A Week In Colorado On A $45,000 Income

Today: an opera singer/designer/chat bot operator who makes $45,000 per year and spends some of her money this week on Horns of Power.

Occupation: Opera Singer, Web + Design Freelancer, AI Chat Bot Operator
Industry: Entertainment, Tech, Customer service, Marketing
Age: 32
Location: Colorado
Salary: $25,000 Chat Bot + $20,000 from opera/freelance (2019 projection) = $45,000
Paycheck Amount (2x/monthly, invoiced beginning of the month for hourly work, after a performance, respectively): Chat Bot: $1,000, design jobs: $150-1,000, music jobs: $41-$5,000.
Gender Identity: Woman

Monthly Expenses
HOA Fee: $325 (my husband pays the mortgage for a condo we bought in 2016 — payments are about $900)
Loans: Usually $300 (I overpaid during the cumulative three years I had a "Muggle" job. I'm down to $15,900 owed from $40,000.)
Spotify: $9.99
Cell Phone: $45
Business Phone: $9.99 (Sideline app)
Adobe Creative Cloud: $29.99
Band Practice Space: $200
Business Advertisements: $150 (two months left on current contract, I'm moving into an admin position for them in return for free advertisement next year)
Quarterly Expenses:
UPS Business Mailbox: $75 (so randos can't find me through my LLC registration)
Annual Expenses:
Website: $99 (grandfathered into a plan years ago, but looking to upgrade next year to a $300 option)
Amazon Prime: $59 (I know…. probably shouldn't be helping Bezos at all, but here we are)
Utilities: Hubby pays
Insurance: On hubby's plan, but since we have a high deductible plan, I've personally paid out of pocket for most of my medical bills this year, which have included a DNA cancer screening, dental work, x-rays, and physical therapy (around $3,000 for the year).

3:45 a.m. — My family came to visit for an early/combined holiday and I drive my sister to the airport at 3:45 a.m. She has cancer and I'm always glad when she's able to come visit, but my parents also came along this time and stayed in a nearby hotel and I am completely drained. I park in short-term parking ($6) to carry her luggage in and help my family find their ticketing booth and security. DIA is really big and currently under construction and hard to navigate with mobility issues. $6

8 a.m. — I roll out of bed unusually late and have barely logged two hours of sleep due to said airport run. Time to make a quick breakfast and check all my out of office messages before I have a video conference at 9. A ponytail and glasses will distract from the fact that I slept in yesterday's clothes and haven't washed my face. I make an omelette with leftover turkey and make a Thermos of pour-over coffee. I have one of those giant green Stanley thermoses. We have MacGyvered our own $4 pour-over system which entails using a stainless steel funnel from restaurant supply with paper filters and generous scoops of whatever espresso roast is on sale at King Soopers (this information is important as you begin your journey on understanding my near-constant coffee consumption). Y'all can keep your Chemex.

9 a.m. — Video conference with client. I'm building some webpages for an institute at a university and because of the nature of committees, it's taken us from February until November to get to this penultimate draft. They love my work, though, and I used to work with them in a past life. I'm their contractor now and happy to see friendly faces on the screen while I drink my coffee comfortably from my home studio.

11:30 a.m. — Band practice! Yes, I'm an opera singer, but I also have a band. My mates have to pay dues in their other projects, which I don't think is super cool, so I pay for rehearsal time out of pocket (in monthly expenses), and our recording studio time is paid for from a band savings account I set up back in my desk jockey days. It's pricier than other studios in town, but is definitely more maintained and draws an older crowd than other spaces. We started using in-ear monitors today and rocked through four tunes. Hoping to take things to the next level this coming year.

2:30 p.m. — I check my messages and to-do lists, but the site builds I have need to wait until the rest of the week. The sleep deprivation is getting to me so I take Netflix to bed and start drifting off until…

7:30 p.m. — Hubby wakes me up for a dinner of veggies and leftover turkey. I also get a ping that I've gotten paid! Yay! $150 for a small design job of an informational card for a return client. We quibbled a bit on the price. They don't quite understand how many hours even a small job will take, but since I only went fully freelance this calendar year, I'm being careful to maintain my relationships to build my portfolio. As a sensitive introvert, that's the part of this job I hate the most. I fall back asleep after dinner.

5:40 a.m. — Back to the grind. I'm on the chat bot today from 6-11 a.m. after a week off. I make an omelette with leftover pot roast and make my thermos of coffee. Ping! Ping! Ping! Here come the messages.

8 a.m. — I've been dealing with a depressive episode the last few weeks and I feel myself fully sinking into it as I look at all the work I've got to do. I grew up working class and have never really been an impulsive spender (quite the opposite), but I'm in the mood to shop while I work. I get a throw pillow cover with a Victorian skeleton to goth up the living room (usually the spook stays downstairs in my studio) on Etsy ($36.60) and pass on some candles from Burke and Hare. $36.60

9:55 a.m. — Still working but remember I need to get tickets for Friday. My guitarist is in another band, a post-punk goth outfit, with an album release show Friday night. I get two tix, for me and hubby. $12.08

11 a.m. — Off the bot and struggling to keep going, but I force myself to go on a run since snow will be hitting in a few hours. I eat some chocolate-covered coffee beans. Being on stage can really mess with your head and your self-image. I lost 60 pounds and became 1000x healthier after I started running and eating healthier. I have kept the weight off over the last six years, which makes me very proud. Running has become my way to complete the stress cycle. I remind myself that running literally saved my life a few times. I am grateful for the blood pumping through my veins and I feel a small bit of that veil lifting, if only temporarily.

1:30 p.m. — Therapy! $130 for one session and I usually go twice a month. I want to stress how important it is to seek help if you need it. I started seeing my therapist when she was still in grad school and only charged $80. I've stayed with her as she's grown and gotten promotions and had to raise her prices; it's the one expense I'll always do what I can to make because it's worth it. $130

3 p.m. — I usually work 10 hour days, so this day and my sluggish mood are creating concurrent shame spirals for me. I decide it's time to start a website build — a colleague of mine and local tenor needs a site upgrade. I put in about three hours of work before calling it quits for the day. I eat a few chips with salsa while I create.

7 p.m. — Dinner! We made a roast and turkey for nine people for an early Thanksgiving and then only six people made it, so we'll be eating leftovers until the end of time. We're making our own sandwiches with the turkey — mine with fried eggs and spinach, his with lentils on the cast iron.

8:30 p.m. — Reading time. I used to be a voracious reader, but then life happened. I've recently developed the atrocious habit of starting four books simultaneously and not finishing any. I'm currently working through Burnout, Paradise Lost, Women Who Run with the Wolves, and House of Leaves. What will I choose? I go for Burnout and promptly fall asleep.

5:55 a.m. — I barely make it downstairs in time to log in!! On the bot again this morning 6-11, so it's the same story of coffee, omelette, leftover meats. I do love a good omelette.

7 a.m. — More coffee. Messages are slow, so I message with the creative team for an opera I'm in/stage directing. We are trying to secure funding for a European production this coming summer as a reprisal from an overseas performance we did this year. This opera has been my biggest paid gig in my career and I've been eternally thankful for their trust in me. I'm including this in my diary because I wanted to note that for most productions I do, I might lose money; I'm not signed to an agent and work with a lot of small, quirky companies. Once you add up practice time, rehearsal time, and gas mileage, you often don't make more than $2/hour, if that. I'm lucky in that I can secure a whole month's salary from this particular show when we do it. People may think that opera is for the elites and the upper-class, but let me tell you, the majority of opera singers make very little money and most of us are far from elite.

8:15 a.m. — I see in Slack that an operator who's supposed to run the next bot shift is sick, so I offer to pick up the first two hours and work the bot today until 1. Extra hours are always good.

11:15 a.m. — Still on the bot, but I'm worried about getting everything done. In quiet moments, I draft up final edits to the institute's website, including making updates to the banner in Photoshop. I keep getting pinged on the bot, so it's slow going. Better than nothing! I'm on my second thermos of coffee and grab an Atkins bar to eat.

12:30 p.m. — I get a voicemail that my sleep tinctures are back in stock at Ritualcravt. These tinctures have been the ONLY thing I've found to help me get to sleep, other than the Sleep With Me podcast. I'm about out, so I go ahead and order all my tinctures online and send an email that I can pick them up over the weekend. I order two vials of the Nighty-Night, one of Breathe Easy, and one of Druid's Wand. It comes to $72.94, but I'll have the shipping reimbursed later. I guess my two extra hours on the bot today will pay for this since I'm now regretting that Etsy purchase. $72.94

1 p.m. — Off the bot, so it's practice time. I'm singing through music for an opera I'm doing in March. I'm will play piano a bit, too. I prefer doing experimental, avant-garde, or immersive shows, and that's typically what I get hired for these days. This is about 160 pages of difficult modern music. I need to learn half this month to stay on track in time for rehearsals in January. This performance, I'll be contracted to earn a percentage of ticket sales. For shows like this with a small company, I earn approximately $450-$800 for the run, which will be four performances in March. I finish the second thermos of coffee.

2:30 p.m. — I could keep going on the music, but I've got to get back to another client site. I spend a few hours trying to set up their staging site, but end up with support chat... an hour later, the agent can't fix it, so a ticket is submitted. Without material from my other client and my two other new contracts, I'm at a stand-still.

4:30 p.m. — Jumping on the exercise bike for a quick workout before hubby gets home. He works 10-12 hour shifts and currently takes on the majority of our bills and grocery expenses as I grow my business and prep the band to release an album. He doesn't make enough to support two people, but we make it work with my bot job and growing client base and the fact that we don't go out to eat very much/go to the movies/etc. I'm still getting my footing as I left my last office job and started freelancing eleven months ago. I'm very much aware of my privilege in the situation and chip in where I can (mainly on getting my student loans paid off). I love him so much and am so thankful he supports my dreams.

6:30 p.m. — More client work with support chat while the Instant Pot cooks (I did our favorite veggie pot of carrots, celery, sweet peppers, green onions, peas, green beans, tomatoes, lentils, and rice with the final leftover turkey). Our Instant Pot dinners are a big reason that we don't eat out a lot. It's so good and filling and I play with the flavor profiles with a plethora of different spices and broths.

8:45 p.m. — Normally I would not be working on non-deadline freelance work after my posted office hours in order to create work-life boundaries, but I'm still playing a bit of catch-up, so I go back to the tenor's website after a 30 Rock binge. My whiskey and I head down to the studio, where I also find out that I need to buy the official score for the opera and be reimbursed later. It's a relatively new work and only one publisher carries it… for a whopping $175, not including shipping. Oy. I'm spending more this week than I usually do and feeling a bit anxious. I was going to buy some in-ear headphones for the monitoring system the band is using... but that will have to wait a few weeks or else I siphon off money from my band savings account. I'm going to sleep on it before making a decision. I also remind myself that I'll eventually be reimbursed for the purchase. $181.75

10 p.m. — Still working on the tenor's site — having a bit of a creative block without more photos from him, but need to make more progress and I come up with a template I think will work. I make a note to follow up with him in the morning. I hear that I'm getting a shipping cost refund from Ritualcravt, so there's that.

12 a.m. — Ugh, after wrapping up my template-building, I get sucked into an hour of stupid Facebook videos. I make my way upstairs to find hubby has made my half of the bed (awww), so I slide in quietly, lick out the remains of my sleepy tincture, and turn on Sleep With Me podcast to help me get to sleep.

5:40 a.m. — Good morning — it's Bot Time! Omelette and coffee with a side of human fallback. This really is a cool job. We read incoming texts to our bot and confirm that she is tagging them correctly and adding in human messages when the situation veers off path. We're helping the bot learn as she goes, so I like to joke that I'm ensuring a good place for myself with the AI Revolution happens. It's part-time and super flexible, so most of us are musicians, artists, writers, etc. and we are rather fond of our little bot.

8:30 a.m. — I'm already making my second thermos of coffee. Today it was supposed to reach the 50s and I'd planned a run, but it snowed about three inches overnight and thick flakes are falling. I can't see the mountains at all. I meditate on my thankfulness to be earning money in my jammies, warm and indoors, not having to commute in our increasingly dangerous and terrible traffic.

9:30 a.m. — I decide to get the monitoring headphones I need, so I transfer $450 from my band savings account to cover both pairs (which come to $196.98) and the pipe organ VST plugin I eventually want to download for my DAW. It's $250 (!), but sampled from European pipe organs and will be most excellent on some of our tunes. Sigh. I'd originally saved up $7,000 for the band and have used about $1,200 so far on this gear plus recording/mixing for three tunes. I don't want to ask for band dues, so hoping to get that European show next year to put that paycheck into the savings account.

10 a.m. — I get a message from the music director of a Very Big Church downtown asking me to sub in for a service in mid-December. I say yes. That's a bit of extra money that will help pay for holiday presents, since I didn't have any November monthly invoices to send and my current six contracts and three prospects are going slowly. Regular cantors at this church can make a decent living considering the sheer number of masses every week, but I like being a sub and stepping in here and there to make an extra $100-$200 every month or so. I'm estimating I'll make about $175, maybe more if they pay more for Christmas. Non-classical-musicians are probably a little confused by the church call thing, but it's a standard and steady way to make money as a classical singer. I'm more of an atheistic pagan myself, but as resident Goth Girl™, I do appreciate the aesthetics of a Catholic Mass.

10:40 a.m. — I just got contacted about a holiday gig at another church down in the suburbs — a vespers service for $150. Doesn't conflict with the carols gig, so I take it, too. 'Tis the season! I don't do the usual holiday circuit (there are enough sopranos who know Messiah), but I am someone who can step in and read soprano or alto with little practice. It's nice to be in demand.

11 a.m. — Bot shift is done, so I practice music for the opera for an hour. I'm digging into some of the more difficult movements. The characters are almost always singing together in non-traditional harmonies, so I have to be completely solid on my part. There's also a lot of non-vibrato, sliding technique, chanting, cries, etc. Super cool.

12:30 p.m. — Time to Netflix and exercise bike, since it's wintry outside. In the mood for some Penny Dreadful, but honestly, when am I not? A few years ago we bought a cheap bike online for about $100 and it works perfectly fine when I can't run outside.

2 p.m. — Back to the grind. I make a final half-thermos of coffee and grab an Atkins bar; my guitarist's band doesn't go on till 11 tonight. I'm getting too old for this so I need all the caffeine I can handle! I've received a few client emails so I've finally got some work to log for the next few hours. One prospect finally signed their contract and two others sent me enough little updates to take up about 45 minutes of time. Ha. Just waiting for the flood-gates to open when every client messages me at once.

4 p.m. — Also able to squeeze in an additional hour of practice time on the opera. I've run through all vocals but the two most difficult pieces, so I think I'm ahead of the curve! My official (full-size) score will arrive soon and I can get to work marking it up and practicing the piano parts I play.

5 p.m. — I jump in the shower with a plan to get gussied up for the show later. For now I'll get scrubbed up with oatmeal soap and my homemade scrubs and lotions (I use shea butter, fractionated coconut oil, and sugar as bases and add essential oils and my own infused oils that I make from herbs, berries, and flowers) and relax with a whiskey to do some poetry writing. Feeling happy with my practice progress and the fact that I haven't had to spend money today.

7 p.m. — We have a thrown-together dinner; I toast the last two pieces of wheat bread from my family visit with cheese and rosemary ham and top with generous spinach and two fried eggs, while hubby toasts up something as well. We watch some Man in the High Castle and The Windsors and get dressed. It's been ages since we left the house this late. I may be a musician, but I actually kind of hate shows. I'm an introvert and when I'm not in my happy place on stage performing, I want to curl into an armchair in a quiet study. I start getting myself psyched up to be around a lot of people.

9 p.m. — Time for war paint. I slather on moisturizer. The most important pieces to my arsenal are: a BB cream, NYX pot of concealer, NYX Matte Liquid Liner (for the wings), NYX eye pencil (for the lower lid), Coty Airspun powder in Translucent, sundry drugstore nude eyeshadow palettes that I layer on with a focus on charcoal, waterproof mascara, and rosewater to spray and set. I'm about one notch down from my stage makeup, so I think that's perfect for this gig.

10:45 p.m. — We get to the venue and the second opener hasn't even gone on yet. I like what I hear of the first band's final tune and make a note to check them out. Hubby buys our first round of whiskeys and I find an old castmate from an opera I did over the summer, so we get to hang out and chat in a booth, one-on-one... my preferred method of communication.

12:15 a.m. — Our friends finally go on and hubby buys our second round of whiskeys. We enjoy the music and hubby buys their new CD before we head out at 1:15 a.m., feeling ancient.

9:45 a.m. — UGH. I'm dead. I meant to get up at 8 to be out running errands by 9, but yesterday was very. very. long. And I feel very, very old. I make an omelette with turkey and cheese and just one coffee, hoping to grab a latte while I'm out and about. It's Saturday, but I need to get back ASAP to practice.

10:30 a.m. — I didn't remove my makeup last night (I know….), so I just use micellar water to rub away all the face stuff and touch it up around last night's eyeshadow and eyeliner. I also pack up a box of things my sister couldn't fit in her suitcase to mail to her.

12 p.m. — First stop, Ritualcravt. I love this store because it's my entire aesthetic but since it takes me forever to get there, my trips are few and far between. I pick up the tinctures I ordered and also shop around for a holiday gift for my sister. I end up getting most of her holiday presents and some items for myself, including a book called Horns of Power, some motherwort for some tea I want to make, and a rabbit pelt to use on the mantel where we have our kitty's urn. Oy, that ended up being expensive... but I remind myself that it's because I bought presents and would spend the same amount across multiple stores. I also remind myself of the unexpected $150 call for the vespers. $166.43

1 p.m. — Post office to drop off the box I packed. It's only $3 more to purchase the 3-5 day over regular ground, so I go with it. $20.80

1:45 p.m. — Back home. I didn't get that latte, considering how much money I just spent. Feeling really anxious. I mentally run through what absolutely has to get done this weekend and tell myself it will be okay.

2 p.m. — Time to go for a run. Today's sun and 60-degree temps have melted enough snow for me to get on the trail. I could spend this time working on a client site and practicing, but I've learned that I won't be any good if I don't get myself in the proper headspace. I come back and eat an Atkins bar and three chocolate-covered coffee beans.

3:30 p.m. — I try to buy that $250 pipe organ VST, but for some reason, I can't purchase the license. I send in a support ticket. I'm suddenly overcome with a giant wave of anxiety and depression. Those who have had this experience know what I'm talking about. I'm completely blindsided. I sit at my desk for about an hour trying to get myself to move over to the piano chair and practice my band's tunes a bit, attempting to ward off this overpowering feeling.

6 p.m. — I go meet a kitty I'll be cat-sitting for the Thanksgiving holiday. We lost our cat a few months ago and I've been completely broken. He was my entire life. So I've been cat-sitting for friends here and there to help me with the grieving process until I'm ready to adopt again. She offered to pay me, but I've never charged my friends and she lives five minutes away from me. Ed is a fat boy and I love him because he immediately gave me two nose kisses.

6:30 p.m. — Dinner! Pasta, Crock Pot beef that's been cooking all day, homemade sugar-free sauce (olive oil, crushed tomatoes, pureed carrots, spinach, mushrooms, sweet peppers, and spices), and red wine (Black Box for the win).

9 p.m. — I'm feeling a little munchy so I grab some squares of a salted caramel chocolate bar and a few Trader Joe's triple ginger cookies. Our sheets are in the dryer, so I curl up on the couch to read my new book until they're done and we can make the bed. I wake up at midnight finding I've dozed off, book in hand, and that the sheets are on the bed, turned down and waiting for me. Boy, do I love this man. I crawl in, still in my jeans and top, and immediately fall back asleep.

7:50 a.m. — Sunday, let's do this. My alarm goes off at 7 and I cuddle up on hubby who's reading his iPad in bed. I woke up with a flood of bad memories, the kind that accumulate in your subconscious and act as anxiety fodder for years, feeding on your addiction to bad thoughts. I consciously tell myself to put it away and get up, but it's so satisfying to sink into it. I fight it off mere minutes before my chat bot shift begins. I work 8-1 today and plan to multitask some items during my shift if it's quiet. I make my thermos of coffee and my omelette.

10:30 a.m. — I'm the volunteer social media director for a local opera company, and today I need to start scheduling posts for a winter fundraising concert. I go down to the basement with my bot to get to multi-tasking. I take a second thermos.

12:30 p.m. — This shift is almost over, and I've successfully scheduled posts for the opera company and solved a quick blog problem for a client. Time for an Atkins bar. Hubby is doing several loads of laundry and comes to check on me while he's down in the basement. He knows a lot of my anxiety and depression come from the constant aching need to always be achieving. He gives me a pep talk and make sure I'm not spiraling.

1 p.m. — Bot shift is done, so I've got to do some in-depth work on that client site that was having issues with staging the other day.

4:20 p.m. — Still troubleshooting the client site, but support is running something in SFTP that timed out for me, so I do some vocal warmups while I wait. We start to make progress, but I continue with my scales. I hit a stopping point, so I log some practice time before I go take care of Ed The Cat. It's a good day for some opera work and I can log about an hour.

6 p.m. — Dinner time for sweet Ed! Kitty wants his food but is still a little unsure of giving me affection once his belly is full. We'll bond more tomorrow.

6:30 p.m. — I prep our usual veggie Instant Pot along with a small bit of leftover beef bolstered by a few frozen meatballs. While it cooks, I plan to have a glass of red wine and read a bit of my book, but I'm so anxious and ready to work now that I spend half the cook time washing dishes and putting away silverware. Once the pot is done we eat and watch an episode of Bojack Horseman and an episode of 30 Rock. I call it early to go down and work more on that staging site.

11 p.m. — After a few hours of work, I head to bed and mentally prep myself for Monday, promising to give myself the following Saturday off. It's easy, as an artist, to constantly feel lacking, to swing between the delirious highs and lows of creation/unleashing/undressing your soul for others. Enough navel-gazing. It's Nighty-Night tincture and Sleep With Me for the express train to sleep.

2 a.m. — Still awake. I didn't say the tincture and podcast worked every single time….

6:30 a.m. — Since I had trouble drifting off last night, I give myself an extra 50 minutes of sleep before I make my omelette and coffee. I should have gotten up at 5:40, but my body told me otherwise. I start a Crock Pot with chicken, butter, a can of diced tomatoes with jalapeños, broth, salt, pepper, Trader Joe's 21 Seasoning Salute, roasted garlic powder, and turmeric. I'll chop up ginger root and put in the Instant Pot with the veggies.

7 a.m. — I pull on jeans with the base layer I wore to bed. I've barely finished my first cup of coffee, so I pour the remainder back into the thermos to take with me. There's such a freedom in getting dressed and not putting on a face and heading out the door. It's an essay for another day, but I'm finding that my makeup-only-for-shows/brunch/going out has changed my relationship with how I see my face. I've always hated my face and that's pretty hard considering I have to go through tons of headshots and performance shots. Now, I'm paying attention to my skin and taking care of it instead of hiding it. It also might be a symptom of heading into my mid-30s. I don't like my face today, but I'm making progress.

7:30 a.m. — Time to give kitty his breakfast. I've brought my laptop to potentially do my bot shift over there and feed him dinner before coming home, but the internet password is wrong. So I spend about an hour or so reading blogs on my phone, hoping in vain for Ed to jump on my lap. Ah well, there's always another chance tonight.

9:30 a.m. — Ack! I've gone outside only to discover that one of my rear tires is nearly completely flat. I refill it with my travel inflator.

10 a.m. — I get home in time to check the mail, water the plants, and work on pushing that staging site to live before my bot shift. All big updates are now live, so I can focus on the redesign!

11:30 a.m. — Bot has been busy already (my shift is 11-4). Heavy snow clouds have drifted over the usual bright blue Colorado morning; we're supposed to get up to 30 inches overnight and into the next day. I dump a can of chicken noodle soup into a pot to enjoy in a few hours. I'm already starving so I eat a handful of chocolate-covered coffee beans. Before I know it, I've eaten half of one of those little Trader Joe's bags.

12:30 p.m. — I'm freezing, so I go put on a sweatshirt and long-sleeved shirt over my base layer and medium-weight sweater. We try to save money by not turning the heat up too much because our condo is huge and old. It's too expensive to effectively heat three floors, so we keep it around 66 degrees and I pile on more blankets if I need to. In my basement studio, I have a space heater for my feet and we have an electric blanket and down comforter for the bed. Living in Colorado you get used to wearing layers anyway.

2:30 p.m. — I make a mug of rooibos chai to finish my shift. And sneak a couple of those Trader Joe's ginger snaps. Still hungry because the soup doesn't have the protein an Atkins bar has, and I didn't think to stop and get more while I was out.

4:30 p.m. — Time to go feed kitty. He's still not warmed up to me, even though he likes being petted. I drive in the dark through the gathering snow and regrettably don't spend too much time with him because of the weather. A neighbor agrees to feed him if the snow traps me for the next couple of days.

5 p.m. — I spend about an hour learning the Christmas music I've been hired to sing. There's only a little standard repertoire in the pile, so I do a quick read-through of everything, making a note of what will need polishing before my first called rehearsal next week.

6 p.m. — Hubby comes home, so we chat about our days while changing into workout clothes. He agrees to lift weights so I can use the bike. I set our InstantPot of veggies, using liquid from the crock-pot, and hop on the bike for 45 min. I watch an episode of You and wonder if I should be worried that I'm siding with Joe…

7:30 p.m. — We enjoy our veggie pot with some red wine and Rick and Morty episodes. The snow has stopped, but we aren't fooled. We fully expect to see at least a foot in the morning. Snow days don't affect my work schedule, and the next day is hubby's day off, yet we feel leisurely.

9 p.m. — Time for a nice shower. I use a body scrub I made with lavender oil and an infusion of my own that incorporates calendula, ashwagandha, willow bark, and arnica. It's freezing, so I sprint to the bed and its huge down comforter. I fully expect to be snowed in for two days; grateful I can watch it from my window and continue working tomorrow.