I am a creature of planning and routine. Weekends are busy times around here. We have all the “usual” weekend stuff to do, like vacuuming the house, going to the grocery store, catching up with family on Skype and going for a run. And then we have the things we don’t do every weekend, but which need to get done sometime, like getting the stuff to hang curtains, working on the taxes, planning our summer trip to the beach. And, then, of course, we try to find a little time to relax and enjoy ourselves.
It’s completely doable . . . at least, theoretically. I sit down with our list of to-dos every Friday and figure out when everything is going to happen over the weekend. Once I’ve gotten it all written down, it looks so reasonable. I only plan our mornings, so we have our afternoons and evenings for fun and relaxation. I sit, on Friday night, pleased and excited by all that we’re gonig to accomplish and how great we’re going to feel by Monday.
And then, by 9:15 on Saturday morning, we’re off our schedule. Most weekends, we do ok anyway. We get the really important stuff done, we get a few optional things done, and we find some time for fun. This weekend was not like that — especially not today. We lost our Sunday.
We didn’t switch to Daylight Saving Time here this weekend, so we don’t even have that as an excuse. The kids were up shortly after 7:00 this morning, just like always. We got going, made breakfast and then got started doing our day . . . and then somwhere along the way, we wandered into a transient Bermuda Triangle-like effect and we turned around and it was after 5:00 and neither Dan or I had even had a shower yet. It’s bizarre when that happens. I’m usually hyper aware of the passage of time and really good at keeping track of where things went awry, but today I have no idea. We went for a run. We did Skype with my dad and sister. We ate three meals. The kids got naps and baths. But that’s it. Really, honestly, I can account for about 6 or so hours of time today, and other than that, I truly have no idea what we did (so, by my calculations, it ought to be about 4:0o in the afternoon, rather than nearly 11:00 at night).
These kinds of days are hard for me. They require an incredible amount of flexibility and optimism to get through with any gracefulness. I start to freak out about, “When is this stuff going to get done?!?” and “How do we make sure this never happens again?!?” and “Oh my god, we’re going to get arrested because we’re not going to get our taxes done on time!!!” (No kidding, I said ALL of those things today.)
But, it’s ok. Really. (If I keep saying it, I might actually start believing it.) The laundry will wrinkle, the beach planning will happen, the taxes will get done, and we will live to fight another day. I don’t see the answer to how those things will happen right this minute, but I know they will. We must have really needed a colelctive day of rest. We’ll get the things done that we need to get done, and the rest can wait. And hopefully, the moutons won’t rally and assemble and take over. But they might. Wish us luck.
Tags: weekend