Many of you keep asking “What do you guys do all day?” We don’t currently have paid jobs, so what could we possibly do to keep busy and prevent us from being bored? I know it is difficult to believe we are Not Working, but in a sense we really are. To be honest, we wonder where the time goes and still think that there is not enough time in the day. We also wish that money grew on trees, but nothing wrong with being dreamers right?
Pre Sabbatical / Career Break – Life in North Carolina
A typical school day –
6:30 am – Wake up, rush to get dressed, fix a quick breakfast
7:15 am – Out the door and kids on the bus by 7:30 am
8:00 am – Arrive at work
8:20 am – Kids start school
3:00 pm – Kids finish school and take bus to YMCA
5:00 pm – (sometimes it was 5:30 pm) Rush to pick up kids at YMCA before 6pm
6:00 pm – (Plus or minus 20 min) Arrive home, Start homework, Start dinner
6:45 pm – Eat Dinner
7:15 pm – Clean up, Finish homework, Watch a little TV, Chores
8:00 pm – Get Kids ready for Bed, Showers etc.
9:00 pm – Kids asleep or close to it, Some Adult time or more TV
11:00 pm- To sleep and ready to rinse and repeat the next day
During Sabbatical / Career Break – Life in North Carolina
A typical school day –
8:00 am – Wake up, casually get dressed, fix breakfast
8:42 am – Out the door, walk kids to school (if we drive we leave at 8:52 am)
9:00 am – Kids start school, Alan and I are back home (between 9-2 each day varies for us. Sometimes we skip all of the work and chores and go out to “play”)
9:00 am – 1:50 pm
Alan and I work (currently unpaid and performed out of passion and love)
- Wagoners Abroad Blog and Social Media Networking
- Take on-line courses (Photography, Internet Marketing, Blogging, Entrepreneurship etc)
- Chores around the house (hand wash dishes, hang laundry to dry, sweep the floors),
- Plan for next weekend getaway or trip,
- Work on second blog – An informational site about Almuñécar (work in progress)
- Work on “Wagoners Abroad Projects” (ebooks, Marketing, Blog Series etc)
- We run errands around town, go out for a walks
- Prepare lunch (lots of home cooked meals)
2:00 pm – We pick the kids up at school
2:15 pm – We are home and sit down together to eat lunch, discuss our days
2:45 pm – We all have a little “chill” time
3:30 pm – Kids work on homework, Alan and I “work” (respond to emails, social media networking, etc.)
4:30 pm – Kids are outside playing with friends (if homework is complete)
Sometimes we go out for family walks or exploring in the car.
Sometimes we fit in a real “siesta” 🙂
6:00 pm – (Plus or minus 20 min) Arrive home, Start homework, Start dinner
7:30 pm – Eat Dinner
8:00 pm – Clean up, Watch a little TV, Play games
8:30 pm – Get Kids ready for Bed, Hang out with each other, read, play, showers etc.
10:00 pm – Kids asleep or close to it, some adult time, more work or more TV
11:00 pm- To sleep and ready to rinse and repeat the next day (The beauty – it is rarely the same day twice)
Summary of our Sabbatical while living in Spain
Our life in North Carolina consisted of maybe 3-4 hours of “awake” time with the kids each school/work day. Often it was in the car or while we were multitasking. It seemed that “Time” or the Clock was always in our thoughts trying to fit everything in. We were always in a rush to get to/from somewhere. Life was full of To Do Lists and we got it done. Not to mention the care and upkeep of a very large home and yard.
Now living our life in Spain, we have much more quality time with the kids now and we are loving it! Our days are full of the things we want to do and feel fuller and richer. We are always having wonderful discussions with the kids and they are exploding with curiosity. We do have the standard chores of cooking, laundry and cleaning, but it is minimal. We are renting a furnished apartment, so the upkeep and grounds are taken care of for us. We can just sit back and enjoy the sea view all day if we like.
I know it appears that we have a routine now and we do to a degree. We usually just fit everything in to the day somewhere, other than the kid’s school time. If we don’t fit in what we planned, no biggie there is always another day. We also have more quality time doing chores, washing dishes, etc as most of it is very manual. While I don’t love that so much, but it is a very small price to pay for this adventure and we get we tend to do much of that as a family. Deciding to take a sabbatical was a good choice for us.
The choice of living in Spain was also a good choice for us. We have simplified and slowed down our pace of life and it works. The kids have so many friends and actually Alan and I do as well. Of course us adults are very close with many other expats (from several countries), as well as our immediate neighbors. We are getting to know the parents of our kids friends and are holding our own in Spanish conversation at 3 hour birthday parties. It is pretty comical at times, but everyone is so nice and patient with us.
What would you do if you had “free time” every day?