There is always an intense battle going on in my head near the end of each work week. It’s a battle between two forces exerting equal pressure on the definition of a weekend. To catch up on all the things that are impossible to do in a busy, working household juggling multiple schedules at once? Or to catch up in a completely different manner – to relax and be lazy and let the days breeze over us without an agenda.
I usually send an email to M around lunchtime on Friday as the battle starts to formulate – not as a to-do list for him, but as a way to organize my thoughts for the coming “free” days. Last Friday’s looked like this:
Tonight:
Run.
Dinner and kids.
Decorate rainbow cookies (after I clean up the kitchen).
Sleep.
Saturday:
Get up early and go to garden before M’s party .
Home for lunch and early nap.
Run C’s cookies over early.
C’s Party.
Pick up K and judging on everyone’s hunger level maybe go out for dinner?
Sunday:
Drop off K at 9 and get grocery items for reception punch, then off to church.
Transplant the tree.
Transplant the tree.
Menu plan and grocery shop for the week.
Look at bedside table options for F’s room for her grandmother.
Other things that I’d love to do too:
Clean up and organize the house a bit.
Catch up on the laundry.
Get F’s bed completely put together and launder the bed rail material.
Rehang the pictures over her bed and fill the holes and touch up paint.
Assemble the artwork for J’s office and deliver it to her.
Watch Lincoln.
Go to the opening of the new art museum addition on the way home from church on Sunday.
Go swimming late Sunday afternoon / evening.
Make a decision on the stair lights and get things ordered.
Finish modeling the dining room in Sketchup.
Start D’s kitchen model in Sketchup.
But by Sunday, reality has finally sunk in, and I know that many, many of these things will move onto the next weekend, or be worked into the evenings this week. There’s not even any mention of the current house project in the (physical) center of our lives, nor is there any mention of F’s birthday party and the preparations for that event. We also travel a bit soon, and M and I are both busy at work (in fact, he worked late Friday night until 3 am on Saturday morning).
Here is what we did do (crossed off below).
Tonight:
Sleep. (Not marking it out since I went to bed at almost 2am.)
Saturday:
Get up early and go to garden before M’s party .
Sunday:
Transplant the tree.
Other things that I’d love to do too:
Clean up and organize the house a bit. (Eh, maybe 25% done.)
Rehang the pictures over her bed and fill the holes and touch up paint.
Assemble the artwork for J’s office and deliver it to her.
Go to the opening of the new art museum addition on the way home from church on Sunday.
Go swimming late Sunday afternoon / evening.
Make a decision on the stair lights and get things ordered.
Finish modeling the dining room in Sketchup. (Did some of this, but not completed.)
Start D’s kitchen model in Sketchup.
The battle for the weekend continues; I’m just not sure which side I’m on.
I feel like I go through the same thing — try to do 500 things or none at all. It does sound like you have your priorities in a good order though — it makes me crazy when someone will pass up an opportunity to spend time with family or friends to work on their house. Life’s passing you by and the house will still be there! Also I’ve been trying to figure out when to get in and see the new SLAM addition — I’m thinking I’ll wait a little bit and let the initial craziness die down. Cheers – CT
You might give me too much credit. I try to keep them in the right order, but we have been known to not have others over because of current state of our house.
However… we are doing better this summer. We open our (very unfinished) yard every Thursday night for friends to come by and listed to live blues from across the street, and that’s been sort of freeing. To just let go of the notion that x,y and z has to be complete before we can “live”.
Maybe I’ll bump into you at the art museum. I’m really excited to see it – I’ve enjoyed running past it this spring and summer.