Austin's Routine 2022

It's been a while since I've done one of these, and they're always fun to look back on to see how different they each are. Now that I'm in a new house in a new state and I've been here for a year, here's what my days go like week to week.

Austin's Routine 2022

Though my phone alarm is set for 6:50 AM, I usually wake up at 6:15 or 6:30 to my youngest son screaming as my oldest son bugs him, the dog next door barking at nothing, or my daughter coming in and whispering "Griffin soaked through his diaper and it stinks really bad." So I get up and restore order, and usually come back to bed to spoon my wife until my alarm goes off. Then I snooze it until her alarm goes off, wait for her to snooze it once or twice, and then finally get up around 7:30 or 7:45. Man, I'm so lazy these days. My self ten years ago would be appalled. But then, my self ten years ago didn't have three kids.

If it's Monday, Wednesday, or Friday, I try my best to motivate myself to put on my tennis shoes, take off my shirt, put in my one functioning Bluetooth earbud, and work out on my broken elliptical for 20 minutes. I usually listen to an audiobook on Graphic Audio or a podcast, but lately it's been hard to find something that keeps my attention for that long and makes the workout go by quickly. Afterward, I turn the shower on, then turn the master bathtub on full blast to make the water get hot more quickly. I don't know if it's because the water heater is on the opposite side of the house or what, but I've found if I don't turn on the tub as well, it takes literally like 2 or 3 minutes to warm up.

If it's Tuesday, Thursday, or Saturday, I usually just pour some water on my head and dry it off. A hairdresser once told me washing your hair every day makes it overly fluffy, and she was right.

I help with the kids until around 8:00 or 8:15, making sure to give my older son his daily dose of four squares of ExLax (he has bowel issues, but thank goodness this replaces having to do an enema every single day), and then I fill up my 32oz water bottle with water and ice and get ready for my Stand Up meeting at work. I'll be honest: I hate Agile work groups. Or maybe I'm just in the wrong company and position to benefit from it, because Stand Up just consists of me zoning out working on a personal project until someone passes it to me, giving a brief report about what I'm working on, and then zoning out and working on something else again while everyone else gives theirs.

After Stand Up, I start remote work for the day. This consists of periods of coding and chatting with my Polish and Uruguayan coworkers on Microsoft Teams, interspersed by periods of getting stuck and waiting to have questions answered while I work on my latest project (lately it's been Wormie v3) and playing whatever Assassin's Creed game I'm currently trying to beat (right now it's Odyssey).

At 11:00 AM, it's brunchtime. I've been intermittently fasting for a few months now, and it is just perfect for me. Eating breakfast and lunch made me gain weight, and usually I wasn't even in the mood for one of the two types of food. But with brunch to break my fast, I can have a meal that feels bigger but ultimately has less calories, and it can be either breakfast food like a stack of whole wheat waffles with chunky peanut butter, or a steak or leftover feijoada. The hunger gets pretty strong around 9:00 and doesn't go away till 11:00, but I enjoy it. The anticipation makes me appreciate my first of two meals of the day a lot more. I usually watch a show while eating. Recently it's been Season 12 of MasterChef on Hulu.

After brunch, it's usually about time for my lunch break. I spend my hour/hour and a half or so with heightened focus on my personal project of the week or Assassin's Creed game, depending on how deep I am in project mode.

At around 1:15 or 1:30, I put my youngest son down for his nap if my wife's too tired or busy to. I change his diaper, put him in his pack-n-play, and turn on his sound machine. He usually asks for the "Ducky Song," the "Daddy Song," the "Mommy Song," and sometimes the "Grandpa Song" before he'll go to sleep. I know he's satisfied and I'm dismissed when he blows me kisses.

Once I'm back to work, I try and render or upload my latest episode of DM Quest. This uses up my home PC so I'm not tempted to work or play on it instead of my coding on my work laptop. I usually ease into work reading a couple of daily webcomics, and then transcribe a page of the Book of Mormon as my personal scripture study. Then I work, taking breaks every once in a while to watch any new YouTube videos on my feed.

At 4:00, my kids get home from school and my youngest wakes up from his nap, which means there's not much productivity left to be had. And my Polish coworkers have been long done for the day by that point anyway, so I'm usually done for the day by that point. Besides, my older son always comes directly into my office and asks if he can play his screen time for the day. He plays Goat Simulator or some other fleeting game with next to no objective, which is disappointing to me. I wish he'd get into strategy games or RPGs like I did at his age. Meanwhile, my daughter usually asks if she can go play with her neighbor down the street.

If big boy's not in the mood to play screen time, or after he's done, usually all the kids who are at home like to go outside and ride their bikes around the driveway. I like to go out and watch them while sitting on a lawn chair and reading a book. Otherwise, I might watch an episode of "Trollhuntins" (Trollhunters of Arcadia or one of its series sequels) with my youngest son.

At around 5:00, it's time to start preparing dinner. I usually like to make something fancy and complex, because it's usually more delicious and satisfying. But I can also make spaghetti and meatballs as a deeply satisfying dish. It usually depends on what I'm craving for the day (maybe from a cooking video I watched), what meats we have in Chester (our chest freezer), and whether I've already cooked too much for the week and we have an excess of leftovers in the fridge.

We try to eat dinner around 6:00, and afterward sometimes we watch an episode of Phineas & Ferb or another cartoon as a family, or go on a family walk if the weather is nice. Time seems to go by really quickly in the afternoons, and before we know it, it's already around 7:00 and time to start the long process of getting the kids to bed. I make bedtime snacks for the kids, which is usually cheese-on-toast or a Hot Monkey (a banana with peanut butter and honey in a toasted hot dog bun), and then give the older kids a melatonin gummy.

Then, I either put the girl to bed or both of the boys to bed. I'm the less-preferred choice between their mom and me, but she can't do all three of them every night, as we explain to them. The youngest boy's routine is the same, but the older son likes to listen to/watch a Parry Gripp song on my iPhone before bed, which he can if he didn't give me too much trouble getting ready for bed. For my daughter, I try to read a chapter of a book before she goes to sleep. Currently it's been hard to find a book that she's interested in, but earlier this year we red The Ickabog, which was great.

After the kids are in bed, it's quiet time. If my wife just wants to vedge, I continue working on my project if I have enough energy, or play computer games. Otherwise, we watch two or three episodes of a TV show together (right now it's Breaking Bad). We try to be in bed by 11:30, but my wife takes an inordinate number of trips to the bathroom while getting ready for bed (I blame that she takes her phone in with her) and we usually fall asleep at midnight or soon after.

If it's a Wednesday, I have D&D with my DM Quest group from 8:00 to midnight. On Fridays, I play Valheim, Heroes of the Storm, or Sea of Thieves with my friends or brothers. On Saturdays when my wife works at Red Robin as a server, I skip the "preparing dinner" part and just cook a frozen pizza for the kids. We set out a blanket and watch a movie together while eating. Then, if I can get them to bed on time, I stream a retro video game (since that's all my computer can handle streaming) on my YouTube channel until I get tired of talking.

And that's my life in Oklahoma! It's not much, but it's relaxing and I enjoy it for the most part. Most days are pretty much the same now that I work remotely, but I do enjoy going on dinner or lunch dates with my wife when I can, or going to Braum's for ice cream if the kids have been good.