My kid made me this meal after she came home from work. This is how I end my Sunday and weekend.

November 26, 2023 – Intentional YOLO

If I have to be completely honest, I am likely going to end my weekend with this blog post and yes, I’m in my bed. The bed seems like an appropriate place to work. UGH. I know. Don’t judge. That’s just how things go sometimes. What I am happy about is taking the whole weekend for myself. I needed it. I had such a wonderful weekend that I had to savour every moment. My recent mantra is: Intentional YOLO. Basically, I did ME-TIME and being-a-person-time. It feels really good!!

Admittedly, Friday was a somewhat a write-off so that does not count as part of my weekend. I did an “all nighter” on Thursday night to provide some feedback on this piece of writing that I just mentioned above. It wasn’t really an all-nighter because I had narcoleptic moments throughout the night, but I managed to get the task done before the day started. I had a full day and anticipated the marathon. The day started early and the university and ended late with Friday night curling.

I was so tired. I could not even through my rocks that well because I just wanted to go to bed. Friday was a very long day. That was a lesson learned with the counter example. I need to sleep and rest. Plain and simple. For the last 6-months I’ve been working on the concept of rest and SLOWING DOWN. In the summer, I bought a book from at a conference called “The Slow Professor.” I’ve been working on taking Saturdays to rest. This week I needed Sunday too. No guilt. No shame.

My weekend started on Saturday. I had a full night’s sleep. No sleeping in. I was meeting up with someone at Starbucks. I am so grateful that they were willing to meet at the one near my place. I have no car. It’s still in the shop and meeting up at this coffee shop gives me some freedom too and be able to walk from my place. It was an awesome meeting. I think I met them about 10-years ago in Vancouver. Now, they were in Prince George for the weekend. We had an awesome chat!!

The day evolved into meeting up with another friend for coffee. We got me a new phone case and we chatted at the local Starbucks (again). I am not complaining. I love CONNECTION and another cup of coffee. It was an excellent way to start my weekend with going to one of my favourite places to gab. I ended the day food shopping with the kid and making us dinner. Vi-guy and zucchini stirfry on rice. It’s a bit of my mom’s cooking. I concluded the day by putting up the Christmas tree.

Sunday I slept in. It felt WONDERFUL. I love sleep. I had intentions of jumping into work. Aside from one meeting I had in the morning and another coffee chat with another friend at Starbucks, I spent the day cleaning my place. I needed to do this. It was not extensive cleaning, but a continuation from last night’s Christmas decorations and wanting to tidy up my room, kitchen, and storage space. I think of this cleaning more like a means to ground myself before the busy week begins.

I have a tonne to do and I realize that what I am doing is not a realistic workload that is sustainable. It takes me a whole term to realize that “I can’t wait for term to end” is a viable strategy for management and well-being. I can only do so much and I need to create some boundaries of what’s important to me and stick to it. The litmus for what stays or goes is the level of reciprocity the activity gives me. If I find that I am giving myself away to get something done, that is the first to go.

In this SLOW MOVEMENT, I am becoming more aware of how I want to live my life and where I want to spend my time. I am a hard worker and I have a lot of good intentions. That said, I am learning how to honour, value, and respect myself in the work that I do. Sometimes the answer will have to be NO… and that’s ok. As my kid says, I am easily upsold on things. What I need to do is, do what’s good for me. 🙂 That’s it. I am in service to others. There’s no question of that, but to what end.