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WRAL Reporter Contributes A Day In Her Life

  • Andrea Osborne
  • January 30, 2006
  • News
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WRAL Reporter Contributes A Day In Her Life

Amanda Lamb
WRAL-TV Reporter Amanda Lamb

What do an award winning WRAL-TV reporter, a Nun, an Army sergeant in Baghdad, and Johnny Cash’s daughter have in common? Well, the answer is nothing, and everything. They all contributed to a collection of diaries from 34 women from various regions and walks of life.

Each details the events on one day, June 29, 2004. Now there isn’t anything special about this day, but what is special is how they all viewed their day, and the value that day impacted their lives.

Our own Amanda Lamb shares her insights as a so-called type “A” television reporter, and working mother on vacation. Lamb has been writing for a humorous parenting website called dot moms for about two years. She learned about the opportunity to submit a diary for “This Day in the Life” from the organizer of the site. Five hundred women sent in diaries; the author took 34. And the book opens with Lamb’s entry.

The book is titled “This Day in the Life: Diaries From Women Across America.” For more information, visit This Day In The Life .

By the way, Lamb is presently working on her very own book, having been inspired by this project.

Excerpt from Amanda Lamb’s Diary in “A Day In the Life”

8:00 A.M.: I get two cups of coffee and balance them on the top of the baby jogger. The coffee shop has detailed descriptions for each blend. One says: “dark, brooding, spellbinding,” another says: “distinctly complex.” I never realized coffee, like everything else in my life, seems to be an emotional choice. I’m feeling more complex than spellbinding today.

9:15 A.M.: Getting two kids ready to go to the beach is almost so exhausting it’s not worth the trouble. But being a type-A working mother with all the guilt that goes along with this role I plan for every contingency to make the day at the beach a scene out of Disney movie. The list includes bathing suits, hats, sun block, sunglasses, diapers, changes of clothes, toys, towels, chairs, drinks, and snacks. The planning is the easy part; it’s the execution that’s hard. After watching me do this my mother says instead of “a village” it takes “a city” to raise children.

10:00 A.M.: We arrive at the edge of the beach. The Jersey Shore has big, wide beaches, so pushing the baby jogger across the sand is a bit like crossing the Sahara with a Rickshaw. People stare and say things like: “You’ve got your hands full!” Or “What a workout!” I politely smile and imagine running over their feet. Upon arrival at a good spot, the setup begins. There are two kinds of beach people here. The people who bring their own chairs and towels, and the people who stay at hotels and inns where the staff sets them up for you. We are the former, my mother longs to be the latter.

10:15 A.M.: We have the beach almost to ourselves as it is still a little cool. In an unlikely turn of events the baby has fallen asleep in the jogger, so Mallory and I have a rare moment to ourselves. I am taking pictures of her as she does cartwheels by the water. I want to remember her like this, her skin the color of toast in a bathing suit that looks more like a tutu, her blunt short haircut falling into her eyes with every imperfect tumble. She gets bored and decides we need to build a drip castle. It’s the only kind of castle I can build because it’s meant to be abstract instead of perfect. My mother never built castles with me because she didn’t like sand. So by doing it, I kill two birds with one stone, complete my working-mom-guilt-Disney-fantasy and one-up my mother.

From This Day in the Life: Diaries from Women Across America, Three Rivers Press © 2005. For more information about the book, please visit www.thisdayinthelife.com.

Thanks to WRAL-TV’s Clarence Williams for this capcom story & to “This Day in the Life” for book cover graphic & excerpt.

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