Choosing Sunshine

Day 22 of 31 at TWT!

Today was one of those days when it felt, for just a bit, like my house was trying to crush me.  Really, can someone please get me some more hours in the day?  (Please?  My birthday's coming up in May!)  Ironically, I tend to feel stress the most on days like this, when I have "absolutely nothing to do".

The problem with days where I "nothing to do" is that I'm supposed to use them to catch up on all the things I don't do on the busy days.  After all, that's what I tell myself on the busy days: "I'll get to it over break" or "That'll be my project for the summer".  I walk past the pile of laundry that's trying to eat the bedroom, ignore the holiday decorations still out from I'm-ashamed-to-admit-which-holiday, navigate expertly through the obstacle course of school-related items that covers the extra bedroom, ignore the endless box of photos that haven't been labeled or put in albums for years, and collapse on the couch instead of going to the gym. 

These promises I make to myself would be fine, if I kept them.  But when breaks (and "free" weekends) come, they have this incredibly annoying habit of filling up rather quickly.  I go shopping with my mom, I read, I write, I go outside, we travel, I relax and breathe... All of a sudden, it's almost time to go back to school and I've only accomplished about one and two halves of the things I was supposed to do!

And so I freak out.  I do a load of laundry.  I clean the kitchen.  I dive into the holiday decorations and get about half of them back into the boxes.  I finish the vacation plans. (The only task for this break that I started on the first day!)  I feel productive until I look around and see everything I still didn't do:

The laundry is still on the verge of eating the bedroom, there are holiday decorations that remain, the school items are now threatening to spill out of the extra room into the rest of the house, and the photos haven't been touched.  In fact, the photos that are still on the computer are still waiting to be printed so they can collect dust in the already-overflowing box.  And the layer of fat on my stomach persists, because, guess what? I certainly did not go the gym every day.  Or even nearly every day.  Or any day.  (Maybe I will go tomorrow?)

I freak out more.  Why am I still drowning in things to do?

But the sun is shining out on the patio again.  A little squirrel under the bird feeder invites me outside, as if he's saying "This weather isn't going to last!"  I need to blog.  I need to read other slices.  I need to take a deep breath of flowery air and relax.

I decide that those things are important too.  And I'm glad I didn't spend my whole break getting things done.  (This summer, I'll get all caught up...)  Then it wouldn't have been a break.  And I definitely needed a break: a real sun-shiny, family-filled, walks-to-the-park, lounging-on-the-patio break.

So I'm choosing the sun and the squirrel and the flowery air.