Weekly Rhythms

A popular thing for bloggers/social media influencers to do is to post about a day in their life. This can be really fun and helpful to see how someone we are following functions on a day to day basis. I have written several of these posts, although it has admittedly been a long time! However, every time I do record a day in my life, I find myself being incredibly productive. Like, even *I* am impressed with my level of productivity when I am committed to sharing all of it with people. So instead of a day in the life, I recently shared a week in our life. Obviously, I didn’t have time to go into a lot of detail every day, but I tried to hit the main points and share our weekly rhythms. I find this much more “honest” in a sense because even if I start out SUPER productive and impressive on Monday, usually by Wednesday I’m slowing way down and being far less productive in a day. Which is completely normal and I am all about normalizing normal days!

So, as a repeat of my sharing on Instagram, I thought it could also be beneficial to share a blog post about what a week in our life typically looks like.

Theo works full time as a law enforcement officer

I work part time as a teacher

We have a 2nd grader who homeschool part time as well as a pre-K kiddo and a preschooler.

The kids are either in school (the same days I am working part time) or with me at home. They are currently not in any activities outside the home (sports or lessons)

Sunday

Theo leaves for work at 6am, I typically get up around when he leaves

Kids are awake by 7 and we are getting breakfast

After breakfast, we get dressed for church and put our church bags together

At church from 9-12:30 typically

Lunch at my parents house

Afternoon rest- I typically read or journal or sew. The kids have rest time and then we put on a documentary for them to watch. If the weather is nice, we sometimes go for a hike

Theo gets home around 5, we eat a simple dinner of leftovers or grilled cheese around 6 while watching the latest episode of America’s Funniest Home Videos

Around 7, we brush teeth, go potty, and read 4-6 books and kids are in bed by 8

Theo and I watch one episode of a show while I sew and then we head to bed around 9. Theo is usually asleep by 9:30 and I stay up reading until 10.

Monday

Alarms go off by 5:30- Theo gets up and gets ready for work. I do my devotions and work on my blog.

Kids are up by 7, and I am getting them breakfast. Tera gets dressed for school while I pack her lunch and wake up the house/unload the dishwasher, etc.

We leave the house at 8:30 to take Tera to school. Drop her off

Head straight to the grocery store to do my weekly grocery shopping with the boys. We usually get there around 9:30 and get back home around 10:30

For the rest of the morning, the boys typically play together while I unload groceries, put things away, get little household chores done, maybe go for a run on the treadmill, and make their lunches

Boys eat lunch and have a bit of rest time

At 2:00, we head back to school to pick up Tera

From school, we go straight to the library to drop off our books and grab some new ones. The kids like to play on the computers at the library, so we typically stay for an hour or so

Get back home around 4:30 and it’s time to do a clean sweep of the house, usually while the kids devour their library books

Theo arrives home around 5 and I start dinner

Dinner around 6 with family devotions to follow. Chores and cleanup after dinner – the whole family works together, we all have a chore to do.

After chores we either do an “evening activity” or go for a family walk

Around 7 we start the bedtime routine of brush teeth, go potty and read books.

Followed by Theo and I’s evening routine of lounging on the couch together for an hour or so before crawling into bed.

Every other Monday Theo attends a men’s Bible Study meeting and I am solo bedtime for the evening. He usually comes back just in time for us to chat/decompress and then we go to bed.

Tuesday

Alarm goes off at 5:30, Theo gets up to get ready for work while I do my devotions. When he is done in the bathroom, I get up to get ready for work while he leaves

By 6:30 I am ready and I wake the kids up to get ready for school. We eat a quick breakfast and make sure we have all our school stuff. Drop Ezra off with my parents

7:00 we are on the road to school and we arrive by 7:30. I scramble to get all my last minute things in order, get my walkie, go to the bathroom and drop my kids off at their classrooms. Students start pouring into the classroom by 7:45

8-11:30 is teaching

From 11:30-12:10 I have a lunch break

12:10-3:00- More teaching and then my kids come back into my care as soon as my students leave for the day

3:00-4:30- Work on lesson plans and cleaning up my classroom, getting prepped for the next day of teaching, responding to emails, etc.

Arrive home around 5, same time as Theo. Kids are encouraged to go play but usually hang out in the kitchen while I throw dinner together

Around 6 is dinner and devotions, followed by the same evening routine as every day- chores, evening activity or walk, bedtime for kids, chill time for Theo and I, then bedtime for us, too.

Wednesday

Alarms off at 5:30, Theo off to work by 6:00. I do my devotions, work some on my blog and usually try to go for a run. I do not ever get through all three of those things before the kids wake up, but I will sometimes put out some kind of easy breakfast while I’m running so they can just help themselves.

Kids are up by 7 and getting breakfast, getting dressed, and playing around the house. I wake up the house and do all the household chores that were neglected the day before

At 9, we meet in the schoolroom for school. Tera works on her school work while the boys play (usually NOT quietly). Kiah begs to do some kind of school as well, so I typically get something set up for him to work on.

Around 11:30, we have usually finished with school and its time to get lunch ready. If the weather is nice, we will typically be outside from this time forward. But if it’s not, the kids eat some lunch and then head to rest time in their rooms for 1 hour. After the hour is up, they can come out and play around the house. I typically do chores, answer emails, sometimes do some grading and lesson plans or maybe even sit down and read a book!

Theo is home around 5 and I start on dinner prep. We eat dinner a bit earlier on Wednesday nights so that we can get to our church small group.

Small group from 6:30-9 usually at someone’s house (this month it is our house!)

Home and straight into bed for all of us. Theo is now officially on his weekend (Wednesday is his Friday night!), but the rest of us have one more long day.

Thursday

My alarm goes off at 6, and I’m up and getting ready for work

Wake the kids up by 6:30, get them dressed for school and fed. Theo usually wanders out to help me get them out the door.

On the road by 7, at school by 7:30.

School days the same as Tuesday- teaching all day except for a lunch break, and then working in my classroom after school until 4:30 or 5.

Theo is at home working on home projects, taking care of Ezra, and catching up on some rest

We get home between 5/5:30 absolutely WIPED. Like, EXHAUSTED.

We typically head to my Mom’s house for dinner and immediately turn on a movie for the kids (for the rest of the week, we are typically screen free)

Once the movie is done, we head home and CRASH. Zero chores were done and that is just fine!

Friday

No alarms on Friday morning because we have nowhere to be and we all desperately need to sleep!

Kids are usually up by 7 and we get up and get breakfast going. Somewhere in the morning I try to do my devotions and go for a run and get showered.

Once a month, I have staff meeting on Friday mornings and another one Friday a month I have a school related field trip event.

At 9, we meet in the homeschool room for our school at home day. It typically takes 2-3 hours to complete Tera’s work and work with Kiah on some pre Kindergarten academics (his request, I promise he is not being forced into academics!). Theo will often take the boys to run errands or at least keep them occupied in another room. But also, we are usually all exhausted and Friday can be a grumpy day, unfortunately. I also try to send out a weekly class email to my students parents, just to keep everyone in the loop about what we have learned this week and what we will be covering next week.

Lunch around noon and then a free afternoon- if the weather is nice, we are out hiking or biking or playing at the stream at the park. We also catch up on chores and tasks that need to be done around the house. If I am wanting or needing to get together with a friend, we typically try to schedule it for a Friday. We also schedule any medical appointments and errands for Friday as it is the day both adults are home and can truly divide and conquer.

Friday night is either a typical routine- dinner at the table, followed by devotions and chores, an evening activity/walk and then bedtime routine – or we will watch a movie as a family before bed.

The kids still go to bed around 8 and Theo and I might make it until 10 (gasp!) but we are always in bed asleep by 11 at the very latest.

Saturday

Some Saturdays I set my alarm for 6 so I can get up and get some work done before the kids do, but some Saturdays I just leave it off and try to sleep in until 7.

Kids are up by 7 and we jump into breakfast and morning chores and getting dressed and showered. I try to go for a run. Crowd control the kids while they entertain themselves

Usually by 9, we are back in the homeschool room to get through some more of Tera’s school work. It typically takes 1-2 hours on Saturday.

And like the day before, for the rest of the day, we are usually quite aimless and drift where the whims take us. If it is nice weather, we are outside as a family. If we have some event on the calendar, we are heading to that. If it’s cold and dreary we are stuck inside and the kids are playing while we catch up on chores or house projects.

Saturday night looks the same as all the other days with our dinner/evening routine. There is usually sometime during the day or evening on Saturday that a movie is watched, but we try really hard to not let the TV be on all weekend.

We head to bed pretty early on Saturday night since our week really starts early on Sunday morning with Theo heading back to work.

And that is a wrap on our weekly rhythms! What do you think? Have you thought recently about your family’s weekly rhythms? Even as I wrote this post I was thinking about some of the things that we could tweak or what we could do differently. I didn’t write in depth about the pain point areas that we sometimes experience, but those are there, too! Of course, there are also the weeks that someone isn’t feeling well and this whole rhythm is thrown off kilter. There are weeks that we are much busier in the evenings or the weekends. We try to have guests over for dinner 1-2x a month as well as school events that pop up here and there, but for the most part I would say that this is an accurate representation of where we are at now with the flow and rhythm of our lives! Now check back in 3 months and it will be completely different because we will be on a summer schedule!