Observations on a Weekend

Little dirty feet always seem to be wet, thereby leaving little dirty footprints/smudges on every inch of tile floor.

Coffee really does taste the best on Sunday mornings when it can be drunk slowly (with no three-year-olds around!).

It is possible to do four things at once: boil potatoes for salad (and beets for lunch), run a load of laundry, water the backyard, and vacuum.

If you feed them, they will come. (In this case, the birds; but I’m sure it applies to other areas as well.) ;)

Tuna salad is good for breakfast.

Three-year-olds are easy to please when it comes to buying birthday presents. (I asked my granddaughter what she wanted for her birthday next Saturday. She said, “avocado.” I asked her how many and she said, “two.” Then I asked her how old she was going to be and she said, “July.” )

When my daughter was young, she jabbered ALL THE TIME!! (She even got a sweatshirt for Christmas one year that said, “Help! I’m talking and I can’t shut up.”) Granddaughter is turning out to be exactly like her mother. ;)

The little 3 ounce single serve cups of ice cream that you can buy by the dozen from the supermarket are really, really good!

Naps are wonderful.

Trying to get motivated and accomplish anything after a nap of more than an hour is next to impossible.

Big Girl Panties?

The weekend is progressing nicely. Although it's ridiculously hot outside. But that's why we have air conditioning - and lots of books and magazines, and a comfy chair in front of the computer for blogging, and a very light throw at the foot of the bed for keeping the draft from the air conditioning off one's legs while napping, and a rotisserie chicken in the fridge for dinner so I don't have to cook, and several different kinds of ice cream in the freezer. Ah . . . summertime!

Now, I have done the required laundry today, and I did clean the kitchen pretty thoroughly this morning, and even wiped down the windowsills in the kitchen and the dining room. I dusted in the dining room and my bedroom (still have a little bit left to do in there), and I have cleaned and organized my hobby room (aka the library, the office, the craft room). I managed to get outside to deep water the plants and tend to the birdcages, and I had to bandage up the bougainvilla that blew down off the arbor a few nights ago when it got very windy.

While I was outside watering, I gathered up some seed pods and skeleton leaves and things - even some moth wings - for a page in my WTJ (multitasking!) And I did take the time to glue and tape them into the journal because I didn't want to lose them once I brought them all into the house.

I've had coffee and iced tea, cut up kiwi fruit and strawberries and honeydew melon, a little cheese to go with the fruit, several bites of shrimp cocktail leftover from last night, half of a hamburger (shared with my husband), a handful of tortilla chips with guacamole, some chicken and rice, and (here's where it gets ugly) several "bites" of brownie, and i-don't-know-how-many powdered sugar donut holes that I bought for my Full Moon Dreamboard Circle tomorrow because they looked like little full moons.

And I feel horrible.

I am miserable.

In fact, I'm sitting here now in a pair of eleastic waist shorts (had my fave cargo shorts on earlier in the day but all those pockets and snaps and buttons make for uncomfortable napping), and my stomach feels so awful that the elastic is pulled way up underneath my rib cage to get it off my stomach. It's not pretty.

What has happened to me? I never used to be like this. I was always active - go, go, go; run, run, run; clean, clean, clean. Hustle and bustle! And I would never have even considered bringing powdered sugar donuts home, or if I did for some sort of occasion, they wouldn't have even been opened until just before the guests arrived. Tsk, tsk, tsk.

But I know what has happened to me. It's this. It's blogging. And Twitter. And Facebook (though not so much). And e-mail. And everything else that is a byproduct of one of the above, e.g., WTJ, collage art, links to interesting websites, etc. All such wonderful things! I'm not blaming them, however. You can't blame the pusher for an addict's addiction; you can't blame the pub for the alcoholic's fall from the wagon.

I have everything I need to right the situation. I have a trash can into which the donuts can go (actually I have the strength to just keep my hands off! The brownies too!). I have a yoga mat and yoga and pilates DVD's. I have an elliptical trainer and an iPod with some kick-ass tunes. So I figure I have options. I can:

• quit blogging altogether (yeah right)
• quit eating and only drink coffee and blog (hmmm . . .)
• hire a maid and a cook and buy more elastic waist shorts
• figure out a way to get my favorite bloggers to record themselves reading their blogs so I can listen while I work out (this might be my favorite)
• get a mini voice recorder and write/dictate my blog while on the eliptical trainer for posting later (if possible to understand with all the huffing and puffing and groaning)
• exercise for 30 minutes, blog for an hour; read (a book!) for an hour, blog for an hour;
• 15 minutes of meditation first, then 15 minutes of computer before work in the morning (in that order only!)

The key is really - though it sounds a bit (a lot) cliché - everything in moderation. And I can handle it. After all, I am a big girl - with big girl (elastic waisted) panties!

Happy weekend!

The "Weekbetween"

Another weekend is winding down. And a pretty good one it was, with a fair balance of productivity and pleasantness. There was the feeling of satisfaction from chores accomplished. There was good food and time spent with family. There were naps. There was time outdoors.

And although I’d prefer that tomorrow would be just another Sunday and did not necessitate the return to work, I want to reflect for a moment on this concept of the “weekend.”

We say we’re “working for the weekend,” we “can’t wait for the weekend,” “only three more days until the weekend!” But what about the time in between? Isn’t every other day of the week worth as much as Friday? Shouldn’t we wake up every day with the same enthusiasm as we do on Saturday?

I’m just as guilty as anyone else - I mark the days off my calendar to hurry to get to Friday. But lately I’ve become more aware that this is my life going by. I rush through the week to get to Saturday, but that’s a week of my life that’s now behind me. There aren’t any do overs and I don’t get it back. It’s just gone. Period. And that’s starting to bother me.

I’m going to try to shift my focus to the “weekbetween.” I really must try to do something meaningful each day, to experience something memorable at every opportunity, to notice the beauty that can be found pretty much anywhere I look for it. It doesn’t have to be anything big. I saw a single yellow butterfly in the backyard a couple days ago. And it’s late in the year already for butterflies here in the desert. It was beautiful in a simple way, and it made that moment special.

I know there are probably a lot of special moments that I’m missing. But I’m going to pay more attention. It won’t be easy. But it’ll be worth it.

Have a good weekbetween!

The Weekend Comes Early

I have the day off from work tomorrow. I have been looking forward to it for most of the week. I like my job well enough, but I love a day of quiet from time to time. I need a day of quiet from time to time. I CRAVE it.

At the beginning of the week, when I originally decided to ask for the day off, I was noticing lots of little things that needed to be done around the house. Menial little tasks that just weren’t getting done in the evenings. Insufferable little chores that the insufferable-little-chore-fairies weren’t doing during the day while I was at work. Chores like vacuuming up the dead flies from the windowsills, and cleaning the leftovers out of the fridge, and boxing up all the stuff in the garage for Goodwill and actually taking it and dropping it off. And I could picture in my mind how lovely it was going to be to have a clean house, and a clean fridge, and a clean garage. And I was already feeling the satisfaction that I knew would come when it was all done. But something changed between there and here, and the dead flies and leftovers aren’t bothering me so much anymore.

I’m thinking instead that it will be much too nice a day to work. And, frankly, why take a day off “work” to stay home and, well, work?

So what am I going to do? The possibilities are, as they say, endless:

• Sit extra long on the patio with an extra cup of coffee


• Take a walk


• Mail cards to my friends before postage goes up on Monday


• Go to the new scrapbook store


• Buy a new kind of tea and try it


• Take a nap




• Read


• Bake (and eat!) brownies


• Go get blackberries from the little local farm (thanks Suz!)


• Do yoga


• Do yardwork (Nope! There’s that word work again)


• Take a nap


• Go to the health food store


• Call my friend in Tucson and talk for about an hour


• Find Copenhagen on the map so I know where Blog Camp is going to be (even tho I’m not going – I’ll be there in spirit)


• Download some new songs in iTunes


• Get a pedicure


• Shop for plane tickets to North Carolina


• Learn a few new French words


• Take a nap


• Shop for clothes for my grandbabies


• Make a Mother’s Day card for my Mom-in-Law


• Cook some green chile brown rice


• Watch one of those judge shows I see advertised on TV all the time


• Practice Chinese brush painting


• Fix a broken necklace


• Kiss my husband when he gets home from work

Sigh . . . it’s gonna be a beautiful day!