This week has been a big one in our house. For the first time in our actual adult lives, Josh has had to get up earlier than me every day this week. He started his new job as the Hendrick’s Gin Canadian Brand Ambassador. This week and next means sitting, mostly, at a desk and doing, mostly, regular work things. He has been getting up at hours that he used to go to sleep at when working as a bartender, we works out, wakes me up, then showers and hits the highway to work. I then roll out of bed and do the same, except in my case, I hop on the streetcar to the studio. It’s been an interesting week to say the least.
Never really before in our adult lives, have we worked “regular” jobs with “regular” hours. I use quotations there because any time I have said that I do not have a “regular” job, I am corrected. Yes, being a photographer is a “regular” job but what I mean is that it is never consistent since I am freelance and any week can take me in a number of different places. My work hours are not limited to 9am to 5pm like what I would consider the hours of a “regular” job are. This week I spent three days at the studio, one evening photographing an event at a university, one headshot at my studio, one day photographing a public event and today I will second shoot a wedding. There is nothing regular about that. My life is wild. So are my working hours. Before this week, if I didn’t have a morning shoot, I would normally wake up at 8am or 9am and ease into my day. I would roll into the studio around 11am or noon and get working. From there I would stay until 7pm-ish and then call it a day. Josh’s schedule previous to this week for nearly the past two years was: work at 3pm and get home at 4am. He would work three or four of these shifts a week and then have one prep shift thrown in there (1pm to 6pm). It was not unusual to go days without seeing each other. We would leave notes. I would bake treats for him to have at 4am. He would leave me flowers for when I came home from the studio. It was all so irregular but we made it work. And when we had the rare evening or day completely to ourselves, we would take advantage of that. Some friends seemed to not understand why we would place so much importance on our sporadic date nights. Not knowing that really we hadn’t seen one another’s face in four days.
So here we find ourselves for this week and the next, living a “regular” work life and it feels so strange. Getting up at early hours, packing lunches and then eating dinner at home together every night. It’s a huge adjustment but it’s pretty darn nice as well. I have to admit that by Friday though, I was exhausted. How do you people do this all of the time?! Getting up early every day has taken a lot out of me. So has the whole plan proper dinners for twothing. I’m used to having a couple of nights on my own where it was okay if I cheated on the dinner thing a little. But suddenly, there is the pressure to eat a proper dinner, and to have leftovers for two for the next day’s lunch. On Thursday night as we were getting dinner ready Josh said, “Can we go out for food tomorrow?” I quickly agreed.
With all of this, I want to apologise to all of my regular working friends who live lives that this schedule is the norm. I get it now. I now understand why you cannot go out on a Tuesday night at 11pm. I know that if you do, you’ll be pooched for the week. I fully get it now. I also now understand why by Friday, you just want to get into comfy clothes and not leave your couch, no matter how sick you are of being at home every night that week. I was there last night, laying on the couch when Josh came home and I was really not wanting to leave that position for the cold outdoors. When we did go out, we opted to head to a local spot that we could walk to (Grand Electric), then have a drink basically next door (Porzia) before one last stop for a cocktail at the ever-so-close-to-home Geraldine. We were home before 11pm, just in time to watch the latest episode of Banshee. And that was our Friday night after our first “regular” work week ever together.
Through all of the meal planning this week, we have what I have dubbed a new staple in our house: the Vegan Caesar Salad*. We first made it for ourMexican Fiesta a couple of weeks ago and I had been dreaming of it ever since. So on Monday night, we made a batch of the dressing in the Magic Bullet and it was enough dressing to last us the week. Every night we ate this awesome healthy salad using either kale or spinach or a mix of both for the greens. (Yes, we added real grated parmesan at the end – so not vegan!)
On Thursday Josh was experimenting with making Hendrick’s cocktails. This is his actual job now. One of them ended up tasting almost like chocolate cake and I instantly had a craving for some. I’m not a big dessert person. I would rather have a cocktail than dessert when eating out but suddenly, I wanted cake. I tweeted jokingly asking if there was cake delivery in Toronto and when no one came through, I took matters into my own hands. I Googled “Quick Chocolate Cake” and clicked the first link that came up. Forty minutes later, we were eating it and it was delicious. That, I tell you, is life awesome.
*The NutritionStrip website where the Vegan Caesar Salad dressing is from is currently under construction. I promise you that it’s worth going back to and copying down when it’s back up. It’s that good.
