lots of time

Have you ever thought about what you would do if you had a whole lot more time on your hands? I try to be careful not to fantasize about unemployment, because truth be told I've been there, and it's not as great as it sounds. But just what if you had a bunch more time for a while?

I thought that I'd be sort of aimless, for one thing. I thought that I'd have oodles of free time and do all kinds of lazy things like lay in a hammock sipping a cold beverage. I guess I thought I'd knit 8 hours a day, too. And somehow I also thought that my house would become very, very clean, because I guess I thought I would spend more time cleaning it (ha!).

It's funny, but none of those things has been true the last two weeks. I am knitting more, but not nearly as much as you might think. And there hasn't been much laziness, though I think there is overall a whole lot more ease. At least I'm not rushing from place to place. I also thought I'd blog more, but believe it or not, I don't even turn on my computer most days. In case you've ever wondered what you'd do with more free time, here's my list of what I've been doing a whole lot more of the last two weeks:

exercising -- I'd say a 5-fold increase over normal. This doesn't mean going to the gym (heaven forbid!), but it means that I'm at yoga every day, that I choose to ride my bike most places, which translates into lots of cycling, and that I'm always up for a long bike ride or hike with a friend.

cooking -- Oh, how I love cooking! It's easy to forget that you love something when you have to cram it in among daily chores. I've been baking bread, making jam, making tomato sauce to freeze for the winter, and cooking dinner every night. I'm also making myself interesting lunches, which is something I would never do in real life.

reading -- This is something I thought I'd do tons more of, but it's not. I am reading a couple of hours a day, which is an increase, and I'm enjoying it, but it's not the studious hours I was expecting. There's just so much to do!

chilling out -- Chilling out! What a great thing to do. This is something that I really don't do enough of in real life, and when I do it's usually highly-scheduled, and half the fun is lost in thinking about the thing I have to rush off and do next. Chilling out has meant puttering in the yard, picking bouquets, reading a knitting magazine, having lunch with a friend, snuggling the cat, snuggling with HWWLLB, watching a movie, lazing in the backyard with a stack of cookbooks, having a beer at Pub Trivia night... wonderful stuff like that.

I wish I could cling to all these things and keep doing all this more of them when I go back to the old routine in a couple of weeks. But still, it's important to notice that if I've multiplied my yoga and cycling time by 5 without really even meaning to, I must have been needing it. So perhaps this is an important lesson for any re-prioritization I might do in a few weeks.

So... what do you think you might do with an extra 40 or 50 hours a week? I bet it's not what you thought. And if you'll excuse me, I have a pressing rainy-day date with a cup of tea, and... nothing.