It has been quite a day for me today. From the moment that I wake up 'til the moment before I go to sleep. Sometimes I am amazed by myself and proud at the same time and also wondering as to where I get all the energy that I have to get everything done within the day.

MORNING HUSTLE

As soon as I open my eyes in the morning at 3:30 or 4 am, I grab my phone ( or tablet for now coz I have no cellphone yet ) to do some captcha typing, I do that for a couple of hours because that's when the loading of captchas are fast and the bids are the highest during that time. Then at about past 6 am I have to get up and fix myself so I can go out and buy our breakfast and at the same time go to the market to get something for our lunch. That trip to the bakery and market serves as my daily exercise. Imagine walking all the way from our house to the marketplace, which sums up at about 19 to 20 blocks to and fro. And consider the weight I have to carry homebound, my Mom always say that I should take a tricycle going home coz it's an uphill making it even more tiring to walk back home. But I refuse her suggestion telling her that I use that errand for my exercise.

After I got home from the market, comes the preparation of our breakfast. If I just bought hot pandesal and some spread to pair it off with, it would take just about a minute to do, I just have to make some coffee for me and my kids and tea for my Mom. But if we're having friedrice in the morning it usually takes more than half an hour before we can eat. Aside from the friedrice I have to cook eggs, hotdogs or luncheon meat or sometimes dried fish to pair with it.

Cleaning the house is next on my list of chores. I have to sweep the floor from the kitchen up to our living room. And I also have to do some mopping because our shitzhu keeps on peeing on the kitchen floor leaving an unpleasant smell. And then the porch has to be cleaned too because our labrador always has his pee and poop on the floor every morning. That's why I have to clean that place with water, soap and chlorox to eliminate the nasty odor.

Next is the front our house, dried leaves and flowers of the avocado tree in the vacant lot in front of our house litters the ground plus the garbage the stray cats scattered on the street needs a good 15 minutes of sweeping. Which is kinda hurt my back and right arm a little bit of muscle pain.

And after all these things, cooking for lunch. Time and energy I spent with cooking varies from what I have to cook. Frying takes less time and effort and dishes with broth or sauce consumes more time and effort. Table prep and clearing and washing the dishes are my kids' tasks.

AFTERNOON LULL

There's not much to do in the after lunch. This is my time to take a nap which by the way is sometimes difficult to do. I'm at the age of very much wanting to sleep but cannot. Blaming the hot weather or I just can't sleep even if wanted to.

So I face my captcha typing again if my body won't let me sleep. Making this an advantage to earn a little bit more and add some to my savings. I type away til my eyes hurt from staring at the screen for too long. And at 4 pm I'd go out for a little while to buy something for our merienda, another long walk for me. That's why my legs always hurt by night time.

EVENING GRIND

When the dish I cooked in the afternoon is not enough for our dinner I 'll go out again to buy something to add to our meal. Sometimes it's barbeque or grilled chicken or liempo. So I won't have to cook anymore. But sometimes it's eggs and noodles dinner for us, fast and easy to cook too.

After dinner, I'll go back again to my typing while watching tv. But the site is slow so I decided on watering my plants out front and check up on them to see if they needed to be repotted to a bigger pot. And I saw that some pots were infested by ants so I have to uproot my plants and wash their roots and air dry them for a few days before planting them again. The soil that I removed from the pots are placed in an aluminum pan, I heat them over low fire to kill the pests so I can still use them again later.

Chores all done but I can't go to sleep yet. I have to wait for my 2 kids who are both working now. No matter how tired I am from all the day's work, I can't sleep if any of my kids aren't home yet. And I need to wash their uniforms too so it could dry overnight, but I only do this every Wednesday and Friday.

When I finally finish all of the things that are needed to be done, I could finally have my sleep to wake up again and do the same things over again.

Editor's note:

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