Today turned out to be something of a disappointment in terms of personal accomplishments. I awoke this morning with high hopes (probably a form of early-morning delirium brought about by too few hours of sleep). All week long I had been planning to get out early and knock out a bunch of yard work before the temperature rose past the danger level. Imagine my disappointment when I awoke to the sound of a steady rain outside. Well, perhaps disappointment is the wrong word. Happiness is probably the word I meant. I love rain and I hate yard work, so I'll pause a moment to give you time to connect the dots.
Instead I spent the early morning hours between about 6:30 and 8:30 drinking coffee and tapping inanities into my laptop computer while listening to it rain outside. I can't think of a more idyllic way to spend a Saturday morning than that. It was one of those times that makes you glad to be alive and thankful.
But once the household was awake and it became apparent that it was time to stop drinking coffee and time to start getting busy, I formulated a plan in which I would make up for my inability to do yard work by overachieving in the area of house work. As I baked the cinnamon rolls (the kind that come in a tube) I formulated plans for vacuuming, cleaning up the kitchen, doing laundry, and just generally restoring order to a household that had fallen victim to the chaos of an ordinary week. So, after showering and getting dressed, I set about to put my plan in action. I did the clean-up-the-kitchen item. But then the boilers lost pressure and the train slowed down considerably.
I'll just cut to the chase and say that I ended up laying on the couch upstairs and taking a nap. This was not entirely my fault. I merely laid down a second just to rest my eyes, but then the cat walked up onto my back and made herself comfortable. Well, I couldn't very well disturb the cat, could I? So, between the sound of the rain outside, and the feel of a warm cat sleeping on my back, and the general comfort of my favorite ten-year-old couch, consciousness did not stand a chance.
When I came to an hour and a half later, the cat was still on my back, the couch was still comfortable, and the rain was still whispering outside. But a sense of guilt made me stand up (much to the consternation of the cat, who had finally found a use for me) and get busy again.
At some point during the day we decided to go to Target to shop for our upcoming trip to the beach. There was much impulse-buying and flimsy justifications for things only remotely related to a trip to the beach. But, it is part of the whole beach experience, so who am I to reign in spending at a time like that? By the time we got to the checkout line (about an hour after we got there), our shopping cart was groaning under the weight of the mound of consumer goods piled in it and on it. I believe that the hard rubber/plastic wheels of the cart were in danger of going flat. I had to walk away while the checkout girl rang up our purchases. It pained me greatly to think about the amount of money we were spending. I'm certainly no cheapskate, but neither do I like to watch many hours of my hard labor being converted into plastic doo-dads and other consumables that would just be a faint memory in two weeks' time.
So that was about it for the activities of the day that could in any way be considered to be productive (and even that requires a willing suspension of disbelief if not out-and-out self-delusion).
My excuse for the slothful wasting of an entire day is (a) it was raining and (b) I was exhausted from working so hard lately, and (c) it is the first day of being off of work for 9 days and so I think my mind and body just sort of collapsed like a sprinter crossing the finish line. Those are my excuses and I'm clinging to them tightly.
And now the day is at an end and I am once again in my pajamas and drinking a cup of coffee and tapping into this infernal laptop computer of mine. The day has been neatly book-ended by this coffee/pajama/laptop trifecta. Life is good. Thank you, God.
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