Blogging Challenge Day 4 says: Bullet Your Whole Day. So in a few paragraphs, I’ll be taking you on a journey on a typical day in my life. Lol terribly, terribly exciting I assure you…not really! Lol!

Welcome in, wipe your feet first…

My alarm goes off in the morning at 4:45. I blindly stretch an arm out and attempt to beat the poor thing into submission. On days I fail, I mistakenly press the Snooze button, meaning I will be woken up at odd intervals for the next 38 minutes or so. On a good day, I reach the STOP button, and return to bed. I shrug myself as close to Obi’m as I possibly can because no matter how cold the room gets, that man just radiates heat Because he so damn foine. Obi’m is lovely, because even when he’s hot and I am in full Gum Body mode, he doesn’t calmly move me to my side of the bed, in fact most of the time he blindly stretches out his arm like I do for my alarm, but instead of the beating to submission, he lets me scuttle in and hugs me warmly. Lol, I’m like wait, how did I sleep alone before?! Not really. But it’s nice…although when we argue, I scuttle to the end of the bed, borderline falling over- because no separate rooms in this marriage. But once the lights go off, because I am scared of the dark, I will sneak one tiny toe to graze his leg or just touch him so I know I’m not alone. Lol while he rolls his eyes in the darkness like, “Next time roll your neck and tell me you don’t need me, heifer!” Whatevs.

Anyhoo, my alarm is set to go off at 15 minute intervals from 4:45, which I imagine is NOT fun for Obi’m. Depending on when I sleep, I am likely to wake up at 5:00, 5:15 or 5:30am. Until recently, 5:15 was the norm. First thing I do is take the puppy out, he usually sleeps underneath our bed and I take him out the back to do his business. Then I go to a different room and I pray until 5:45/6am. We still haven’t worked out a good way to have a joint devotion time, because we have different work start times so I usually pray alone. Which to be honest, I prefer: So I can report Obi’m to God when he’s hurt me. When there’s some time, I try to squeeze in a short joint prayer together before I head out or pray on the phone when I get to work and he’s up. But we’re working on getting a proper daily devotional time, so when we have kids we don’t struggle to find a family worship time. I read my devotional which is the Bible in One Year devotional from Holy Trinity Brompton, which I attended a few times at uni because a lot of my friends went there. I was pleasantly surprised to find a devotional from HTB on YouVersion. YouVersion is honestly such a priceless gift and hands-down the best app. I really like the devotional but it’s a bit long and it has several chapters of verse to read daily. So I read the devotional, sing worship songs, pray and hop in the shower. While I’m in the shower, I use the audio bible to listen to the NLT version of the chapters the devotional’s asked me to read.

The next 15 minutes is a mad dash to shower and dress…which is another story on its own. I literally get dressed all over the house: all our rooms have adjoining bathrooms, so I use the shower in Obim’s study because it’s got a wall shower and I like that dancing-in-the-rain-lost-in-paradise feel I get when water drops from a shower head that’s almost attached to the ceiling. The other rooms have tubs. Then I pick up my clothes from the guestroom. Because Obi’m was already living in the house when I moved in, he had his stuff all set in the master bedroom and doesn’t understand that ¾ of the close space belongs to the madam of the house when she arrives! After many attempts to educate him, then share, then nag him into submission, I just went ahead and took 100% closet space in the guest room…along with what I consider a fraction of space in our bedroom. So now I wake up in our room, shower in the study, pick clothes from the guest room…then return to our bedroom to dress up. Obi’m I hope you’re reading this and pitying me. *Dabs head with ‘kerchief to show suffering.*

After all this, I have to be out of the house by 6:20 MAX! So once I dress up, I grab my prepacked lunch from the fridge and run into the room to give Obim’s sleepy face a kiss. If I have a few minutes to spare, I will sit with him and disturb his sleep a little: “Are you sleeping well??” (*Grunts in response* Lol). I rub his head, we have a short chat if there’s time, I give him a kiss and fly out of the house. I start work at 7am and get to work before 6:30 because I am a stellar employee who loves to be early. NOT. Truth is, I just like to park in the premium parking space which is right next to my office building and highly limited. Lol, yes ladies and gentlemen that is all. That is the only reason I get to work 30/45 minutes before start time. Well that and to be fair, I find that when I start my day early, the rest of the day happens by at a much more efficient pace. If you start work at half 6, by 9 you’d be surprised by how much you’d have put in. If I don’t get into work on time, I have to go park in the car park which is about 15/20 minutes’ walk from my office building. Ugh.

I am always the second person in my office, because there’s a colleague who robotically always arrives at exactly 6:15. I go to the bathroom to ‘put on my face’ and arrange my hair. Then sit at my desk and I want to say begin work, but I probably spend around 15 minutes just faffing about looking at websites (read: Darling), checking emails and just mentally prepping for the day ahead. Between 7 and 8/8:30 Obi’m rings me to confirm that I’ve gotten to work ok and just to say good morning properly because I always leave the house in a whirlwind. Lol.

From 7-12pm I am attending meetings and writing emails and preparing social performance plans and stakeholder engagement plans and… All of this interjected with large dollops of distraction from a very fun office. At noon, I lie, usually before noon, I go to the microwave upstairs and get my lunch ready. It’s a problem, once I bring lunch from home I simply CANNOT wait for the lunch hour to eat it! Lol. I want to eat my lunch at 8am but I feel like I’d be judged…plus I’d be hungry by twelve…So, I usually eat ‘lunch’ between 10:30 and 11:30. On my ‘lunch’ break, I’ll be found shaking my head to comments on BellaNaija, Zikoko, NaijaSingleGirl (more recently) and/or CNN.

After lunch, the rest of the day seems to fly past a little faster. I can control my hunger better because I know I’m going home in a bit. Lol maybe this is why the day goes faster. I ring Obi’m to catch up around lunch and see what his day is saying. It’s funny I remember years ago a married colleague was always on the phone to his wife at work and I’d ask, “Sheriff what are you talking to Oyinda again for, this is the second time and it’s not even 10 yet! You saw her at home this morning!” He’d always reply with a, “When you find your partner, you’ll know.” And it’s true. I can’t even say what Obi’m and I discuss at these intervals in the day. Lol, it’s everything, ranging from the pedantic things like, did you turn off the heater in the room? To, “Oho so you’ve found another husband to replace me?!” Obim’s opening line at least once a day. Lol. Only beaten by my, “So the yellow girls have finally taken you from me?!” If I ring him first after a few hours’ absence. I think it’s really important to have open streams of communication all the time so that as life is happening, your partner is updated and is a part of your life. So Obi’m knows the projects at work I’m on, what deadlines I have, who I’m secretly beefing etc. And it’s the same with him. It’s a good way to keep each other involved and accountable as well.

After work, I get home and shower/shower the puppy/ just lie down with Obi’m in the living room if he’s around and unwind. In about an hour, I begin to forage for food for us. This part depends because sometimes, my husband is out and brings food home for both of us. We end up lazing about in the exact same spot watching TV and gisting until bed time for me, which is usually from the moment the sun goes down. Lol. Because grandma. Obi’m sleeps much later, so we’re trying to synchronise our lives so we optimise the time we share together daily. Sometimes I fall asleep too early and my poor Obi’m is sitting alone by himself so he’ll put me to bed and go to a local pub in our estate to meet his friends/watch a match/get a drink. Weirdly enough, as soon as he leaves, my sleep becomes fitful and I can’t sleep for prolonged periods anymore. Oh the irony! He’ll come home later, and I’ll be upset by then, because now I haven’t been able to sleep comfortably because I’m worried about him and I’m cranky even if it’s technically not his fault. Lol. He will try to explain this to me in a reasonable voice while I’m pouting then eventually play his Joker by producing a bribe he’s bought because he knew this moment would come. I will refuse the suya or whatever he has in his hand, lol, and insist on having the argument on his coming late because I AM NOT A QUITTER! I like to finish what I start! He’ll be calm and I’ll soon realise that he is making some good points (DRAT!!). We’ll make up and I shall return to my sleep because I only have a few hours until sunrise now!!!!

On most other days though, I’ll fall asleep on the slim couch where I have shimmied next to Obi’m to watch TV, no matter that two of us on this small couch might be uncomfortable for one person (read: Him). I will of course doze off while he is watching one of his action-filled TV shows and he’ll wake me up before midnight to get to bed. I will stubbornly refuse, insisting that I am not sleeping, just resting my eyes, and will go to sleep when he’s going to bed. Lol, with a sigh, he’ll soon determine he’s done with the show anyways and come along to sleep usually. Right now, I’m sleeping at about 10pm/11? Instead of my usual 8pm. I’m trying to sleep a little later and he’s trying to sleep a little earlier, so we’re in bed together. Because that’s marriage: a million tiny compromises to secure the other person’s happiness.

That’s my day in a rather big nutshell.