A Day In the Life of an Online Freelance Writer (and Mom)

Many people wonder what it is I do all day. Some people go as far as to tease me about sitting home and watching tv all day, after all- I am a stay at home mom and to the outside world, that probably seems like what goes on at home...

Let's go through the play by play of a typical day for me. We can do Monday of this week- since it's still fresh in my mind and because it's a good representation of a normal day for me (and probably most other freelance writer-mom types!)

Sunday night, I make it to bed fairly early after preparing my office for the upcoming work week: in bed by 11pm.

2am... 3:15am... 5:10am... My 2 year old son has decided to keep waking me up all night long. He's not running a fever, his diaper isn't full, and other than the waking up constantly, nothing really seems to be wrong. I keep putting him back to bed. At 5:10am, I give up and start the day.

5:10-5:30am - mandatory "wake up" time for my 2 year old. Involves cuddling on the couch for a few minutes, watching Teletubbies or Elmo on the TV.

5:30am-7:00am- I make breakfast for both kids, have my first cup of coffee, rush through a shower while listening to my 2 year old kick his feet on the bathroom floor and cry because he doesn't want to wait in the bathroom until I finish (but he can't be trusted to roam the house out of my line of vision, either!) and I throw on a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt. Yeah, sometimes I dress up in my jeans instead of sweatpants.

7:00am-8:00am - get my 5 year old's backpack ready for school, convince him that wearing his spiderman underwear on the outside of his jeans is really not a good idea for school, brush both kids teeth and my own, and rush the older child outside to get on the bus for school.

8:00 - 9:00am - my 2 year old has special ed therapy sessions at the house, so we play with Little People and a barn, put some puzzles together, and build towers with blocks.

9:00am - therapist leaves, husband returns home from work. I grab a second cup of coffee and head into the office while he has some one-on-one time with our youngest son.

The times get fuzzy once in the office! I check emails and reply to clients with updates on their projects, quote a few potential projects, write blogs and articles about credit cards, debt, and personal finance, and prepare an eclass for my writing mentoring program, Make Money From Writing.

Sometime around 11am, I go out to talk with my son's speech therapist who comes in twice a week, to discuss updates on his progress and such. I grab an early lunch (bologna and cheese sandwich and a diet coke...blah) and head back to my office. I'm working on marketing for the mentoring program, so I spend about an hour researching potential JV partners, take a couple phone calls from clients, and before I know it, it's time to relieve my husband so he can go to bed (he works nights and sleeps during the day). I have about 43 things left undone on my to-do list for the day.

3:00pm - 4:00pm I play trains with my youngest and start preparing dinner. Tonight we're having chicken and dumplings. I sneak in a few handwritten notes for some articles that need to be written. I also manage to take the clean dishes out of the dishwasher and put all the dirty ones that have been stacked in the sink all day in to wash. At 4, we go outside to wait for my five year old to get off the bus.

4:15pm-5:15pm This is a whirlwind of activity! My oldest comes home from school and has to use the bathroom, change into his baseball uniform and rush to get some dinner because he has a baseball game that we need to be out the door no later than 5:30 to be there on time. It's a rushed time that I really despise because my oldest would really prefer some time to unwind first, but he LOVES baseball and would be more upset about missing it than he is about the rush to get there on time. So.. I put dinner on the table for the kids, after cutting the chicken up into tiny, bite sized pieces. The 2 year old takes one bite and flings his plate, chicken, dumplings and liquid saucy-like stuff and all, all over the dining room. The dog promptly helps clean up.

The five year old whines for ten minutes about not liking chicken, hating dumplings, carrots and potatoes, and really, really, really not liking anything that looks or smells like gravy. He ends up eating his chicken.

After 3 minutes of frantic clean up and shoving leftovers in the fridge- we are out the door for the baseball game.

5:30-7:45pm I try to occupy my 2 year old and watch my 5 year old's baseball game. Then we pack up and head home to start the bedtime routine.

7:45-8:15pm yes- we are super fast at getting ready for bed on baseball nights... normally the kids are in bed around 7:30, but we stay up "late" on game nights. After a super-fast bath (as the water fills in the tub I'm washing hair and scrubbing bodies until they shine and the kids are trying to push their cars through their bath tub car wash at the same time!) we brush teeth and slip into pajamas. No bedtime stories on baseball nights, but both kids get to listen to their cd players as they drift off into dreamland.

8:15pm - I'm fifteen minutes late for my teleconference call with business partners in Australia. I spend about an hour on the line with the group of 30 or so people, and then dive back into work. I type up the articles from the notes I made while making dinner, adding a little more substance to the chicken scratch and submit them to their rightful owners.

10pm - I have a second teleconference call on Monday nights (because it's also with Australians, and it's about noon time on Tues for them!) I am less involved with this call, so I can actually field some emails and do a little research for another project all while listening in to the call to keep on top of the project. My husband takes off for work and might give me a wave on his way out the door.

11pm- calls are done for the night and I work for as long as my brain cooperates, but I'm definitely feeling tired and fuzzy because of not getting a good night's sleep the night before. I manage to post a blog for American Consumer News, a site I write for several times weekly, and respond to some email questions about my mentoring program for writers before calling it a night.

11:45pm- I'm in bed... ahhhh yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Watch five minutes of HGTV before slipping into a coma.