In honor of International Women’s Day, I’m wearing my red Homeschooling Mom t-shirt! The girls were completely uninterested in wearing red, because like all homeschoolers (or is it just mine??) they really don’t see the point of wearing something just because someone told them to, or everyone else is. And also, they are apparently hitting the “party pooper” stage of tweendom.

What I love about my working homeschooling mom life, is that I get the best of everything (except sleep).  I don’t HAVE TO CHOOSE, between being home with my kids and having a career. Sure, neither one of those look like the traditional experience  (of either category) for me, but who cares?

And in honor of today, I thought I would share with you how I am spending my day. Granted, this is not a typical work day for me (typical is worse, lol!) — technically we are on “vacation” in Miami visiting family, but you can still see what a day in my life looks like:

So, this is how my day went.

7am Wake up to kid climbing in bed snuggling with me. Glance at the clock and pretend it doesn’t exist for a few more minutes.

7:30am Get up, do bare minimum of getting ready for day. MAKE THE COFFEE. Boot up the computer. Eat plain gluten-free bread with butter, not toast, because I am not at home and don’t have a gluten-free designated toaster here. Get kids moving on getting ready for day

8am Log in and watch webinar for new client who wants me to take over her client-facing training webinars. Drinking the coffee and eating the fake toast while watching. Get kids working on the minimum of school work we brought with us, and youngest doing her therapy exercises.

9am Webinar is done. Direct traffic (i.e. check in on kids, and give next set of directions.) Put on real clothes and brush hair, and prep 2nd cup of coffee. Spend 1/2 hour responding and cleaning out email backlog.

9:30am Call from brand-new client from webinar this morning. It’s a sudo-interview, so I’m trying to sound coherent and impressive still, and taking notes.

10:20am Call ends early, so I sneak in a brush my teeth and wash my face. Check in on kids again, but hubby seems pretty on top of things at this point (he’s finally awake with a couple of cups of coffee in him, as well). Ask kids to set up bags of things we need to shove in car for later today.

10:30am Call with potential coaching client, asking about resumes. Do my pitch thing.

11am Try to hustle everyone out of the house.

11:50am Arrive at Miami Seaquarium. Get in, find cafe and feed family overpriced lunch.

12:30pm Hubby heads off with kids to do homeschool class here. Since he’s off and never gets to do these things (and only one parent can go in with kids) I’m happy to let him have experience with kids. I sit at table and whip out my laptop, to work on multiple work presentations I have been procrastinating on.

12:30pm-3:00pm I feverishly work on training webinars in PowerPoint in the cafe, while hubby takes girls to a class on sharks. Where they also apparently dissected fish. And touched creepy, slimy things. I’m perfectly okay with missing this moment in their lives!

3pm Walk around the park a bit so I can actually say I’ve seen something, and my oldest creates an “incident” by dropping her pencil in the sea lion tank and the sea lion tries to eat it. Super proud mama moment means it’s probably time to leave before we’re kicked out.

3:30pm Drive back to in-laws, stopping at Italian bakery to pick up frozen gluten-free meals for me to have for dinner tonight, because it’s pizza night for everyone else. Consider mortgaging the pencil kid to pay bill.

5pm-8pm Celebrate niece’s 15th birthday with pizza and entire crazy loud Dominican family.

And while this is all going on, my mother-in-law does my laundry for me. Either because she loves me, or she doesn’t want me messing with her machine! 🙂

8:45pm Finally home and have kids in bed with lights off, and settled on my bed with laptop ready to work again for a couple of hours before crashing.

So, that’s my day. And yes, I am SUPPOSED TO BE ON VACATION. This is as close as I will probably get to a vacation for quite a while. Because let’s face it, even on “vacation,” women – especially working-while-homeschooling ones – never really get to NOT work. At least this one.