The winter has officially begun in New York City, a milestone marked by a blanket of snow and ice that is currently covering everything. Alayna and I sidestepped quite a few puddles of slush last night on our way to see “Slumdog Millionaire”. I suppose in most other places, inches and inches of snow requires people to stay inside and not go anywhere due to slick roads. Manhattan doesn’t seem to shut down like that as subways are rarely affected by snow and it seemed perfectly natural to head out into the winter night.

I found out late yesterday afternoon that I was relieved of twin duty this weekend, a notification I always find bittersweet because while it’s a free Saturday, I really, really miss the boys. I got over that pretty quickly when I realized all the things people can accomplish on the weekends. It is CRAZY, are you telling me that people have Saturdays and Sundays off all the time!? Like, more than a few times a year!?!? THAT IS INSANE I TELL YOU.

I started out as a Saturday/weekday evening babysitter for Owen and River in the September of ’05 and after my children’s theatre tour in ’06, due to a variety of circumstances, I became their full-time nanny, Satudays included. That lasted until October of last year when they started pre-school and I began temping. From then on, I saw them only on Saturday afternoons/evenings. And so, in the past three and a half years that I’ve been with them, I’ve taken less then ten Saturdays off.

I have obviously grown accustomed to working a six day work week, so having two days off in a row feels abnormal at this point. Last night, on my way home from the movies, I was brainstorming all the things I could do. Paint my windowsill! Iron all my clothes! Clean out the refrigerator! Make some soup from scratch! Organize my bookshelf according to the Dewey Decimal system!!

THE POSSIBILITIES! Endless, I tell you!!

I find it ironic that when I have an extra day off, I quickly scurry around figuring out ways to fill it up so that I don’t “waste it”. It’s as if I need to combine every activity I’ve ever thought of into one small day so that it will count. Count towards WHAT exactly? I have no idea.

When I catch myself being like this, very typically Aries, attempting to take on ten times more than is humanly possible, I try to take a step back and prioritize. What would REALLY make me happy? Sure, I could bust out some paint and an iron and go grocery shopping and scrape off my car. I could race around making social plans for tonight, I could go into the city and take a dance class or hike to the gym, you know, something AMAZING, something that would MEAN SOMETHING.

Or I could take a breath and remove the word “should” from my vocabulary.

This is what I have done so far:

woke up at 11 am.
ate a bowl of cereal.
put a few CD’s into the stereo and pressed RANDOM, then PLAY. (Nickel Creek’s first album, original cast recording of Spring Awakening, Whitney Houston’s Greatest Hits Disc 1, Sarah McLachlan’s “Wintersong”, and a mix CD I found this morning from undergrad entitled “DECEMBER 04″).
got my ass kicked for 27 minutes by Jillian Michaels.
swept and mopped the kitchen floor.
did the dishes.
cleaned the entire bathroom.
ate a bowl of pasta leftover from dinner with Alayna.
began a blog.
made a pot of decaf caramel coffee.
took a shower.
got back into my pajamas.
put on a face mask.
took the nailpolish off my toes.
stared at my computer screen.
made this list.
changed my blogger profile picture.

It is now 3:17 pm and while my overachieving self would say that list SUCKS BALLS, I will say that that list is what I felt like doing. I didn’t feel obligated to do a single task. (Not even clean the bathroom…I have an unhealthy obsession with cleaning stuff.) I feel insanely happy today. I wonder if it’s because I have allowed myself to just go with it and do whatever because newsflash: THAT IS WHAT NORMAL PEOPLE DO ON SATURDAYS. People who know how to RELAX and TAKE IT EASY, two phrases that never enter my vocabulary, ever.

I believe I will spend the rest of the day memorizing a monologue for graduate school auditions and attempting to find two others, the dreaded Shakespeares. AHHHHHHH. Granted, these things must be done but will also give me joy because HA! CREATIVE ACTING STUFF. How fulfilling!! Not a bad way to spend a snowy Saturday, reading plays and making notes and finding characters. I think I can deal.

Tonight, I might treat myself to a Weeds marathon. Or a trip to Target for a few remaining ingredients for some Christmas gifts. I need to stop buying people presents. It is getting out of control. I would take a picture of the mountains underneath our small Charlie Brown tree but I’m too embarrassed. Talk about WASTEFUL. Yowsas.

Anyway, this update has been brought to you by a girl who’s learning how to enjoy a weekend. A girl, who, the older she gets, realizes how much she likes spending time with herself. Stomping through snow in Manhattan or sipping a mug of coffee in Queens, hanging out alone is actually cheerfully good company.