Dispatches from Staycation, #1.

Greetings from the land of un-procrastination! I am about a day and a half into a 9-day "staycation," which I scheduled to catch up on the zillion nagging tasks I neglected during the end of school and the beginning of summer. I got the idea from an article I read in either Real Simple or The Oprah Magazine. The author wrote about how she and a friend declared a certain Saturday "unprocrastination day" and devoted the day to dealing with tasks like replacing watch batteries, changing light bulbs, returning ill-fitting clothes, etc.. I let a ton of things slide while I finished school and traveled, so a day wasn't going to cut it for me. Thus, I took next week off work and made minimal plans for the weekends on either end of that week.

So here I am, working on such projects as replacing my holey quilt (done), purchasing a larger food processor (done), ordering 2-years' worth of photos and putting them in albums (about half done), cleaning out my attic (starting tomorrow), upgrading my computer memory (almost done), figuring out why my bed now creaks and dips in one spot (to be done when I have help), etc., etc.. Its a long and expensive list. I know I don't have the time or the money to get it all done this week, but I'm hoping to make a very large dent, because nagging tasks stress me out. If this week goes well, I hope to come out on the other side feeling more relaxed and in control of my life. I'll keep you posted.

The problem with planning un-procrastination week is that it became an excuse to let things slide. For weeks now, I've been throwing things everywhere in my attic (which is totally unlike me) and thinking "I'll figure out where that goes on my staycation." I have also been slacking on the communication front, including blogging. I've barely turned my computer on the past few days, because every time I do I am faced with a pile of unreturned emails, a blog that has not been updated in over a week, and social networks that will forget I exist soon.

Thus, I have added "catch-up blogging" to the to-do list for my staycation. Over the next few days, look out for many updates, including reports on my last two races, marathon and tri training news, the miserable results of my last few weigh-ins, and a trip to a restaurant that was even better than Graffiato. See you soon!