With my job, I don't have a typical work schedule. While most people work Monday through Friday and have Saturday and Sunday off, I work at a facility that operates 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. So while I do get weekends off, I also have to work them. With my schedule, it's on a "weekend on, weekend off" system. When I do have to work weekends, though, I have Thursday and Friday off. If this were a perfect world, that would be great! Weekdays off would allow you to get so much accomplished. However, I live in a night shift world, which means my weekdays off are weeknights, so I can't really do a whole lot.
This week happens to be a working weekend, which means I have Thursday and Friday off (well, technically, Wednesday night/Thursday morning and Thursday night/Friday morning). So, I figured that as a bonus post for this week, I would give you all a glimpse into what my weeknights off entail. Now, this isn't going to be some glamorous "day in my life" post like you see everywhere online. I'm going to do my best keep this as real as possible. This is going to be a little on the longer side, so buckle up buddies!
Wednesday night/Thursday morning
When I have weeknights off, I allow myself one night to be a lazy bump on a log and do absolutely nothing. Tonight was that night. After my husband went to bed, I found my spot on the couch around 9:30pm. I will be totally honest, I stayed in that same spot until around 12:30am and watched WAY too many TikTok videos...oh well! But I didn't just watch videos. I also bought some clothes from SHEIN, so I call that productive! Once I felt the need to get up, I went into the kitchen to get a snack and drink for my upcoming movie night. My snack of choice was popcorn, of course. I used to live and breathe for microwave popcorn, but thanks to my husband, I now eat mainly stovetop popcorn. Plus, our microwave plate doesn't spin at the moment, so microwave popcorn just burns. After a made a giant bowl of popcorn, I poured myself a glass of wine and made my way back to the couch.
Like I said, I originally planned on having a movie night. But, my inability to decide on a movie led me to watch one of my guilty-pleasure shows. Hell's Kitchen got my undivided attention and I binged Season 2. I love Hell's Kitchen for two reasons. Number 1: cooking shows bring me joy. It doesn't matter if it just a chef cooking out of their home or a full-blown competition, I love them all! And Number 2: watching grown adults get their asses chewed out by Gordon Ramsey just brings a smile to my face for some reason. Now, my attention span tonight happened to be very short, so I went back and forth from watching the show to scrolling on my phone.
I will be honest, tonight was one of those nights where loneliness kicked in and it kind of sucked. I only have one friend who works night shift, but she is a nurse who can get very busy at times and can't always talk. And talking on the phone with her on our nights off isn't really an option because I have a sleeping husband to keep in mind. The only other people I have to talk to are my partner at work and my one brother when he wakes up around 2am, but I don't really want to bother them all the time. I like my alone time, but sometimes I wish I had more people to talk to on nights like this. So, please, if you are a night owl or fellow night shift worker who needs a friend or someone to talk to after the normal people go to bed, feel free to reach out!
When I was done watching TV and saw it was closer to the time my husband wakes up, I decided to get off the couch and unload the dishwasher that was ran the night before. I really don't like doing the dishes in the middle of the night because I don't want to be too loud or make a lot of noise. I feel bad if I wake my husband up at 3am, so accidentally waking him up at 6am seems like the better option. After I got done with the dishes, I talked to my husband as he got ready for work and saw him off.
I had plans of going to the store, but I ended up being a lot more tired than I realized. So, I ended my first night off and started getting ready for bed. My bedtime routine is pretty standard; take some melatonin gummies, brush my teeth, change into my pajamas, get into bed, and turn on the TV. I am the type of person who CANNOT fall asleep in complete silence. No noise allows my thoughts to wander into the deepest and darkest parts of my mind and I won't get any sleep. So our bedroom TV is always on before bed. When I finally decided on a movie that I have seen multiple times, Juno, I turned it on as my background noise, threw on my sleep mask to help block out any light that happened to get through my curtains, and I went to bed.
Thursday night/Friday morning
My second night off started in afternoon rather than the evening. I went to bed around 8:15am, but, despite a full melatonin dose, I woke up at 12:15pm, 1:20pm, and 2:00pm respectively. I ended up laying in bed until about 2:40pm before deciding to get myself out of bed and start my day. I put away the pile of discarded clothes that was on the floor and got changed into my go-to fall outfit: leggings and a sweater. Once I was dressed, I finally made my way to the store. And of course, the one thing I needed to get Giant Eagle didn't have, so I had to make a second stop at Walgreens. Who knew Peppermint Bark would be so hard to find 5 days before November! Anyway, after I got what I needed, I made the executive decision to stop at Sheetz to get a hot dog and curly fries. And for all my friends and readers who aren't familiar with Northeast Ohio/Western Pennsylvania, Sheetz is an amazing gas station that has Made-To-Order food that is actually really good. Their curly fries could compete with Arby's and I stand by that with my whole heart.
When I got home, I put away the groceries, sat back on the couch, turned on Hells' Kitchen, again, and ate my food. Once I was done with that, I went into the kitchen, asked Alexa to play my Taylor Swift playlist (because she has had my undivided attention since the release of Midnights), and made myself a much needed cup of coffee. Right now, my coffee of choice is a homemade iced mocha; iced coffee, a heavy hand of sugar-free vanilla syrup, and a cold foam of milk and two heaping scoops of chocolate malt powder. And it has to be in a fun cup or else it doesn't taste as good. So, while I waited for my husband to get home, I drank my coffee while singing and dancing around the house without a care in the world.
After spending the evening with my husband and cleaning up the kitchen after cooking dinner, it was time for my night off to being. Tonight, I didn't find my spot on the couch until a little after 10pm. I only watched TikTok videos for about half an hour, and then I decided to get some things done. First, I turned on The Wedding Singer started planning out Christmas gifts for my family. I don't mean to toot my own horn, but I think what I picked out will be really nice. I'm just going to get a second opinion to make sure my head is in the right place. I really want to get ahead on my shopping this year because I hate feeling rushed with gift buying. Also, I will be celebrating Christmas a week early because Christmas is my holiday to work this year. Bummer, I know, but the holiday pay makes it bearable.
Before I moved onto my next task of the evening, I realized it was after midnight and a country music singer that I am OBSESSED with released a new song. Her name is Alexandra Kay and she is amazing. She definitely isn't like most current country singers today. To me, her music sounds like country music from the 90s and 2000s, which already makes her a winner in my book. She was in Cleveland this summer with Tim McGraw, but sadly I wasn't able to see her. Hopefully she will be back soon because I will 100% be at that concert. So if you are a country music lover, check her out. You won't regret it.
Anyway, after I finished listening to that song (more than once if I'm being honest), I moved onto my the next thing on my to-do list; make cookies. My mother-in-law requested the cookies that I made around Christmas time last year, and I'm not going to say no to her. The cookies are Ree Drummond's Chocolate Chip Cookies with a twist. The twist is chopped up peppermint bark for a hint of minty goodness. Last year when I made them, they turned out really well! This time, in true me fashion, I followed the recipe exactly and the batter was still messed up. I baked them though, and like I thought, I ended up with 15 ginormous, anemic looking cookies that baked into each other. Thankfully, metal spatulas come in handy for times like this to separate cookies. So, for your viewing pleasure, the first picture below is a screenshot of what the cookies were supposed to look like, and the second picture is my final product... Nailed It! here I come! I did of course sample them, and they tasted good, so I'll take half a victory here.
After I finished the cookies and cleaned the kitchen, I sat back down for a bit before I got ready for the gym. When it comes to the gym, I'm not a weightlifter and I can't run like I used to thanks to the two surgeries I had on my hip. As a result, my new favorite thing to do is playlist-guided treadmill walking workouts. I found a girl online, Allie Bennett, who makes playlists on Spotify like this and they are great. She released an hour long High School Musical treadmill workout that was both fun and challenging. I had to remind myself that I was in a public place or else I would have started dancing on the treadmill. She just created a 40-minute Meghan Trainor workout, so that is what I did today. It was a good workout for someone who hasn't really done much exercise recently, but it made me sweat which is what matters.
Once my workout was done, I headed back home to soak up the last little bit of my night off. I packed up the ugly cookies so my husband could take them to work and give them to his mom tonight. I then poured myself a bowl of cereal, went back to the couch, and watched TV. Then, like yesterday, I talked with my husband after he woke up and saw him off to work.
And that's it! The end of my two nights off. If you made it this far, thanks for going on this journey with me. I know this wasn't anything glamorous or exciting, but this is what my life looks like sometimes. I wanted to be open and transparent on this blog, and I feel this post was definitely that. So thank you for reading to the end! And to all of you who work a normal schedule, have a great weekend!
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