Weekends are for Frittering – A Slice of Life – Day One

Weekends are always so fleeting. They arrive full of the promise of endless free hours, and suddenly Sunday night has arrived and I reflect not on what I have accomplished, but on all the things I haven’t. By Sunday night, I can count on having laundry I haven’t washed or folded, papers I haven’t marked, professional magazines I haven’t perused, books  I haven’t read, a treadmill that I haven’t run on, counters I haven’t wiped, carpets I haven’t vacuumed and corners I haven’t dusted.
Selfishly, the weekend hours are usually frittered away with whatever I feel like doing; not what I should be doing, not what needs to be done, but what I want to do. Friday I spent a few hours in the theatre watching Inkheart, and Saturday, my husband, mother and I watched Defiance at yet another theatre. We delivered a new electric guitar to my son, who is in residence in Hamilton, took him out for lunch, then decided to grab a movie on the way home. It was quite a lovely day, in spite of being quite cold.  Saturday night I finished a book, and started a new one.
This morning I finished a book for a fiction review committee meeting, and then, feeling tired, had a nap. The delicious luxury of spending hours however I want comes at a price. My house is a disgrace. There’s not a room in the house that doesn’t need picking up or dusting or cleaning or something. But I choose not to spend those hours cleaning and tidying and fussing because my selfish needs such as one more book begging to be read, take over and I listen to them. Before I know it, it’s Sunday night, and I find myself saying things like, “Next weekend, I’ll clean the spare bedroom or next weekend, I’ll start on that walking program.” Even as I’m thinking it, I can feel the tug of another book just waiting for the weekend and I know that I will probably make time to get that book read.