Routines

I understand that some routines can’t be avoided—like getting up at 5:28 (my lucky number), showering, and sitting with my coffee before drying my hair and getting dressed, then leaving at 6:45 to get to school on time. I know I choose to spend time watching the news and drinking coffee, and our routines may vary according to our work schedules, but getting up to get to work is not a choice for most of us. (Trust me. If I ever win the lottery, it would no longer be a choice for me.) We have our workweek routines that can’t be avoided. That’s why God gave us weekends, right?

Well, this past Saturday, when I woke up and sat with my coffee, flipping between Weekend Today and Food Network, and geared up to go to the gym, setting a time in my head and thinking of what gym clothes were clean, I stopped myself. It was Saturday but it may as well have been Tuesday. Suddenly Saturday and Sunday had started to feel too much like Monday through Friday, and aren’t weekends supposed to be fun? Not that I don’t enjoy going to the gym (really, I don’t), but it was more the routine I had gotten into that bothered me. During the week it’s shower, coffee, work; on weekends suddenly it had become coffee, gym, errands, shower. (Yeah, I know the shower should probably come somewhere else in that order of things.) What happened to spontaneity? To whims?

So, since I had baubles on my mind, and had recently renewed my permission to indulge in guilty pleasures, I instead got my big box of jewelry supplies and beads out of the closet and decided to make jewelry. (It’s one of those Gemini things I do on occasion: make and sell jewelry.) I was in the mood for a few new pendants, and bracelets, so why not? I had another cup of coffee, then sat in my pajamas until well after noon, making new pieces, looking at old ones I haven’t sold (and some I even forgot I made), not stopping to eat lunch. At about 2:30 I got in the shower, and accepted a friend’s invitation to stop by and visit later in the evening. I went grocery shopping first, stopped for a bite to eat, and then went and visited with my friends.

On Sunday, when I had coffee and went to the gym and…well, you know the rest…it didn’t feel so bad, because I had changed up my routine the day before just enough to feel refreshed. Making jewelry, and skipping the gym, staying in my pajamas until afternoon provided just enough variety and spontaneity to make me feel better about my returning to my routine. Structure is good. But so is having a little fun.