The Weekend

Kyle's weekends normally go something like this:

1. Sleep in.
2. Lounge around.
3. Computer.
4. TV.
5. Computer.
6. Video games.
7. Food.
8. Stay up late.

My weekends normally go like this:

1. Wake up early to study (Starbucks opens at 7am).
2. Study.
3. Lunch.
4. Study.
5. Dinner.
6. Study.
7. Possibly watch a movie/show with Kyle.
8. Go to bed at a decent hour so I can do it all again on Sunday.

But the weekend after an exam is wonderful.  I have the opportunity to sleep in.  I can do whatever I want.  I can catch up on shows/movies I've been missing.  I can blog.  I can sew.  I can read.  I can spend time with Kyle.  The possibilities are endless.

Of course, this means that while I'm studying for hours on end I make a to-do list.  As you know, I'm obsessed with lists...but when you're studying and a million things come to mind, it's better to just write them down and "deal with it later" than get off track trying to do something that isn't necessary at that moment.  Which means that by the time my free weekend rolls around, my to-do list is quite large.  When a to-do list is quite large, I plan how I'm going to accomplish everything on the list within 48 hours.  This time, it stressed. me. out.  Which is when I determined: everything on the list just isn't going to get done this weekend.

Half of those things probably don't make sense/mean anything to you.  Did you notice the last item is cut off?  That's because the list is so long it scrolls.  You might be thinking "Jasmin, you have forty-eight hours..." and that is correct.  The thing is: it's my weekend off!  So of course we planned to hang out with Zarrin & Josh today, I have a Young Bahá'í Women's Group meeting,  and I'd like to hang out with Steph tomorrow if possible.  And of course there are others I'd like to hang out with as well, but there's just not enough time to do everything.  Note item #10: clean inbox.  This is why:

That doesn't happen.  I made a rule for myself several months ago that I would not let my inbox have more than 50 items in it.  I usually reply and archive/delete as soon as I get an email, but there were some things that I needed to actually put time into (such as getting my Delta Skymiles account transferred to my new name) so I left them in my inbox as another to-do list.  This past week, I responded to emails, but skipped the archive/delete step.  93.  That's scary.  Thank goodness it hasn't reach 100 yet.

Kyle noticed last night that my computer was running a bit slow.  I don't have any programs open besides Reminders and Chrome.  Then he informed me that each tab I have open is basically like running the program again.  I had no idea, but I thought that might be the reason why it took 7 minutes to download and open a Word document yesterday morning before my exam.  Why do I have so many tabs open?  Well, I always have my email open (and on a second desktop) and that far one on the right is this blog entry...the one next to it is PBS (we watched Downton Abbey last night)...the one next to that is a tutorial that I pinned on Pinterest a couple days ago and for some reason forgot to close.  The two next to that one are actually more "to-do" items - a recipe I'm trying to adjust and perfect for granola bars and a tutorial for sewing a pencil skirt.  Everything else?  Recipes.  See item #3: monthly menu.  I hate it that when it's time to go grocery shopping, Kyle and I have no idea what we want to buy.  We get our staples and then stand for a moment in the store, thinking of what we want to eat each week.  For a while we had a pretty awesome weekly meal plan: spaghetti squash, butternut squash, mashed sweet potatoes, and then the wild cards.  Kyle got sick of squash so we no longer purchase those delicious goodies.  Since Kyle likes variety, I thought it might be better to make a monthly meal plan.  At the beginning, my hope is to try a bunch of new recipes and see which ones we'd like to make again in the future.  Our top priorities are taste, ease of preparation, and inexpensive.  My hope is that I can make grocery lists for each week all at once (4 lists at a time) and it will make our weekly life a little easier (and tastier - no offense, Velveeta).

Well would you look at the time!  I don't even have enough time to write the blog post I wanted!  I'm off to our first Young Bahá'í Women's Group at a local tea shop.  It should be absolutely lovely.  And I promise I will not be stressing out this weekend on the things I will not be accomplishing.  Anything I don't achieve just means a productive study break during the week.