It isn’t so often that I have a long period of time off work yet at home. After my family left on the 29th, I was left alone for a whole week to myself! Louie is off visiting his family and I chose not to go as I would be going later due to my family visiting, and I had already accepted a couple gigs when we discussed it. I also thought it might be nice to have a little downtime at home.

Don’t get me wrong, I love traveling, and there have definitely been times this week that I regretted staying home. But there have been other times I’ve been so thankful that I’ve been able to take this time to myself!

I have been cleaning up a bit around the house, putting away decorations and such. I was able to finish all the leftovers and hardly waste any food at all (we had a lot of leftover baked potatoes, for instance, so I made potato salad and a spanish omelet type dish.) I ate pies for a week, but I’ve decided things are dire now and I need to have at least a week with no dessert, maybe even the rest of the month. I did toss out a few cookies this morning, and there are still some in the freezer, but I suspect those will still be pretty good closer to Valentine’s Day and maybe we can take some to work then. I have finished several small cross-stitch projects and done good work on another. I practiced (I have a couple of performances coming up). I worked out many times, and have planned a good regime for the next few weeks. I set up my courses online for one of my colleges, and am already trying to organize my schedule…this won’t actually be finished until closer to mid-month, but it never hurts to get started. I have read about 5 books and am part way through another. I bought some clearance Christmas decorations for next year, made some returns, and ordered a few more things that I needed and wanted for the house. I slept in and woke without an alarm clock most days. I got a facial, and I did a few things with friends.

So it’s been pretty good and relaxing. I’m looking forward to Louie’s return, and I’m looking forward to getting back to being a more productive member of society. I do enjoy spending a long time sitting and reading, but I feel like I’m probably too young still to make that my full-time dream. And I could use some money coming in rather than only spending money!

But this has been really nice, and I might have to schedule myself another staycation at the end of the semester or something.  If Louie were here, he would have wanted to go out more and do things, and I am much more able to be happy staying home all day with perhaps not even leaving the house. So it’s been extra relaxing for me! Don’t get me wrong, I do love doing things, going to concerts and parks and hiking and traveling. But so much of my life is scheduled and so many of the scheduled things are things that I really cannot be late for, that it has been extra relaxing having a few days to have literally nothing scheduled, and a few others days with very little scheduled. (I do have a wedding this afternoon, so this day isn’t one, but I have very little to do and the wedding will be with colleagues I love.)

Keep in mind that I usually work 6 to 7 days a week during the school year, so I don’t get weekends to recharge. This is my own fault, yes, I recognize that, but the only way out of it would be to stop being a musician and that is simply not an option.

A few random thoughts for the new year: I’m planning to use more candles. I loved celebrating Hanukkah for the candles, and watching the candlelight. I’ve decided we need more candlelit dinners and more candles in general (with supervision, obviously, because of the cat). I’m also really going to dig in and try to lose some weight. I’m tired of seeing pictures of myself…I let myself be too stressed and eat junk because of it. I am going to really make an effort to eat better and move more. I don’t want to become obsessed with it, because I don’t like that either, but I think a few simple tweaks will work, and it’s just a matter of really meaning it. I sometimes feel like people are judging me for being overweight, and while I don’t actually think that’s true, it still makes me feel uncomfortable, and I think the best thing to do (for me) would be to try to do something about it. I’m only saying this here to make it more real rather than pretending. I have been doing pretty well with exercise over the past year, but you can’t run away from eating too much junk! And while I don’t want to give up desserts forever or be too strict, I think a week or more of no sweets would reset things a bit, and trying to limit snacks to only fruit would be another great step. I think I sleep better too, the better I treat myself!

Perhaps you’ve noticed there are a fair amount of cat pictures in this post. Happy Caturday!