500 words- Day 13 (My Saturday)

As part of my participation in My 500 words, I am posting what I write each day. Today’s prompt from Jeff Goins was to write about my day yesterday.

     When I’m in the writing groove, when I’ve hit my stride, I wake up every morning at 6am without an alarm clock. Yesterday was no exception. While most days I go to work at one, Friday’s and Saturdays I go at 8, so those days there is a bit of a rush to get anything done before going to work. As is my habit, I got right to writing. I checked my email from Jeff Goins for the day’s writing prompt and decided to forgo it, choosing instead to write about a minor character in my novel.

When I completed that, I posted it here on my blog and checked in to the 500 words site. Then I did what I also do every morning, I went out and fed the chickens. I live in residential area of a medium sized town and zoning laws allow for the family to own backyard chickens.

They’re always happy to see me, not that they’re so friendly, but that I’m the one who feeds them. I told them that they need to be laying more eggs if they want to not be cooked and eaten, but none of them believe when I say that, at least they seem unconcerned. I did tell them that I would remind my youngest son to come and scoop out their coop that afternoon. He tends to neglect that chore for any reason.

I fed the cats after that and showered. On mornings I say home, I might start breakfast for the family then. But when I go to work at 8 I make my own breakfast and then get out the door. I felt too lazy to cook eggs yesterday, or perhaps too lazy to clean up after, so I just had toast and jam.

The commute to work takes less than a minute in the golf cart. When I arrive at work in the mornings I always circle the buildings to look for anything out of the ordinary. We have had overnight vandalism in the past. I parked the cart by the door to the building I would do most work in and then disarmed the alarms. Then I got to work.

One of the things I like best about my job is working alone. Almost as good is the routine that I can set. I had my iPod in and listened to Palestrina’s Masses while picking up the last of the trash around the buildings and then taking the deck brush to the outside walkways. Later in the morning I listened to the latest podcast of Car Talk, and my Audiobook. I’m listening to The Goldfinch right now and enjoying how engaging it is.

Nothing exciting happened at work. For the whole time I was there, nobody came around. I kept my iPod on nearly all the time and went through the motions I do every Saturday. With most uneventful Saturdays, I was done early. I went home and did something that was not part of my routine, I fell asleep for two hours.

The rest of the day went okay, I ended up being the one to scoop the chicken coop. The alarm went off that evening when a new guy went in the wrong door. I can hear the alarm from my house so I went over before the alarm company called me. That could be a whole other story.

And now, this morning starts another day. Thanks for the prompt, Jeff. I wonder if I lead a rather dull life now.