Monday Morning

Does anyone else look around on a Monday morning and think, Where did the weekend go?  Did I even sit down?  Oh my god, did I really build a bookshelf?  (Why yes, yes I did.)

I know this isn't a rare thing to think about.  When I was a kid, I knew weekends were precious to adults, but they were just an extension of boredom to me.  Oh, it's too hot to do pretty much anything?  Wonderful, gives me more time to watch Daria.  (Thanks, 1996.)  Now, I find myself thinking on Sunday nights, Is everything really done?  Am I a bad person because I didn't have time to vacuum?  I hope not.

We don't often have time to do anything truly fun on weekends.  We both work long hours with pretty hefty commutes, so weekends are spent catching up on whatever we didn't have time for during the weekend.  Over-ripe bananas are turned into muffins and full hampers are cleaned and put away.  The refrigerator is stocked and the paperwork is completed.  Anything that has been waiting is neatly filed away.  But where does this leave us?  On Monday morning, my coworkers and I do the general smalltalk of weekends, and they always undoubtedly have fun stories of a new restaurant or a trip to Hains Point.  When I say, oh, I made pulled pork Friday and enchiladas Sunday, and spent 45 minutes in line at Wal-Mart Saturday night, I feel like I'm failing as a twentysomething.  I know we all have different lifestyles--I'm the only one with a live-in partner--but sometimes I think they view me as boring, conservative or scared.  I just don't have the time, is all.  I'd love to go out to dinner each night and linger over drinks, but that takes both hours and dollars that just aren't there.

Does anyone else feel like this?  When I was in college, my friends were older, so we all worked forty hours a week and had secondary responsibilities, whether that was kids, college or husbands.  It wasn't rare to hear someone say that all she did over the weekend was write papers or hand out cold medicine every four hours.  This is the first time I've worked with people my age and basic social group (no hippies who described houses and trees as "magical") and I feel like I'm woefully behind.  I know as long as I'm trucking along I'm doing fine, but is fine acceptable? 

I'd go into talking about my birthday plans (none!), but I feel like that's a tearful post to be scheduled in September, simply because I have a while to dwell on how I'm not doing anything.

Okay, let's shut up with the negativity.  Here are a couple pictures from the weekend:

Yes, that would be my brand-spanking-new iPad with the chewed cord.  Eleanor is really outdoing herself with the level of sabotage she's performing. 

Oh hey, I built that!  Nick was pickling peppers and I was building a bookshelf.  This is how we work.  However, right after this we went to Ikea and the fabric now lives in neat green boxes.  The tops don't close, but oh well, they're there.

Back to work!  It's another week, getting closer to the holidays all the time.  I'm so ready for fall and, subsequently, Christmas I could scream.

Thursday's Thoughts

• Does anyone keep a diary anymore?  Like a real, honest-to-God, paper-and-pen diary, not a blog or even a Scrapbook.  (I say that with a capital S because it differntiates between buying fancy stickers to decorate and simply putting scraps into a notebook for your grandchildren to remember.)  I ask because, Nicholas bought me Moleskine notebooks for Christmas after my mom recommended I keep a diary of our first year living together, something she regretted not doing.  But they just sit on my desk with all my pretty pens and other notebooks.  I have a problem with being authentic in a diary.  I've always had this problem, where I don't want to be embarrassed if anyone, including myself, reads it at a later date, so I tend to skip over anything that may not be hunky-dory--depression, angst, worrying worrying worrying--and instead just say "We had such a great walk today!  Here is a picture of a flower!" or something similarly benign.  Does anyone else have this problem?  Am I a crazy person?
• I realized today my favorite things are cherry: cherry limeade, Cherry 7Up, cherry-dipped cones.  I blame the red hair.
• Nicholas started work this week and I have turned into a working housewife, leaving before 7 AM (or even 6:30 AM sometimes) and getting home in time to make dinner and do laundry before he gets home.  What have I become?
• When you have a really good idea for a business name, but know you won't have the resources to open said business for 2-3 years, when is too early to register the name so no one else steals it?
• Letterpress business cards are expensive.  I wanna support the little people, but at nearly $1 per card, I gotta support this little person first.
• I may join the 21st century soon and get an iPad.  Watch out world, Emily's on her way up!
• I started buying clothes again.  I mean, it's only Target, but still, I haven't bought anything non-thrifted in months.  I must make sure it doesn't become an obsession though.

Hmm.  Some of these are more like Thursday's Questions instead.  What's on everyone's minds today?