reflecting on “down time”

So I have to go back to work tomorrow … which I guess I’m not all that disappointed about, even though I’m not exactly psyched about spending all of that time in the car after my five minute commutes last week! Hopefully next week will be our last downtown, and even then, I’m probably just going to miss having an excuse to go downtown, but we’ll talk about that when it’s a little closer to reality…

I didn’t really do much of anything this weekend – a lot worse than last, in fact – and I think that’s ok. I watched a ton of movies – some good, some not so good (the last half of Napoleon Dynamite, Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azgaban, Murder at 1600, But I’m a Cheerleader…, Shaun of the Dead, The Day After Tomorrow, Independence Day, among others…) – and needless to say, it was pretty much one of those “If there’s something even remotely worth watching on one of the fifty movie channels that I subscribe to, I’m not getting up off the couch”-kind of weekends. Never did get around to making popcorn, per se, but I did bake a veritable smorgasboarde of goodies. Nearly the entire first page of my MoBlog is currently food-related, and certainly that’s got to be GREAT for my diet!

I also went plant shopping this afternoon, so technically I did get out of the house other than to go get the mail, however it wasn’t exactly what I’d consider to be a worthwhile trip. I ended up going to Lowe’s, Target, and Wal-Mart, bought stuff from Lowe’s and Wal-Mart (note to anyone plant shopping in Tampa – don’t even bother visiting the “garden center” of the Target on Fletcher … as far as I’m concerned, they are to gardens what “The Aquarium @ The Pier” in St. Petersburg is to aquariums). Anyways, I got home with a total of three plants, and two of them were really tiny, so I guess I’ll have to hit up my more reputable choices in South Tampa sometime over the next week before I come home. Good news – I did find a new and better set of patio furniture at Lowe’s that I really like … this time we’re looking at just under $350 for the table and two reclining swivel chairs, which works out good because I probably couldn’t fit all four around it on my balcony anyways. Still thinking about it, but this might end up being how I’m going to spend the “splurge” part of my bonus. We’ll see…

So anyways, back to not doing anything this weekend and not feeling all that bad about it. One of the other things that I did this weekend was pick-up an electronic blood pressure machine like the doc wanted me to so that I can see how I’m doing in that respect as well, and as much as I know I need to concentrate on losing weight and getting fit, I also know that a lot of high blood pressure can just come from plain, old stress, and that’s something that I can make an active effort to defuse as well. I think part of my problem is that I literally develop a list of things that I want to do a mile and a half long, and I have problems making progress because I end up spending a lot of time just going through the list and focusing on what I didn’t do the day before instead of what I need to do tomorrow. I’ll spend an entire Sunday sitting in front of my computer trying to work on something for one of the websites, then I’ll crash the next three nights after work because I didn’t take any time to just kick back and relax. Lately I’ve been watching a lot of movies and reading; hell, Friday was probably the first day this month that I just sat down on the couch and watched TV for a while! Everything’s so fast-paced these days – write columns on my breaks at work, exercise while I watch tv, chat with friends during the commute home – no wonder my blood pressure is sky high…

Now I’m certainly not saying that stress is the sole culprit, but I want to try just taking it easy for a little while to see if it helps at all. I still have an idea of the key things that I need to get done each week and I’m not going to let my goals slip out of focus, but you’ve got to leave yourself time for the fun stuff every now and then, too … otherwise, what’s really the point of it all? So now alongside of all of the big tasks that I want to complete, I’ve also got some others to rotate in again – I want to finish the gardening on my balcony so I have someplace peaceful to relax, I’d like to start playing guitar again both because I think it would help against carpul tunnel and I can remember a time when chicks dug guys who played guitar, and I’d like to whip through the stack of books on my nightstand so that I’ve got an excuse to go back to the bookstore a little more often.

I’d also like to get to bed on-time a little more often, but we all know that the chances of that happening are slim to none… 😛

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