A day in the life of an unemployed programming self-learner

Right, so I'm working through some great programming "prep"/intro courses (see below!) provided by a number of bootcamps, and one thing I just found and enjoyed was a handful of articles of the type "a day in the life of....", to give you an idea of what you do as a developer.

For samples, here are ones for software developer and front-end developer (both at larger and established companies). And I love this one, that focuses on the improvisational nature of work in really any field. I am delighted with how he talks about "other tasks" that "add value in a more general way," which I think is something that is often overlooked in nearly all workspaces.

But for fun, here's a day in the life of a self-directed-software-programming-student-who-is-also-unemployed:

I am already qualified to be a programmer, based on coffee consumption.
Tasty Sisterhood Solidarity coffee from Santa, err, I mean SERVV Fair Trade.

Official day starts at 7: Spouse heads to work, I go supervise bunny rabbit play time, so the untrustworthy little tyrants don't eat all the carpets. Also good for a first email-check and cup of coffee (1 of 2-4)

Spend around 3-4 hours on (pick one or more):

• Coursera: Currently doing the Python for Everyone series through University of Michigan; have also done chunks of the intro to programming the OIT series from UC-Irvine, the Web Design for Everybody series from University of Michigan, the software product management series from University of Alberta, and the business analytics series ("Excel to MySQL....") from Duke. I plan to continue working on the courses in these series, and I have stacks more in the queue (John Hopkins' Ruby on Rails and data science specializations are in the crosshairs). I will never get caught up; this is why I never get bored.) I'll admit, I am doing the "free" versions of all of these, so no certificates, and in the Duke one, I don't even get to do the quizzes. I am just not sure that the certificates will hold much weight with future potential employers; I am in it for the learning and for being exposed to new ideas.
• Viking Code School Prep
• Ada Development Academy Jump Start
• CodeAcademy (very little of this, to date, honestly)
• StudioCode (yes, it's for kids, but I was starting from pretty much ground zero, so it was and is a good tool. I cannot tell you how much I love the happy little bee they use for teaching sequences, for loops, etc.)

(Additional learning resources that are also in the queue: CodeWars, anything else I can find through Made with Code and TED's 10 Places Where Anyone Can Learn to Code, possibly something from Udacity, and W3Schools, which I used when learning HTML the first time around, in ca2001.)

Maybe also do a little professional-oriented reading: Code Complete, HeadFirst SQL, or Learning Python. Or one of the open-source books referenced by one of my Coursera courses.

Then spend another 2-3 hours on "around the house" chores, because, let's face it, when you're the unemployed one, you are the one who does the grocery shopping, yard work, fence-fixing, grout-sealing, shrub-trimming, dinner-cooking, bathroom-cleaning, peephole-installing, bike-fixing, etc. (Here's Judy Brady on why we all would like a wife, please.)

And also exercise, because I figure (a) it's good for me (duh), and (b) since I'm kind of a trophy wife right now, I better start, ahem, trying to develop some of the qualifications? Not my forte.

Time permitting, other side projects include blogging (!!), reading ALL THE THINGS, and doing some advocacy for...good causes. Like public records. And trying to get a small business off the ground (instant vegan hot cocoa, everybody! But we have hit a snag and that's on hold.). And doing some contract writing for a neighbor, and hopefully also through Upwork.

And sometimes I still break down and apply for librarian/archivist/museum jobs, because moving on is hard. But I'm trying to stay committed to my new path and not let myself get side-tracked.

And some tunes from my learn-to-program playlist?