Elise’s Monday Madness inspired me to post my own. I’m going to update it as I go through the day:

4:00 am - Drift in and out of troubled dreams, in which Jana and I turn into living stone and speak in a Southern drawl at will.

5:15 am - Do a mental sketch of the brother of my novel’s protagonist. Create conversations between them.

5:45 am - Reach down and grab my laptop. Curse the screen’s brightness while blessing the backlit keyboard. Read blogs in Google Reader.

6:15 am - Wake Jana up with the new trailer for Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix. She groans.

6:20 am - Show the kiddos the new trailer. They are more enthusiastic.

6:30 am - I take a long shower and write more of my story in my head. I forget to shave. Not once do I think of white bears, however.

6:50 am - Finish getting ready, all the while motivating the kiddos to focus on their own preparations.

7:30 am - Pray with the family. Jana takes the kids to school.

7:35 am - Morning ritual: I make a three parts decaf, one part caffeinated latte (shade grown, organic, fair trade). This one has a bit of cardamom and hazelnut syrup. Couldn’t taste the spice, though.

7:50 am - I wrap up my fibrous breakfast cereal goodness and chat with Jana, sharing a portion of an NPR interview with an author with a gorgeous Scottish accent. I make Jana’s knees melt with my own sexy Japanese accented propositions.

8:10 am - I stuff my books in the milk crate strapped to the back of my bike and struggle uphill all the way to work, listening to NPR’s 7am news podcast and the New York Times’ Front Page podcast.

8:20 am - I get into work and check my email and voicemail messages. I whittle away at my inbox.

8:40 am - I delegate a database troubleshooting request to the programmer who is most familiar with that database.

8:50 am - A coworker shows up at my office door, and our discussion of setting up server support for Ruby on Rails somehow degenerates into chit-chat about ordering things from Amazon.co.jp and the two competing theories of how scent works (vibration v. shape of molecules).

9:10 am - Programming. I’ll spare you these details. I will share the tiny bit of elation when I discovered that my 10am weekly management meeting was canceled.

10:30 am - Work on this blog post. I generally don’t blog at work, but I need the break. I’m also breaking my two servings of caffeine per day rule (one in the morning, one in the afternoon), with a nice cup of vanilla almond tea (via Miko’s favorite tea supplier). I did manage to impress myself with how quickly I could generate this post.

10:45 am - After this break, my focus will be on Ruby on Rails training, courtesy of Lynda and this book. I’ll update this later in the day.

Update: I wish the rest of my day was as exciting as the first few hours. I had an unusually interruption-free afternoon, and other than responding to one request to resolve a database concern and drinking some afternoon tea (Assam in a tea bag from Trader Joes), I spent the time studying Ruby on Rails. Skipped lunch and went right through dinner time. I just began looking at it last week, and my goal is to be developing by the end of this week.

8:25 pm - I realize that it’s late and that I’m famished. I transfer the NPR 4pm news podcast to my iPod, put my iMac and PC to sleep, lock up the office and bike home (it’s downhill to our apartment).

8:40 pm - I arrive home (I usually get one late night each week, to catch up on work and school projects). We greet each other, but otherwise everyone is focused. Without removing my backpack, I make a beeline for the fridge and begin wolfing down leftovers. Jana made veggie (mushroom) stroganoff–a family favorite!

9:00 pm - I sit in our four poster bed and study (I have a meeting later this week with my advisor for my ritual theory directed readings, and still have a hundreds of pages). CatGirl is at the foot of the bed, drawing.

9:25 pm - CatGirl leaves to get ready for bed. GameBoy comes in and we review the classes he’s registering for next school year.

9:40 pm - My eyelids are droopy but I realize that I haven’t updated this post. I reach down and grab my laptop and compose this update. I can hear Jana typing in the other room. Perhaps she’s working on her own post. I’m going to return to my reading–it’ll take a miracle for me to finish by my meeting with my professor!