Thank you all so much for these great replies! My apologies for the delay in getting over here to read them all...things are a little crazy these days, ha.

I will start some research based off what you've all given me and develop some questions from that. The idea is still simmering but it's taking shape and this will definitely help me get started to see if it will pan out or not.

Thank you all again!

I went through some correspondence I had with a dear friend who was on that path. This is from that, anonymized, and modified to read as advice...

You might start googling "discernment of religious life" and going on the websites of various orders and reading about them and their processes. Some things are in common (like candidacy, novitiate, temporary vows, permanent vows), some different. Some orders still wear habits, many (especially those who live in the world like the Dominicans of Peace order) discarded them after Vatican II. There is technically a difference between "nun" and "sister," but even they themselves don't observe the parlance a lot of the time.

As for the typical day, it differs vastly between orders and individual communities and especially the types of orders, which run the gamut between apostolic orders (they live in small communities out in the world and work according to their talents in various professions, like nurses and teachers and lawyers) and cloistered orders (whose charism is prayer, and they spend their day praying the office and daily Mass and doing chores and never step off the premises and rarely mix with the outside world). Some are in between, such as the St. Scholastica Monastery in Duluth, who are semi-cloistered.

This is from a website of the cloister in the town where I grew up; it's a block away from the church (and grammar school) I attended. https://www.summitdominicans.org/conversation-with-a-cloistered-nun This particular group is cloistered, but not all Catholic nuns are in cloisters. I had several aunts who were nuns (only one of whom is alive now) But with this and what LNLOFT shared, you can devise additional questions. I can probably get more information for you when you know more of what you want to learn.

Oh, man, I wish my grandmother was still alive, because I know she had a ton of nun friends. Since I don't have that avenue to pursue anymore, maybe reaching out to a local Catholic church to see if they know anyone they can put you in touch with. I say Catholic because that's generally the "classic" nun we think of, although there are plenty of other denominations that have nuns, including non-Christian (so I suppose that's something you can look at, too, what denomination she's with, because that will have a strong influence on her life). Even within Roman Catholic, though, there can be variation on how they live and what responsibilities they have. I know my grandmother's friends tended to be on the more liberal side, so they were definitely out and about doing things, but on the other end of the spectrum you could have nuns who have taken a vow of silence and spend every free moment praying. So you've got some wiggle room.

Also, I just did a quick google search "How to become a nun", and I immediately got quite a few results, some along the lines of WikiHow, and some from specific organizations. That might also make some good reading and give you another option on places to reach out to for more information.