Weekends

I was a bum this weekend. Okay... truthfully, I was a bum for half the weekend. I can't talk about Sunday because a) it isn't Sunday yet and b) I'm hosting Easter dinner with the family at my house on Sunday, so I won't be bumming tomorrow.

But I was a bum today. Slept in until 9:00 or so, then watched Part II of Gone with the Wind (I watched Part I last night, before I went to bed), followed by The Holiday (better than I expected and I'm not a huge, huge fan of Jude Law, but I thought he was very Cary Grant in this movie), Curse of the Golden Flower (which was okay; I liked Crouching Tiger, Hero, and House of Flying Daggers better), Ice Age (hadn't seen it before now; also turned out to be better than expected for that type of movie), Frankenstein (the Branagh/DeNiro/Bonham Carter version; only okay; not as scary as I thought it would be), and, finally, to round out the movie watching, Casino Royale (for, like, the 12th time. I must say, I think the new Bond movies are far more sophisticated than in the past and this one is no exception. I really like this Bond film.)

By the time I finally showered and dressed, it was well after 7:00 p.m. and then I ran off to the store to buy the various sundries and goods I'll need to make tomorrow's dinner--pork tenderloin with roasted granny smith apples and butternut squash on the side. It's a new recipe and I thought I'd give it a whirl, as the family didn't want the standard ham or lamb. We'll see how it turns out.

But that's not really the point I want to make with this post. The point I want to make is, ever since I started working full-time again, I've felt as though my weekends have been overcrowded with things that are MUST-DOs rather than WANT-TO-DOs. Does that make sense? For some reason, during my 10 months of unemployment and leisure, I somehow unlearned how to get everything done on the weekends that I need to, while still leaving time for a little play and R&R. My only saving grace this weekend is that our Boston-Irish-Catholic Veep decided to close the office yesterday at noon in observance of Good Friday. So, I went to Costco yesterday and got that out of the way, which then only left cleaning the house, grocery shopping, and laundry for today. Of those, I managed to get two out of three done between 7:30 p.m. and 10:30 p.m. I'll finish cleaning tomorrow and then will start cooking in the afternoon.

Still... I get to Mondays and think, "How come I feel so tired?"

I also, before the lengthy hiatus, use to run a lot of errands in the evenings after work, but now, I come home so tired, I rarely go out in the evenings. What's up with that?!

Anyway--enough about all this. I'm off to put my PJs back on and watch another movie. Maybe I'll watch Casino Royale again...

Hiatus

Old Lady of the Sea, Trinidad State Beach,
Trinidad, Humboldt County, California

Back in November, I was challenged to participate in the November Blog Posting Month (NoBloPoMo) "event" wherein one posts a blog a day. I've kept that up for the last four months and am proud to say, I've blogged every day for the last 120 days. And some days, more than once. Of course, I also had a lot of time on my hands, which made it easy.

But... You saw that coming, huh? But, I've been working for the last month. I'll grant you, it's not the most stressful job in the world. And yet, at the end of the day, when I step off the train, I'm tired. By the time I get home and have some dinner, I'm pooped. The result is, I can't get the brain cells to fire enough juice to be creative, let alone command the old fingers to type.

I have several pieces drafted that are queued up and need tweaking before I post them, but they're bigger pieces like the one I recently wrote about John McPhee's Rising from the Plains. In terms of day-to-day writing, I'm trying too hard to come up with stuff and it's starting to feel forced. I want to keep writing every single day, because I've enjoyed it and it's been good exercise for me, but I'm feeling a little worn out at the moment and I think my writing might be suffering because of that. (And even if it's not, I know my brain feels like it is.)

And, let's not even talk about how my staying on top of reading everyone else's fabulous blogs has suffered. Unless I clandestinally (is that a word?!) snatch moments here and there at work, (which is technically against policy, but for which I'm forgiven because I'd otherwise be staring into space 75 percent of my time, even after I've asked my supervisor if there's something, anything, I can do) I'm missing a lot of good writing and connection with all of you.

I'm also way behind on a couple of projects I took on before the PharmaCo. job started and that I haven't completed. I have a client who's waiting for a proposal that is now two weeks overdue and an author who is waiting for me to copyedit his book so we can send it to the publisher for production. I should have had a first round read done last week and I haven't even started. Oh, and there's the non-profit in Pennsylvania I haven't heard from in a month or more that I've volunteered to help with a fund development plan. I need to follow up with them, too.

All that said, I'm going on hiatus this weekend and I may extend it into next week. When I return in a few days, it will likely be with only occasional posts. I'd like to think I'll be back up and writing daily once I settle into a routine that leaves me with more than just energy to eat dinner, run a few errands, catch up on personal emails, put on my pajamas, pop in a Netflix, read a few pages from a book, and be in bed by 10:00 (though, it's more often been 11:00 or 12:00, which doesn't help when you have to be up at 6:30.)

Thank you for reading. I've loved writing. And I hope to be back very, very soon!

Photo copyright: Janet M Kincaid, 2004.

Vacation, Or Getting a Jump Start on the New Year's Resolutions

I'm off on vacation this week and it's already been a fun start. I had my annual physical this morning. Found out I need to lose 36 pounds. Plus, I have to see an opthalmologist to find out why my head aches more often, a radiologist for an upper GI, and a dermatologist to map my moles. Other than that, I'm in perfect health. Or, at least I am until my internist calls me and tells me what my cholesterol is, or my opthamologist says it isn't my eyes that are the cause of my head aches, or the radiologist says there's something to be said for my gastric systems, or my dermatologist highlights the finer points of my mole map.

I'm not a hyperchondriac, though. I mean, heck, anything could go wrong. But for now, I'm healthy, a little overweight, and lazy. So, here's my resolution for 2006: eat better, exercise more, go to bed on time, and get up earlier.

Here's to a Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

TGIF

And I don't mean the restaurant.

And I'm not saying that because I hate my job or it's been a hellish week.

I'm saying that, because sometimes it's just nice to know that at the end of the week, there's a break.

So, here's my to-do list for this weekend:

• Take my car in for its 10,000 mile maintenance.
• Finish my do-it-yourself fix-it project, otherwise known as the broken, but still worth repairing, futon.
• Read, read, read.

Happy Friday!