7:08 My alarm goes off. I 100% do not want to get up. There is frost on the ground?? What in tarnation?? People are outside in coats. I eat breakfast and get ready to leave.

8:24 I arrive at work, power up computer, clock in. It's just another normal day. A man yells at me over the phone for something that happened in, I am not joking, 1979. I make four sales. Today a big conversation amongst coworkers is, "If you could explore the far reaches of the galaxy but could never come home, would you?" Charlie gets lots of pets.

11:35 I leave work and go first to the library to check out American Gods. Then I go to the post office. The line is almost out the door. A guy walks in and shouts, literally shouts, "THERE'S A F****** LINE?!" The guy in front of me is wearing a tee-shirt with a Monday-Sunday road kill menu printed on it. Tuesday is poodles with noodles and Thursday is pit bull pot pie.

12:05 I get home and eat a leftover beef fajita and check my email. A company called KidPass where you can teach creative classes for kids has responded to my application and invited me to go further in the process. You have to create a unique course from scratch and pitch it to them. I start working on this. I want to do a worldbuilding class for kids so I kind of just throw this together.

1:30 I try to take Mattie for a walk. It was in the 40s this morning but is now in the 80s. She is hot and uninterested in a walk. When we come in I finish the application process, including a two-minute demo video which I film six times before I'm satisfied.

2:15 Now it's time for tutor.com. I work with one of my repeat middle schoolers. She's struggling with some pretty obvious answers so I teach her the process of elimination.

3:00 I get started on a Zoom session with Kid B, one of the three fourth-graders. She struggles with reading aloud, but her comprehension is fantastic. First she reads a comprehension sheet on the history of Halloween, how it transitioned from Samhain to All Soul's Day to our modern holiday. We go over questions and discuss it together.

Then it's time to pick a new book, and from ten choices, she picks One Crazy Summer. She trips over quite a few words and we only get through three pages, but she emphatically says "yes" when I ask her if she likes it and wants to keep reading. After our session ends, I look for a unit study of the book online to help us discuss it together and also to give her some historical context.

3:45 I hold Mattie while my mom shaves her legs and torso area. This takes forever.

4:30 It's time for Kid C, but his mom cancels at the last minute. I am about to take Mattie for another walk instead when his mom calls me and says wait, they actually can do it. This is not unordinary for this family at all.

4:45 The kid finally, finally gets on. I want to be clear I don't blame him at all. He doesn't have trouble reading but his mom thinks he lacks confidence. We've been reading Where is the Bermuda Triangle? together, which talks about all the bizarre disappearances in the spot. My guess is that the end of the book will reveal the scientific explanation, while his guess is that there is no explanation.

5:00 The second I log off with Kid C, I log onto Tutor.com for my first scheduled shift of the week. When you're scheduled, you make more money and also the waiting time is paid. I've just had to float mostly this week because it was my fault for forgetting to schedule myself before most of the shifts got taken.

I have a lot of wait time, but because it is scheduled, I get paid for waiting and I use the time to proofread my chapter for the day, so SCORE. I spend the last 40 minutes helping a sixth grader with a simple reading comprehension and main idea exercise. It takes forever because tutor.com is a piece of garbage and the screensharing and copy/paste isn't working, the girl doesn't have Microsoft Word, and I have to guide her in making a Google Doc and changing the privacy so I can view it. All while her audio keeps breaking up and people are screaming in the background. Then she accidentally erases everything she wrote, remains calm and unbothered and says "I think I remember what I wrote," and rewrites it.

6:30 I finish the last session and my mom asks me to help with dinner prep. I also exercise Mattie.

6:45 We eat this chicken/baked apple/walnut dish my mom made. Afterwards, I clean the kitchen and continue exercising an insane Mattie.

7:45 I have to make a choice: get enough steps on my watch, or finish proofreading and beta read. I have run out of time for both. I choose steps and for entertainment start watching The Chosen, which I've wanted to watch but haven't made time. It actually ends up being boring so I talk to Jasmine and play Among Us instead.

8:45 I am finally done walking around the house. I collapse on the couch.

9:00 I make myself get my laptop so I can proofread or beta read or both.

9:15 I ONLY HAVE TWO CHAPTERS LEFT

After this I will further tweak the pivotal scene, go through beta comments and fix everything such as typos, and then I'll submit. I can possibly submit it next week. Now that I know I'm almost done looking at it, I'm feeling slightly more affectionate.

Anyway, now I turn to beta reading (I did a beta swap for my book).

9:37 I finish beta reading. I also got distracted searching images for my third book's cover while reading.

9:50 I take a shower and read American Gods and go to bed.