that I have records of how I have spent my time since he was 3 months old.

Let me know how the time tracking is going and anything you’ve observed.

Tuesday

6 cook dinner/blogs
6:30 eat w/big kids, hangout
7 kids/clean/laundry, AK
7:30 watch H play/scroll/email
8 H bath, hangout H
8:30 Legos w/H
9 sit w/H, J papers/measure
9:30 chat camp w/A, R, then A’s bath!
10 kids down, scroll/read/relax
10:30 scroll/read/relax, ready bed
11 sleep

Wednesday

5:45 up on own
6 lie in bed, up, shower
6:30 coffee, R up, eat b-fast
7 clean, drive R/van, J, S up
7:30 work
8 make pancakes, boys, sort mail
8:30 sort mail, in car/drive boys, A
9 drop H, McCaffreys, home
9:30 work
10 work, drive
10:30 haircut
11 haircut, drive
11:30 work/lunch
12 work (BOBW Patreon)
12:30 work (BOBW Patreon)
1 work/email/etc.
1:30 work (BB)
2 work/files, work
2:30 work (printing)
3 walk outside, work
3:30 try make appoint, get A
4 back, work
4:30 work

Photo: The Christmas tree came down today, but this was not my job

After posting yesterday, I worked until 6 p.m., then cooked dinner for the older three kids and myself. I made pasta with marinara sauce, which I jazzed up with Italian sausage, mushrooms, peppers, and spinach. One child ate this sauce, the others ate plain marinara. We ate at 6:30. This was a quick dinner (about 15 minutes) and then I helped the 17-year-old (it was his dishes night) and then drove the 15-year-old to his Scouts meeting, which started at 7 p.m. (approximately 5 minutes away).

I drove home just as the little boys and our nanny had gotten home. I said goodbye to her, then got the little boys dinner. As we’d already had our “sit down” dinner (as it were), I let the 5-year-old eat it while watching Caillou in the dining room (on the family computer, which is in the dining room). This meant I could work on my puzzle! I’m doing a 1000-piece puzzle of Pendleton (the blanket company) patterns. I did this from 7:15-8:15 p.m. while Caillou was playing in the background. This was not purely uninterrupted leisure time, as the 5-year-old wanted something else to eat or drink or had to go to the bathroom every 15 minutes. But it was somewhat peaceful!

I went to pick up the 15-year-old at 8:20, and got home 8:30 (the other kids were home with the 5-year-old). I brought the 5-year-old up to his room and we finished this Elsa Lego set he got for Christmas. Lego is marketing these sets as being for ages 4+. I have to say, I think my kid is pretty smart but he is not in anyway capable of doing these sets on his own. Maybe 4+ with heavy adult help. Anyway, we finished, I got him in his jammies, brushed teeth, got him into bed, and then sat there scrolling for 10 minutes while he fell asleep.

At 9:15 I went to hangout with the 9-year-old, who wanted to do art (no one is supposed to have electronics after 8:30 p.m.). We used his brand new Posca markers, and drew images from this book called something like 501 things to draw. I drew a cartoonish girl winking (see art). The 13-year-old joined us for a while. I went to say goodnight to the others, came back to say goodnight to the artists, shut the house, went to my room, entertained a few other questions from people that kept popping up and THEN shut my door and scrolled/read for a little bit. I made it into bed at 10:45 p.m.

I slept all the way through to 5:45 a.m. I lay there in bed for a bit — I thought I was awake the whole time, but since I looked at the clock next at 6:10 I must have dozed. I got up (my alarm was set for 6:40 a.m.), worked for 20 minutes, got coffee, then got the 13-year-old up (6:40). I showered, made sure she was ready, woke up the 17-year-old who needed extra time to put in his new contacts, then got in the van with her at 7:12 and drove her down to the bus stop. (For any new readers: the bus stops at the bottom of the hill and it is a big hill…so to save time in the morning we drive her down on any mornings she is taking the bus. When my husband is around in the AM he drives her to school.)

I got home around 7:22, woke the 15-year-old up at 7:25, then made and ate my breakfast. B (nanny) arrived at 7:40. We chatted through the schedule, I discovered the 5-year-old hiding in the kitchen and was very surprised. Like jumping when I saw a person under the counter. Anyway… I started working at 7:50. I assume the older boys left around 8, but this did not involve me. The 5-year-old was in and out until they left for school around 8:45, but I did “interruptible” work during this time. I kept working until 9:30, then took a 10-minute break for a snack. After that I worked more or less until noon, but there were a few small interludes where I wrapped a few presents, tried to order a pair of eyeglasses for a kid, coordinate camp sign-ups with another mom, and called a birthday party location about headcount. Then I ate lunch (leftovers from last night) and talked on the phone with my husband.

By 12:20 I was back at work, but only for about 40 minutes. I walked down to the mailbox to see how cold it was, and to hunt for our missing Wall Street Journal (I wrote a book review that’s in the paper today…and somehow it didn’t show up! B grabbed a copy at Wawa later). I decided it was too cold to run outside, so I ran on the treadmill from about 1:20-1:50. At this point I went hunting for the missing eyeglasses (whose absence was requiring ordering a new pair). I found a pair of glasses in the child’s room. Victory…though it turns out these were a pair that were lost 6 months ago, not the pair lost this week. I may be losing my mind.

Anyway, I then worked from 2-3:15. At this point, the 13-year-old came home, and I confirmed she was game for the sleepaway camp her friend’s mom suggested. She was, so I went ahead and registered. This only took 15 minutes (not any of the health forms or anything yet, just the deposit), so that was quick. Then there were more attempts to order the extra pair of eyeglasses, but we’re missing a metric and I keep getting automated emails that the picture isn’t right and…

I attempted to get back to work around 3:40, and mostly texted back and forth with an author friend who was trying to source a quote of mine (“going to bed early is how grown-ups sleep in.”) This resulted in me Googling myself and seeing how AI explains my quotes. This was all fun and games but not terribly productive. Which is fine since at 3:50 I started walking down to the bus stop to meet the 9-year-old (B was picking up the 5-year-old from an after school activity). On the way I bumped into the arborist who was walking around looking at our trees (we have a lot of old trees…that need to be trimmed or they fall on things). We chatted for long enough that the 9-year-old was walking up and sending me messages from his new Gizmo watch asking where I was. I met him halfway up the hill and we chatted about how his dad and I have a lot of typos in our text messages to him.

As you can see, the day was pretty distracted by this point. I answered a few emails, then went to my home workout area to train with my trainer (virtually). I normally do this on Mondays but I was traveling yesterday so it was rescheduled to 4:30 p.m. today. I lifted weights, did push-ups, etc for 30 minutes. Then I threw a load of my clothes in the washing machine, and started typing this around 5:15. I’ll probably cook dinner around 6 (B is off with the 9-year-old at swim and parkour, and I have the 5-year-old + older kids for the evening).

See below for what all of this looks like on my spreadsheets (well, a pasted in version of the spreadsheet).

Monday:

5AM
5:30 5:40 hear M, up, shower
6 dress, breakfast, hair
6:30 hair, get R up, B, ready, drive
7 drive
7:30 drive
8 stop Chesapeake House, drive
8:30 drive
9 drive, park, walk around
9:30 work/drink at cafe
10 work/to event
10:30 work (speech)
11 work (speech)
11:30 work (speech)
12PM work (other talk)
12:30 to car, drive
1 drive
1:30 stop, get food, drive
2 drive
2:30 drive
3 home, unpack, R, work
3:30 work
4 walk outside
4:30 work
5 work
5:30 work
6 cook dinner
6:30 eat w/kids, help J, drive S
7 home, H dinner, puzzle/H
7:30 puzzle/H Caillou
8 puzzle/H, go get S, home
8:30 Legos w/H
9 sit w/H, art w/A, then R
9:30 art (R,A), kid chats
10 to room (R), read/relax
10:30 scroll, in bed, sleep
11

Tuesday

5:30 5:45 up on own
6 doze? up, work
6:30 coffee/read, R, shower
7 R ready, J, in van, wait, back, S
7:30 breakfast, chat B (H hidden!), work
8 work
8:30 work (AQ)
9: work (AQ)
9:30 (10 min break) work
10 wrap presents, work
10:30 work (+ admin: camp, glasses)
11 work (record BB), email
11:30 work
12 lunch/chat M (phone), work
12:30 work
1 mailbox, change, run
1:30 run (2 + walk), find glasses
2 work
2:30 work
3 work, sign R up camp
3:30 R, J measure, work (quote)
4 A, work
4:30 train with (trainer)