5:59 Mattie wakes me up ready to start the day. I, to quote my insurance boss, ignore her @$$. She gets in her kennel and falls asleep again.

7:30 Mattie wakes me up scratching on the door. I let her out.

8:48 Mattie wakes me up by exploding in barking because the backhoe has arrived in our front yard. Instead of filling in the hole, they inform us they need to dig deeper. I get up and eat Aldi-brand Lucky Charms, the breakfast of champions.

9:30 I get on Zoom with the tenth-grader I met last night. She needs help organizing her schedule and once I start working with her I totally understand why. She's in seven courses scattered across three virtual platforms. We sort through it all and end up with a nice color-coded schedule.

10:20 Finishing with the tenth-grader, I go out to take Mattie for a walk. It's in the 80s, but not too humid. The front yard is literally now one giant hole and a man is standing in it up to his waist.

11:00 We get back. I pull resources to use with the fourth-grader I work with on Tuesdays. I can't do much prep because Khan Academy is down, which is a national emergency as far as I'm concerned.

11:30 I clock into tutor.com. My first student arrives in a reading session but is actually needing help on essays. I refuse to touch essays now that I quit that subject, so I transfer her. Between students I watch a YouTube vlog from Slab City, which is a rabbit hole my coworkers started me down yesterday.

12:00 After helping another student, I log off and make a Powerpoint for today's fourth-grader, since Khan Academy is still down.

12:30 I eat barbecue chicken from the freezer, a croissant, and zebra popcorn. Then I play with Mattie outside before coming in to prep for my Wednesday tutoring kids.

2:00 I hold Mattie for my Mom while she trims more hair. She likes to do grooming a little bit at a time.

2:50 I get back on Tutor.com. I start helping a fifth-grader with reading but he stops responding, and then I help a sixth-grader answer questions about a book.

3:30 I get on Zoom with Kid A, one of three fourth-graders I tutor independently. She's eating a corn dog. First I help her with her English assignments: she's been working on parts of speech and pronouns, and today she has to identify the differences between their, there, and they're. She gets them really mixed up unless she can look back and see the definitions, but she'll get the hang of it. I manage to find the resources we need despite not having Khan Academy.

When we finish her school, we work on the fun project we started last week. Last month, we read a book called This is How We Do It and now she's doing a journal project called "This is How I Do It," where she makes her own version of the book about her life. I'm doing it alongside her, because I know it's more fun with a partner. When we finish a page, we read it to each other and show each other our drawings.

4:30 I finish with her and take Mattie for a walk. Two different neighbors ask me what the heck happened to my yard.

5:15 I get back and log onto Tutor.com again. I have an audio session with a little boy who works on finding the main idea of a text. I actually work with him quite frequently, so we know each other. He is in a Muslim family and his parents don't know enough English to help him with his homework.

Between students, I prep for my Wednesday kids. I also stalk Indeed because while I love the kids, I hate Tutor.com, or should I say Nazi.com, and I am actively looking for something else.

6:30 I stop working for dinner. Just as well because I have a headache from being tired. We eat steak fajitas with rice and beans. It is *chefs kiss*

6:45 Vanna helps me identify confusing or unclear parts of my book so I can edit. I work on that, interrupted by having to clean the kitchen.

8:30 I finish proofreading for the day. I need to beta read, but I haven't done a single thing for pleasure all day so I play Monument Valley on my computer. Unless you count the Slab City vlog but I wouldn't really call that pleasurable.

But DISASTER STRIKES. The moment I click "play," I remember I haven't reached my step goal on my Garmin watch since Friday. That is unacceptable if you want a healthy future. I end up reading my current ebook while aimlessly walking around my house, hoping it adds enough steps to my watch. The fact that I'm admitting this publicly shows you how little I care anymore.

9:15 I take a shower and go to bed, which is what I've been waiting all day for.