A Saturday at home with no TV while making pancakes was weird. It was weird because making pancakes is a boring task, and since it's a sleep-in-late day for all non-pancake makers it was pretty quiet as well. So many times I move purely by rote that it's easy on a Saturday morning to stretch out my arms and pick up the remote. And turning on the tube on a lonely Saturday morning has been just that, a habit. It's impossible to do other things like reading or writing while cooking because it's easy to get caught up in the work and forget, and there is nothing worse than having a plate full of burnt, inedible pancakes.
But once again, determined to succeed, I fought against the grain, and am more than mildly pleased. There is this familiar concept of 'how-to;' and you can 'how-to' your way to just about anything. But since projects are almost never pressing, it's hard to find the time to dedicate to learning something new. But alas that is what I did during my Saturday morning while making pancakes. In the same way that I could watch a reality show, I could learn how to do something I've always wanted to learn. And since the internet is filled with so many people and so many ideas, and is not scripted, it's not as compelling to sit and watch it all day. Although it is very easy to go from video to video, the segments tend to be really short, and you know what? You actually learn something.
I still have to work on what should be considered legitimate downtime versus perceived downtime. Kids yelling and screaming that they want third morning snack or that someone hit them or that they're bored even though they took out 5, million-pieced toys and didn't put them away, is not necessarily a reason to resign myself on the couch. Five days of writing morning 'til night with housekeeping and child-rearing thrown in for good measure may be. But certainly not this month.
No comments:
Post a Comment