This weekend was a glorious respite. After two weeks of moving and holidays and visitors and more moving, I returned to school on Thursday having had no time off to relax and regroup. Thankfully, last week was only a two-day work week, so the weekend came quickly. Once Friday afternoon arrived, I turned on relaxation mode and didn't click it off until this morning when my alarm rang.
After getting home on Friday, JD and I went to dinner (Mexican! My favorite comfort food) and a movie (The Hobbit). Despite the annoying people in the theater who made phone calls and took flash photos during the movie and me being slightly exhausted, the movie was great. It definitely met my expectations, and I'm eager for the next one to be released. When does that happen, by the way?
Saturday involved a new haircut (thankfully! I was getting ratty and fluffy!) and the baking of a King Cake. Sunday was Epiphany, and I wanted to get ready for it by making a King Cake -- my first ever! After an afternoon of cooking and tidying the house, my favorite married couple came over with their boisterous dog, Pindar, for dinner and drinks. I made a tasty Caribbean rice and JD made his beer can chicken. We had tasty wine and dessert -- King Cake! -- and we had a pretty great time. (Saturday recipe blog post coming soon.) All of the dogs -- all four of them -- had fun running and playing and barking and chasing. It's amazing how similar Pindar and Sunny are. If we didn't know better, we'd swear they were related. Pickles fulfilled his usual role of little dog barking at big dogs, and Bailey escaped to the quiet crate to get away from the craziness.
Unbelievably, I slept in on Sunday. JD, who does weekend puppy duty, walked the dogs early and we all -- three dogs and two adults -- cuddled in bed until around noon. What a happy family! :) After waking up, I simply rolled over and grabbed my book and read for an hour or so. When we finally rolled out of bed, we decided that we wanted to see another movie and headed back to the theater. We thoroughly enjoyed watching Lincoln and then went home to do nothing but chill.
Despite doing nothing -- or because of it -- this past weekend was amazing. My mind and body desperately needed some chill time after the insane busyness of the past few weeks. I finally feel settled in the new house (there are still some pictures to hang and things to do, but I'm happy with the set-up right now) and all of the kids have adjusted well to the new environment. I was able to just unwind. I didn't even go into my office once this weekend. It was pretty awesome. As a result, I came to work today feeling refreshed and ready to take on the world.
Part of my New Year's promises was to relax and to learn effective relaxation strategies. I think I was pretty successful this weekend. Of course, I have a ton of work to do this week, but I feel much more ready to take it on having had some down time this weekend.
It's all about balance, folks.
No comments:
Post a Comment