Getting Ready for the Weekend

Somewhere on the internet this week I read a blog where the author noted that most people's notion of a "perfect day" is perfectly doable. Apparently for most people the perfect day does not consist of winning a Nobel Prize, but is more like puttering around the house, working in the garden, and cooking dinner for friends. My idea of the perfect day is waking up when I am no longer sleepy, and not a minute before. Having hot tea in bed. Wandering downstairs to begin my sewing day. Having lunch out, and then returning home to sew all afternoon. I admit this isn't the same as "reach the summit of Mount Everest"; my perfect day is seemingly within my control, and I had one last Saturday. So the blogger asked, if perfect days are completely obtainable, why don't we have them more often?

And I immediately knew the answer: because there is just so much that needs doing. I'm not talking about the "shoulds": I can completely ignore the "shoulds". I should clean the baseboards this weekend, but that isn't going to happen, and I don't feel the least bit bad about it. I'm talking about the "needs". There are people in your life that need things from you and they have to be done. Those of you with children know what I am talking about. And there are other needs. I need to fill up the car with gas. This isn't a "should" it is a "need". If I don't fill it up, I'll run out, and I'll end up on the side of the road. But you can be plenty sure that "fill up the car with gas" doesn't exist on my perfect day.

Another "need": I need to exercise. (And this isn't a "should".) I can do it on Saturday mornings, but again, working out does not make it into my perfect day. Which means it has to be done on Friday evening. Among other things. To make the perfect day happen, you have to do a heap of work to get the "needs" done first. If not, and you ignore them and do what you want to do, the "needs" will hang over your head like 8th grade homework. And your perfect day is no longer perfect because you are instead worried about what you aren't getting done.

The blogger's post made me realize that the perfect day takes a great deal of planning and effort to make it happen. So I spent a good portion of the week doing all the "needs", and even some of the "shoulds", so I can enjoy tomorrow guilt-free. The car has gas, I exercised after work, the laundry is in the dryer, and all the "need" work at my place of employment got done before I walked out the door. It will all make tomorrow's play a little sweeter. And hopefully result in the perfect day.

Hope everyone reading this gets to create something this weekend.