What is a typical day in the life?

So Kelly asked me today to describe to her my typical day. Well, first off, there is no such thing in my world. But here's what I determined to be the best description:

Get up at 2 am to calm whatever puppy/dog is having a bad dream, got sick to their stomach, or needs cough medicine. Go back to sleep.

Wake at 4 am to take away whatever loud toy some puppy/dog is chewing since they woke up and can't go back to sleep.

Get up at 6 am to kick dogs out who have just been awakened by the neighborhood roosters that like to roam my property to the yard. Attempt to return to sleep for the next hour in between yelling at specific dogs to stop barking, play nice, or leave the back door alone and curse the rooster making noise right under my window. (A couple days a week, I have a volunteer that shows up in the morning and takes care of the dogs so I can get about an extra 30 minutes of sleep... if the dogs can be quiet that long.)

If this is a media day with WJCL (which I do twice a month), I'm up at 4 am to do my duties then clean up for the TV interview to be at the studio a little after 6 am. I return home by 7:20 am where I dump off whatever dog I took, splash some more water on my face, then head in to work early.

I crawl out of bed by 7 am to start feeding/administering medications for no fewer than 10 canines. Try to avoid newly-dug holes whereby dogs think they will be fed faster if they trip you and have you spill the food all over the ground as opposed to placing it neatly in their bowl. Ensure all water jugs are filled, which takes about 20 minutes per jug since we have a pipe leak somewhere. Remarkably, the dogs have yet to find it in all their excavations.

By 7:45, go to bathroom, wash off whatever dirt, mud, slober has been thrust upon me. Make myself presentable as much as possible to head to work as webmaster at Paula Deen Online.

Spend my lunch break returning phone calls and emails, usually someone needing to move, just had a baby, or just met the love of their life and can't possibly deal with all that and a dog.

Leave work between 4:30 and 5. Most days, the drive home means returning phone calls, where conversations are never done in 5 minutes or less. It also includes a stop off to purchase dog/puppy food, puppy pads, cleaning supplies, or whatever the dogs need. Inevitably, the trip is lengthen as whoever is checking me out always has to make a comment about why I have 100 pounds of dog food, 20 rolls of papertowels, and a few gallons of bleach. I throw in a bag of M&Ms to make myself feel better and get on my way.

Arrive home. Four days a week, I have the treat of having another volunteer on site to repeat the duties, but there's always more for me to do. This past week, I had to make stops each day to pick up new mulch for the kennels since the storms washed it all away and turned them into swamps. So I get out of my work clothes, put on my scrubs, and head to work. This takes a few hours usually, and always ends up turning my skin and clothes a completely different color.

On other days, I may have an event to go to for work. Which means I'll get home pretty late. And still other days, I attend business networking after-hours functions to remind people we need sponsors to help care for these pets. And still other other days, I may be running a pet to a vet visit, or heading to do an adoption interview.

Once I'm settled at the house, I head into my office to start on our paperwork and respond to emails. There are lots of records to be kept, adoption packs to be made, bills to be paid, and thank you notes to be written to donors, sponsors, anyone who might have even been nice to me that week.

On an average day, I'm in bed no earlier than 11:30 pm. But I take my laptop to bed to finish up whatever I was working on in the office, so really, it's more like 1 am when I get to "sleep."



And if you are curious about my weekends...

Most all our weekends are filled with adoption or fundraising events. The third Saturday of each month, we do an adoption day at Petco in Bluffton. This means I'm up by 7 to perform daily duties for the dogs, then load the truck for the event, drive over, and set up to be ready to show pets by 11 am. I'm there until 4 pm, then drive home, unload the truck, tend to the dogs, and make the deposit ready from whatever donations we may have received.

Some Saturdays, I teach Pet First Aid and CPR for the Red Cross. That only takes up four hours of my Saturday. Other Saturdays, I drive to Hinesville or Springfield to pick out animals from their animal control for adoption. I try to take Saturday evenings for myself, spending time with Austin or my family or both.

Sundays are work days at the ranch. This is when we host youth volunteers, community service workers, whatever. We do dog baths, take photos of new pets (oh yeah, guess I forgot to mention that during the week I also pick up animals on my way home from work to come into CPR), work on the kennels, whatever needs to be done. This is also when I work on the content for our newsletter that Heather sends out each month and try to sort through and clean up the 3,000 emails I might have received that week (that is not a joke; I just did that this past Friday and it sucked!). I also spend this time writing my column for the Tybee Breeze, my blog, and other sites where I contribute content online.

Some weekends, I also work for my job. On Sunday, I will be leaving at 5 am to drive to Atlanta for a cooking show where Paula is going to be. I don't even have a clue as to what time we'll be home.


But then again, what is "typical" anyhow?