Do you ever feel that you can never fully immerse yourself in one project without fretting about all the others you still need to get to? Does the shadow of all the other things you could (or should) be doing darken your enjoyment of what you are doing? Do you feel guilty for blogging when you could be writing, for journaling when you could be revising, for baking brownies when you could be scrubbing the bathroom floor?
Saturdays are often the worst days for those feelings. I put so many expectations on the weekends–I’m going to do everything I didn’t get to over the week, clean the house, run errands, pursue my various creative activities (ALL of them), read books, hang out with my family, do something fun and go some place new, and, oh, yes, take a nap. Ha!
Early this afternoon I was starting to get all panicky over how much I wanted to accomplish and how the day was half over and how I wasn’t going to get even a quarter of it done and ohgosh I’m such a lazy, unproductive… er, yeah. I cut myself off right there and instead focused on doing a few things. And enjoying them.
So, today I
- went out with Miss M. to buy food and plants (phlox, marigolds, black-eyed susans and onions to plant), and got some one-on-one time with my daughter, to boot!
- took lots and lots of pictures of flowers (I can’t help it, it’s an obsession!)
- wrote several hundred words on Secret Project X and wrote conflict arcs for several sub-plots in Quartz
- worked on my latest fiendishly difficult piano piece
- cooked two new-to-me recipes from scratch
- and watched the first half-hour of Fantasia with my family (I’ve never seen it before)
Not bad at all! I even remembered to throw a load of laundry into the washer, then the dryer. And I have plenty of leftovers for lunch tomorrow.
Little things make me happy. 🙂
How was your Saturday?
Went to a funeral. :(. But a happy side effect of funerals is that family comes to town, so we’re going to spend some time visiting my parents and brother today.
I used to do that guilt thing a lot, particularly on weekends, but I mostly outgrew it or something. Now, I just enjoy the time and whatever get done gets done. It’s so hard though, not to set up those expectations. I did want to write this weekend, but I had friends coming in yesterday to spend the day, and today I have to babysit my nephew until late tonight, so at least I knew going into the weekend there wouldn’t be any time. I’m still trying to get over this cold, which is trying to turn into a sinus infection. I think if I wasn’t babysitting, I’d go back to bed!
Tia, my condolences. 🙁
Deb, take it easy and get over that cold. Hope you and you nephew are having fun together today!
Oh, I know that guilt monster, but it attacks me all week long, not just on the weekends. 😛 I’m getting pretty good at beating it back though…I think. My pregnancy has just temporarily immunized me to its claws and threats and miasma of You-failure-you!
My Saturday? Can you say laundry? After the machine was out of commission for a week, I put it back to service with three loads yesty and three today. There will be three more tomorrow.
Aside from that, I made apple butter, tortillas, refried beans, all from scratch. Oh, and helped Julien build a shelter for the cats.
Yikes! That’s a lot of laundry for two people! Are you washing every scrap of fabric you own? 😀
I think pregnant women get an automatic pass from anything that does not involve growing a baby. So enjoy the guilt-free time.
Apple butter and from-scratch tortillas? Can you move next door to me? 😀
Went grocery shopping and stopped by Joann’s to get enough paper-crafting goodies to keep me happy for a LONG time. 😀 ATC, here I come!
Woo! 🙂