Refueling

This past week was tough. On Monday, after a long day with my kids I decided to stay until 8 pm to work on my reports and get my lessons ready for Wednesday. This would have been fine, except my one hour commute turned into a two hour commute due to a broken track on the Q line. After riding four different trains without making back to my neighborhood, I opted for a cab. This should have been the light at the end of the tunnel, but with traffic and a wrong turn it ended up being a kind of expensive light that put me right over the edge. That's right folks, I cried in a cab due to commuter frustration. Thankfully, I had a Gossip Girl episode taped and ready to watch when I walked in the door (yes, I watch Gossip Girl weekly and I love it...). It also was quite a relief to have Tuesday off to work from home, which meant sleeping in later than my usual 5 am alarm. My late nights continued on Wednesday and Thursday, and by Friday afternoon I had put in a four day, 54 hour work week. Needless to say, I was in dyer need of pajamas, sleep, and lounging around my apartment today.

I woke up fairly early with plans to go to the gym, get ready, and treat myself to a day of walking around the city and shopping. But as the hours passed and the pajamas stayed on, my plans changed to watching a week's worth of Chelsea Lately and taking a three hour nap on the couch. When I woke up from my nap, I instantly felt guilty about wasting the day. But as I slowly started moving and getting ready for my much anticipated return to the gym after a week off, I realized that sometimes it is okay to waste a day. Necessary even. I needed today to relax and breathe, and my body needed sleep. Rather than feeling sad or guilty about my Saturday afternoon being consumed with napping, I reminded myself of the wonderful things that can happen when you have a day with no real plans or obligations. Here are a few things I love about lazy Saturdays around my apartment...

Purposefully leaving my bed unmade, with the hopes of crawling back into it mid-morning after my first round of coffee and peanut butter toast.

My apartment smelling of  homemade cookies, without even having to preheat an oven.

My empty, but super clean, fridge pre-restock. 

Cleaning out my fridge Monica Geller style- throwing out spoiled leftovers and expired condiments, vacuuming the shelves, and spraying every surface with cleaner. And then realizing that aside water, milk, and yogurt, the only real contents of my refrigerator were beer, cider, and pecans. This might not be quite as serious of a problem if I drank beer or ate pecans, but I do not do either. So, I made a hefty grocery list and restocked. And it felt good.

Trying out another recipe from my Hummingbird Bakery cookbook- pumpkin cupcakes with cream cheese icing. And then watching Brian eat four of them in one sitting (the picture on the bottom right is of his second and third). There is nothing more gratifying than baking up a treat that someone else enjoys and finds comforting. I heart baking.

I am thankful that I had a day to refuel, excited to set all of my clocks back an hour, and ready to have a more eventful Sunday. Cheers to weekends.