Metatalktails: Lazy Sunday March 2, 2019 7:07 AM Subscribe
Good Saturday evening, MetaFilter! It's time for Eurotalktails! This week, several people have requested you share your Sunday Routines, a la the NY Times, as inspired by this question! Of course it doesn't have to be Sunday -- it can be Saturday, or whatever day is your favorite day of relaxation!
As always, this is a conversation starter, not limiter, so tell us everything that's up with you!
As always, this is a conversation starter, not limiter, so tell us everything that's up with you!
My Sunday routine right now is not what I hope it'll be a few months from now. We moved to a new place 2 months ago, and are still settling our habits. It's winter and it's been cruddy out. Most importantly, almost all my "free" time has to be devoted to the final phase of writing a big project report for a side consulting gig I took on. So I look forward to the time when that doesn't have to dictate my every unprogrammed moment.
But, there are still some patterns. I don't set the alarm, so my 2 cats wake me up when they get hungry, around 8. They're subtle about it and pretend they just want to cuddle, but we know the score. We get them fed, and make coffee in a wonderful coffeemaker which was a wedding gift from a fellow MeFite. It brews into a carafe so you can keep it hot and sip all morning. I turn on the radio, because I'm a radio junkie, and catch the news on NPR or if the news is giving me a stomachache, listen to a podcast. The first order of lazy Sunday is reading around, catching up on the links and stories I didn't have time for during the week. I spend about an hour reading and exploring while eating breakfast, usually an egg sandwich on Ezekiel bread. If there's a hankering for a special treat, we go to our town tiny family-run bagel place which serves what are unequivocally the best bagels in the world. I mean I work near Khossar's in Manhattan and these are better bagels. They're usually still warm, very fresh and chewy, and abundantly coated with sesame or poppy or my favorite, everything. The store is small and full of steam and local chatter, very cheerful. If we go there I'll usually read the terrible free local shopper papers and news circulars and find out what the cranks in town think about everything.
After breakfast and reading hour it's time for some nominal exercise. I've been doing home yoga videos. When the weather gets better and I'm done with the project, I'll swap this out for some walking or cycling. I am really looking forward to spending more time outdoors when I don't have to limit the time I spend doing fun stuff. We live near a big ocean bay, and in a county with dozens of excellent parks, and we and have a lot of fantastic, flat-and-fast places to walk and run. I'm looking forward to having the time to do a lot more of that on Sundays. And once May comes, we will be at the beach at least once every weekend for the day.
Then it's time to go into what a friend calls "the writing bunker," which means just hunkering down with coffee, and later seltzer, and diving back into this project report. It's about a historical topic, so every now and then I decide I need to know more about some subtopic and go off on a long rabbit trail into early 20th century archival sources online. It's ostensibly useful but also means progress is slower than it should be. My husband will be reading, practicing piano, or watching movies online or other activities of a project widower. The sun patches crawl across the walls and before I know it it's late afternoon and time for Sunday chores. There's grocery shopping, which I'm still figuring out around here. In our suburban area we have six or seven grocery store options, but none of them really suits me as a one-stop-shop. For some reason it's very hard to find good produce or a decent range of it. So I sometimes go to more than one store, the expensive store that used to be a farmstand and is now a high-end specialty food palace for produce, and the Stop and Shop for things that come in cans and boxes.
Sometimes I connect with my folks who live nearby for a Sunday dinner. If not, it's a night I cook something bigger and more ambitious (I like Eyebrows' idea of calling it "Feast"). I also try to do some meal prep and planning for the week. After dinner and some TV, it's time for bed. I have to get up really early for work so I'm heading to bed by 9:45.
AS I write it out, it sounds really boring. We've left a lot of friends behind in various recent job moves, and have yet to be able to invest time locally in meeting people and getting involved in things. We're still hanging curtains and getting rid of move detritus in addition to this deadline work I have to get done. The weather is discouraging. So I am looking forward to meeting some more people and more creative Sundays with more time outdoors.
posted by Miko at 7:45 AM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
But, there are still some patterns. I don't set the alarm, so my 2 cats wake me up when they get hungry, around 8. They're subtle about it and pretend they just want to cuddle, but we know the score. We get them fed, and make coffee in a wonderful coffeemaker which was a wedding gift from a fellow MeFite. It brews into a carafe so you can keep it hot and sip all morning. I turn on the radio, because I'm a radio junkie, and catch the news on NPR or if the news is giving me a stomachache, listen to a podcast. The first order of lazy Sunday is reading around, catching up on the links and stories I didn't have time for during the week. I spend about an hour reading and exploring while eating breakfast, usually an egg sandwich on Ezekiel bread. If there's a hankering for a special treat, we go to our town tiny family-run bagel place which serves what are unequivocally the best bagels in the world. I mean I work near Khossar's in Manhattan and these are better bagels. They're usually still warm, very fresh and chewy, and abundantly coated with sesame or poppy or my favorite, everything. The store is small and full of steam and local chatter, very cheerful. If we go there I'll usually read the terrible free local shopper papers and news circulars and find out what the cranks in town think about everything.
After breakfast and reading hour it's time for some nominal exercise. I've been doing home yoga videos. When the weather gets better and I'm done with the project, I'll swap this out for some walking or cycling. I am really looking forward to spending more time outdoors when I don't have to limit the time I spend doing fun stuff. We live near a big ocean bay, and in a county with dozens of excellent parks, and we and have a lot of fantastic, flat-and-fast places to walk and run. I'm looking forward to having the time to do a lot more of that on Sundays. And once May comes, we will be at the beach at least once every weekend for the day.
Then it's time to go into what a friend calls "the writing bunker," which means just hunkering down with coffee, and later seltzer, and diving back into this project report. It's about a historical topic, so every now and then I decide I need to know more about some subtopic and go off on a long rabbit trail into early 20th century archival sources online. It's ostensibly useful but also means progress is slower than it should be. My husband will be reading, practicing piano, or watching movies online or other activities of a project widower. The sun patches crawl across the walls and before I know it it's late afternoon and time for Sunday chores. There's grocery shopping, which I'm still figuring out around here. In our suburban area we have six or seven grocery store options, but none of them really suits me as a one-stop-shop. For some reason it's very hard to find good produce or a decent range of it. So I sometimes go to more than one store, the expensive store that used to be a farmstand and is now a high-end specialty food palace for produce, and the Stop and Shop for things that come in cans and boxes.
Sometimes I connect with my folks who live nearby for a Sunday dinner. If not, it's a night I cook something bigger and more ambitious (I like Eyebrows' idea of calling it "Feast"). I also try to do some meal prep and planning for the week. After dinner and some TV, it's time for bed. I have to get up really early for work so I'm heading to bed by 9:45.
AS I write it out, it sounds really boring. We've left a lot of friends behind in various recent job moves, and have yet to be able to invest time locally in meeting people and getting involved in things. We're still hanging curtains and getting rid of move detritus in addition to this deadline work I have to get done. The weather is discouraging. So I am looking forward to meeting some more people and more creative Sundays with more time outdoors.
posted by Miko at 7:45 AM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Saturday is my day for errands and seeing friends. Sunday is the day I often don’t leave the house.
Get up around 8am, usually fix some sort of hot breakfast (other days I either don’t eat breakfast or it’s cold cereal), shower and wash hair, start doing laundry, weekly phone call with parents at about 10:30am, do some chores like general picking up/straightening a room, maybe do some batch cooking for the week ahead. This is all interspersed with A LOT of reading throughout the day in my big overstuffed chair with my lovely cat wedged in between me and one of the chair arms. This often turns into an impromptu nap (with cat). If the weather is nice I may go for a walk at the local bird sanctuary in the morning but I haven’t done that since October and I miss it. Watch some TV at night and in bed by 10pm.
I usually really enjoy my Sundays! Looking forward to reading responses—this is my favorite kind of MetaTalkTail!
posted by bookmammal at 7:50 AM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Get up around 8am, usually fix some sort of hot breakfast (other days I either don’t eat breakfast or it’s cold cereal), shower and wash hair, start doing laundry, weekly phone call with parents at about 10:30am, do some chores like general picking up/straightening a room, maybe do some batch cooking for the week ahead. This is all interspersed with A LOT of reading throughout the day in my big overstuffed chair with my lovely cat wedged in between me and one of the chair arms. This often turns into an impromptu nap (with cat). If the weather is nice I may go for a walk at the local bird sanctuary in the morning but I haven’t done that since October and I miss it. Watch some TV at night and in bed by 10pm.
I usually really enjoy my Sundays! Looking forward to reading responses—this is my favorite kind of MetaTalkTail!
posted by bookmammal at 7:50 AM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
I don't know that we have a Sunday routine. It's a family day, but we might spend it reading or going somewhere or just getting chores done.
Moving backwards, our Saturday routine is that we go to the library (for one to three hours of book selection) and at dinner everyone is allowed to read instead of converse. (We occasionally have reading dinners on other nights by request, but always on library day.)
And Friday is a day I often have to myself. I start by doing a crossword with my spouse (actually, that's almost every day with us), then after breakfast I call my best friend and we talk over the week, what we've been reading (and what's recommended or not), and what we've been watching. (We like to at least try shows the other is into, so we end up with some overlap and can have our own little Fanfare about what happened in the latest episode.) I often spend the afternoon doing art, but occasionally a project around the house. It's a nice long chunk of time to focus on one thing.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:18 AM on March 2, 2019 [19 favorites]
Moving backwards, our Saturday routine is that we go to the library (for one to three hours of book selection) and at dinner everyone is allowed to read instead of converse. (We occasionally have reading dinners on other nights by request, but always on library day.)
And Friday is a day I often have to myself. I start by doing a crossword with my spouse (actually, that's almost every day with us), then after breakfast I call my best friend and we talk over the week, what we've been reading (and what's recommended or not), and what we've been watching. (We like to at least try shows the other is into, so we end up with some overlap and can have our own little Fanfare about what happened in the latest episode.) I often spend the afternoon doing art, but occasionally a project around the house. It's a nice long chunk of time to focus on one thing.
posted by Margalo Epps at 8:18 AM on March 2, 2019 [19 favorites]
Oh my gosh...READING DINNERS!!!!!!
I cannot convey how much I love this.
posted by bookmammal at 8:20 AM on March 2, 2019 [18 favorites]
I cannot convey how much I love this.
posted by bookmammal at 8:20 AM on March 2, 2019 [18 favorites]
at dinner everyone is allowed to read instead of converse
OMG I feel so envious of your children
posted by Miko at 8:21 AM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
OMG I feel so envious of your children
posted by Miko at 8:21 AM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
I always had Saturdays for relaxing then Sundays for errands and life admin, until I moved here (Paris) where it’s only in the last few years that supermarkets have been consistently open on Sundays, and even so most other shops are shut. Well, I just celebrated six years here, and I’ve finally got used to switching the days and relaxing on Sundays! My routine varies but I always give myself a nice manicure on Sundays.
posted by ellieBOA at 8:51 AM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by ellieBOA at 8:51 AM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
I just finished a run, so now I can justify my laziness for the remainder of this Saturday. I'm sitting down to a cup of black coffee, MetaFilter, some Spotify in the background (currently playing: Andrew Bird), and I have a few tabs open to some gaming websites. This is my happy place for at least an hour or two before I feel like I need to get out of the house and run an errand or two.
posted by Fizz at 8:57 AM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Fizz at 8:57 AM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I don't have regular work hours so my weekends include a lot of half-work the same as my weekdays. The real difference is that my local friends and neighbors are more often home so I'm more apt to be social during the day or evening. General routine most days is the same. I LOVE my routine and I've finally been able to get back to it after what seems like forever of holidays (which I also love in different ways) and sickness and whatever nonsense and it makes me really happy (or free from worry/anxiety/pain/whatever, so hard to tell sometimes)
- wake up whenever (between 9-11 most days)
- lay in bed adjusting to being awake, take inventory of how I'm feeling
- set timer for 45 minutes
- do my little morning meditation rededicating myself to goodness, it's a simple few minutes but helps me get my head straight
- up to coffee (aeropress is lovely) and handfuls of medicines (still getting over shingles postherp neuralgia, sinus crud) and big glass of water, do shoulder exercises
- retire to daybed where I put the fairy lights on, refill the humidifier and bird feeders and read whatever my morning book is (nighttime books are stories, morning books are facts, I'm reading a history of Jell-O right now) while drinking my coffee and watching the birds
- read until alarm goes off (this is my Offline Timer, I've been a happier person since I've put limits on how early I check email etc)
- "check my web" and reply to email and check social media for an hour or so
- get dressed and start my day which usually involves going to the transfer station (dump) where I see a lot of my neighbors, library, post office, farm stand, etc Today me and some friends are heading "over the mountain" to go to a restaurant called Maple Soul
Even though I could do it any day, I often do cooking/baking on the weekends, especially in the winter. Sunday nights I'll often watch SNL (downloaded via bittorent) with Jim long distance with a chat window going if we're not together. If he and I are together, there's a whole OTHER routine which is a little less routine-y which is both awesome and disorienting for hidebound old me.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 9:00 AM on March 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
- wake up whenever (between 9-11 most days)
- lay in bed adjusting to being awake, take inventory of how I'm feeling
- set timer for 45 minutes
- do my little morning meditation rededicating myself to goodness, it's a simple few minutes but helps me get my head straight
- up to coffee (aeropress is lovely) and handfuls of medicines (still getting over shingles postherp neuralgia, sinus crud) and big glass of water, do shoulder exercises
- retire to daybed where I put the fairy lights on, refill the humidifier and bird feeders and read whatever my morning book is (nighttime books are stories, morning books are facts, I'm reading a history of Jell-O right now) while drinking my coffee and watching the birds
- read until alarm goes off (this is my Offline Timer, I've been a happier person since I've put limits on how early I check email etc)
- "check my web" and reply to email and check social media for an hour or so
- get dressed and start my day which usually involves going to the transfer station (dump) where I see a lot of my neighbors, library, post office, farm stand, etc Today me and some friends are heading "over the mountain" to go to a restaurant called Maple Soul
Even though I could do it any day, I often do cooking/baking on the weekends, especially in the winter. Sunday nights I'll often watch SNL (downloaded via bittorent) with Jim long distance with a chat window going if we're not together. If he and I are together, there's a whole OTHER routine which is a little less routine-y which is both awesome and disorienting for hidebound old me.
posted by jessamyn (retired) at 9:00 AM on March 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Sunday, if I am in my East Midlands base, means being startled awake by the almost adjacent parish church bells just before 10am. Then, it's some random combination of coffee, toast, porridge, swearing at the church bellringers, going to the nearby gym, and keeping the television firmly off as Sunday morning here is just abjectly terrible soundbite politics.
I don't really have a fixed routine. When I lived in the Outer Hebrides ten to fifteen years ago I started with one, but abandoned that quickly as just about every aspect of your life is affected by the weather. And, a decade after moving back to the "larger island", I've never really gotten back into a routine and again, weather has some influence. If it's good out and I don't have anything that really, absolutely, has to be done for first thing Monday then a Sunday afternoon walk is often a choice. Especially as road traffic is minimal so route options are more plentiful.
And I've just realised that in four weeks time, the clocks go forward an hour here. Sunset is currently 5:45pm, so in a month it'll be well after 7pm and still light to a certain degree around 8, and gradually getting later. If, and there's a question mark here, I'm still here by then, that will be a win.
+ + + + +
It has been a good week. A large Lidl opened up within walking distance, and they have a bakery, and those nice Portugese tarts which are a particular weakness of mine. Counting that as a win.
The weather - at least for the first half of the week - was freakishly good. While trying to ignore the inconvenient truth that dehydration and sunburn risks in February, in England, are ominous, it was good to walk by a canal or two, on some footpaths, and across various fields without ending up with massive clumps of boot mud. And to spend a few afternoons and evenings in the delightful rural campus six miles away, which uncannily reminds me of Grinnell College in Iowa.
And finally, with the assistance of some MeFites, my weekend has so far been splendid and, for the purposes of discretion and privacy, I'll end there.
posted by Wordshore at 9:42 AM on March 2, 2019 [11 favorites]
I don't really have a fixed routine. When I lived in the Outer Hebrides ten to fifteen years ago I started with one, but abandoned that quickly as just about every aspect of your life is affected by the weather. And, a decade after moving back to the "larger island", I've never really gotten back into a routine and again, weather has some influence. If it's good out and I don't have anything that really, absolutely, has to be done for first thing Monday then a Sunday afternoon walk is often a choice. Especially as road traffic is minimal so route options are more plentiful.
And I've just realised that in four weeks time, the clocks go forward an hour here. Sunset is currently 5:45pm, so in a month it'll be well after 7pm and still light to a certain degree around 8, and gradually getting later. If, and there's a question mark here, I'm still here by then, that will be a win.
+ + + + +
It has been a good week. A large Lidl opened up within walking distance, and they have a bakery, and those nice Portugese tarts which are a particular weakness of mine. Counting that as a win.
The weather - at least for the first half of the week - was freakishly good. While trying to ignore the inconvenient truth that dehydration and sunburn risks in February, in England, are ominous, it was good to walk by a canal or two, on some footpaths, and across various fields without ending up with massive clumps of boot mud. And to spend a few afternoons and evenings in the delightful rural campus six miles away, which uncannily reminds me of Grinnell College in Iowa.
And finally, with the assistance of some MeFites, my weekend has so far been splendid and, for the purposes of discretion and privacy, I'll end there.
posted by Wordshore at 9:42 AM on March 2, 2019 [11 favorites]
Jessamyn:
nighttime books are stories, morning books are facts
What an interesting distinction. I’m sometimes in the habit of reading The Economist at night. Perhaps I should swap that out for some better, less horrifying stories.
Wordshore:
for the purposes of discretion and privacy
I am put in mind of the paper gowns they give you at the gyno.
I’ve had restful weekend routines in past years, but they’ve succumbed to the exigencies of life with a school-age kid: lessons on Saturday morning and unpredictable Sundays. Before Little eirias, we used to walk to the Saturday farmers’ market downtown first thing, and the lightness I felt as we set out always reminded me of waking up the first morning of summer vacation. We live in a winter climate and our city is serious about enjoying the warm sunny days once they arrive, and after a Wisconsin winter anything in excess of 45 counts as warm. Other weekends days we might begin with a short run (and if we were really feeling our oats sometimes we would combine these, running to the market, shopping, and finding a place for brunch that would take us in running gear).
These days the most predictable weekend routine is Skyping with my mom. I don’t have a particularly easy relationship with either of my parents, but I almost lost her a few years ago, and she’s elderly now and lives far away, and I try not to take for granted the fact that technology lets her be in my life for an hour a week.
posted by eirias at 10:00 AM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
nighttime books are stories, morning books are facts
What an interesting distinction. I’m sometimes in the habit of reading The Economist at night. Perhaps I should swap that out for some better, less horrifying stories.
Wordshore:
for the purposes of discretion and privacy
I am put in mind of the paper gowns they give you at the gyno.
I’ve had restful weekend routines in past years, but they’ve succumbed to the exigencies of life with a school-age kid: lessons on Saturday morning and unpredictable Sundays. Before Little eirias, we used to walk to the Saturday farmers’ market downtown first thing, and the lightness I felt as we set out always reminded me of waking up the first morning of summer vacation. We live in a winter climate and our city is serious about enjoying the warm sunny days once they arrive, and after a Wisconsin winter anything in excess of 45 counts as warm. Other weekends days we might begin with a short run (and if we were really feeling our oats sometimes we would combine these, running to the market, shopping, and finding a place for brunch that would take us in running gear).
These days the most predictable weekend routine is Skyping with my mom. I don’t have a particularly easy relationship with either of my parents, but I almost lost her a few years ago, and she’s elderly now and lives far away, and I try not to take for granted the fact that technology lets her be in my life for an hour a week.
posted by eirias at 10:00 AM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
My weekend routines are lazy mornings (sometimes I'll have enough motivation to get to the gym, or go on a bike ride, most often not) with coffee, Mefi, NYT crossword, what have you. Sometimes I'll bring a book to a local donut place. Then, errands, weekly chores (vacuum, mop, laundry at minimum), any cooking/other food prep for the week. Sunday from 10:30-12 is church, during NFL season Sunday afternoons are for football watching. Most weekends I have at least 1 scheduled social engagement, with friends, church people, or seeing a movie or a band. I normally watch SNL Sunday mornings.
Right now, I'm at the airport waiting to board a flight to Orlando for a workcation -- tomorrow through Tues I have a trade show (any other Mefites going to the Grainger show, by chance?) but this afternoon and tomorrow morning is for sun, pool, and adult beverages at the resort hotel. It also includes a night at a theme park (Universal, I think?). I've never been to any of the Orlando tourist things, and it will be adults only, so I'm pretty pumped. Also, I love travelling for work AND trade shows/conventions, so this will be a fun time.
Reading Wordshore's AskMe follow-up had me smiling and chuckling at my phone, causing at least one person to look over at me, hahaha, so thanks for that!
Boarding now, sunshine and warmth ahead, woo!
posted by Fig at 10:35 AM on March 2, 2019 [16 favorites]
Right now, I'm at the airport waiting to board a flight to Orlando for a workcation -- tomorrow through Tues I have a trade show (any other Mefites going to the Grainger show, by chance?) but this afternoon and tomorrow morning is for sun, pool, and adult beverages at the resort hotel. It also includes a night at a theme park (Universal, I think?). I've never been to any of the Orlando tourist things, and it will be adults only, so I'm pretty pumped. Also, I love travelling for work AND trade shows/conventions, so this will be a fun time.
Reading Wordshore's AskMe follow-up had me smiling and chuckling at my phone, causing at least one person to look over at me, hahaha, so thanks for that!
Boarding now, sunshine and warmth ahead, woo!
posted by Fig at 10:35 AM on March 2, 2019 [16 favorites]
My big news this week is that the stars have aligned and we finally scheduled my surgery for May 20. Many of you know that I've been dealing with inherited polycystic kidney disease, which caused my kidneys to fail a few years ago and I've been on dialysis ever since (and it's been okay and I have good doctors and I'm in a positive emotional place about it, etc.).
The fun detail of all this is that my kidneys right now are absolutely ginormous -- they're each supposed to be like six to eight ounces and the size of your fist, but my PKD kidneys are each densely heavy and about the size of a semi-deflated American football, and considering I'm about 5'4" right now (I shrunk an inch because this has changed my posture and hopefully I'll get that inch back), there is very little room for them. At the moment, I look like I share the same due date with Meghan Markle, except I'm having twins.
So I'm hurting and increasingly hunched over because they're pressing against my spine. And since these awful Cronenbergian body horror kidneys are no longer pulling their weight, my doctors agree that it's off they go! And I'm weirdly excited to have it over and done with, even though the surgery itself is a difficult one.
Be sending prayers for me on May 20 as I deliver the most hideous twins ever.
posted by mochapickle at 11:05 AM on March 2, 2019 [38 favorites]
The fun detail of all this is that my kidneys right now are absolutely ginormous -- they're each supposed to be like six to eight ounces and the size of your fist, but my PKD kidneys are each densely heavy and about the size of a semi-deflated American football, and considering I'm about 5'4" right now (I shrunk an inch because this has changed my posture and hopefully I'll get that inch back), there is very little room for them. At the moment, I look like I share the same due date with Meghan Markle, except I'm having twins.
So I'm hurting and increasingly hunched over because they're pressing against my spine. And since these awful Cronenbergian body horror kidneys are no longer pulling their weight, my doctors agree that it's off they go! And I'm weirdly excited to have it over and done with, even though the surgery itself is a difficult one.
Be sending prayers for me on May 20 as I deliver the most hideous twins ever.
posted by mochapickle at 11:05 AM on March 2, 2019 [38 favorites]
In the young days of our (now long-gone) marriage, my wife and I would often get the local Sunday paper and take it to brunch - usually either eggs Benedict or huevos rancheros, with a mimosa or two each and coffee. It wasn't a big town and brunch wasn't as much of a Thing then, so we could go earlyish while the restaurant was below capacity and linger over the paper and quite a few coffee refills for a couple hours without the guilt of delaying table turnover. The line of hungry people didn't start to form until about the time we were ready to go anyway.
A few years later we lived in a quasi-intentional community - a group of hippie types who knew each other all ended up buying small parcels of cheap land in the same "neighborhood" out in the boondocks and building little inexpensive houses or "modular housing" (slightly upscale mobile homes). Quite a few of us would get together every other Sunday afternoon for a potluck meal and a few games of volleyball along with a few beers. Those bottles would get clustered around the base of either of the net posts, kept handy for a sip or two between volleys. It was a hard and fast rule that knocking over any of those beers with a stray ball would cost the guilty party's team two points. After a while the regulars got competent enough that losing points became pretty rare.
Nowadays, as an older single person who lives on the other side of the country from their grown-up offspring and other family, the closest thing I have to a weekend "routine" is sitting at home drinking coffee (mornings) or beer (afternoons and/or evenings) and doing some combination of hanging out on Metafilter, reading a book, noodling around on the piano, or watching a movie, depending on my random mood. I've learned to appreciate and settle into my cloistered unstructured free weekend time, but I often find myself thinking it would be nice to have some sort of regular-ish activity, such as the "feast" day that Eyebrows McGee describes upthread. Sometimes I get inspired by a new recipe (somebody mentioned Jamaican oxtail stew - maybe in Ask? - a couple weeks ago, and I gotta say it tastes fantastic!) or a hankering for an old one I haven't had in a while; I'll stock up on the necessary ingredients during my regular Saturday grocery run and spend a few hours over the weekend making a big batch of one or two selected entrees to either have available for quick weekday dinners and/or freeze. But that's not a regular thing because it's harder for me to get motivated to cook anything elaborate or time-consuming for just myself.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:42 AM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
A few years later we lived in a quasi-intentional community - a group of hippie types who knew each other all ended up buying small parcels of cheap land in the same "neighborhood" out in the boondocks and building little inexpensive houses or "modular housing" (slightly upscale mobile homes). Quite a few of us would get together every other Sunday afternoon for a potluck meal and a few games of volleyball along with a few beers. Those bottles would get clustered around the base of either of the net posts, kept handy for a sip or two between volleys. It was a hard and fast rule that knocking over any of those beers with a stray ball would cost the guilty party's team two points. After a while the regulars got competent enough that losing points became pretty rare.
Nowadays, as an older single person who lives on the other side of the country from their grown-up offspring and other family, the closest thing I have to a weekend "routine" is sitting at home drinking coffee (mornings) or beer (afternoons and/or evenings) and doing some combination of hanging out on Metafilter, reading a book, noodling around on the piano, or watching a movie, depending on my random mood. I've learned to appreciate and settle into my cloistered unstructured free weekend time, but I often find myself thinking it would be nice to have some sort of regular-ish activity, such as the "feast" day that Eyebrows McGee describes upthread. Sometimes I get inspired by a new recipe (somebody mentioned Jamaican oxtail stew - maybe in Ask? - a couple weeks ago, and I gotta say it tastes fantastic!) or a hankering for an old one I haven't had in a while; I'll stock up on the necessary ingredients during my regular Saturday grocery run and spend a few hours over the weekend making a big batch of one or two selected entrees to either have available for quick weekday dinners and/or freeze. But that's not a regular thing because it's harder for me to get motivated to cook anything elaborate or time-consuming for just myself.
posted by Greg_Ace at 11:42 AM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
When it's this wet out my Sunday routine is sleeping in. When it's brighter and clearer my morning is usually checking the plants to see if I can pick off any morning pests. On Sundays the Dark Horse opens at 1pm so some Sundays I walk over around 3 for a late lunch and a good beer. Sometimes I go to the Y and work out. None of that for me this weekend I'm afraid. While the meet-up at the exploratorium was wonderful, pretty much the minute I got home I came down with a norovirus/stomach flu. I suspect one of the bartenders from the event did not wash their hands before they poured beer. I'm ok, but I spent far too much time praying to the porcelain god yesterday for my liking. bleh.
We have had so much rain. In good news it cleared for our meet-up, but it has definitely started again with a vengeance. While that's not the best for some of my plants... The mint is loving it. I've started some seeds indoors and they're starting to sprout. Well the sunflowers are starting to sprout. I've started painting again, which is good for my soul if nothing else. It has highlighted that I still have a slight tremor though, so that's something to work with.
I really hope the museum meet-ups become a thing, it was really fun seeing everyone!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:12 PM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
We have had so much rain. In good news it cleared for our meet-up, but it has definitely started again with a vengeance. While that's not the best for some of my plants... The mint is loving it. I've started some seeds indoors and they're starting to sprout. Well the sunflowers are starting to sprout. I've started painting again, which is good for my soul if nothing else. It has highlighted that I still have a slight tremor though, so that's something to work with.
I really hope the museum meet-ups become a thing, it was really fun seeing everyone!
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 12:12 PM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
I got into grad school!!! So my Sundays coming up will be continuing general decluttering in preparation for a move :)
On Sundays, I like to sit in the recliner passed down to me from my dad and read or noodle around on the internet while my little cat sleeps in my lap. He was given the recliner when he was 16, and then it was reupholstered and given to me when I was 16. It's definitely one of my most important possessions and brings up lots of happy memories. From the chair, I have a great view out to trees and the sky, and I can watch my cats lounge about and chatter at the birds. I also eat peanut butter and jelly toast and drink too much coffee on Sunday mornings.
posted by Mouse Army at 12:18 PM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
On Sundays, I like to sit in the recliner passed down to me from my dad and read or noodle around on the internet while my little cat sleeps in my lap. He was given the recliner when he was 16, and then it was reupholstered and given to me when I was 16. It's definitely one of my most important possessions and brings up lots of happy memories. From the chair, I have a great view out to trees and the sky, and I can watch my cats lounge about and chatter at the birds. I also eat peanut butter and jelly toast and drink too much coffee on Sunday mornings.
posted by Mouse Army at 12:18 PM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
I'm a real morning person who wakes up instantly cheerful and wants to Do All The Things while my husband is decidedly not that way, which means a good deal of our marriage has been trying to come to an equilibrium in the mornings, particularly on the weekend. But still I feel fortunate to have a pretty sweet routine right now that only comes about when one works from home and doesn't have kids, haha!
We have one of those Phillips sunrise alarm clocks that gradually brightens the room and wakes you to the sounds of birds twittering, which I'm mentioning only because I truly think it's been a tremendous help for my SAD. The very very first thing I do every morning is check the weather by running around the house peeking through the curtains and checking the sky/clouds in every direction, then standing on the front porch and looking towards the west/NW for a few minutes so I can also get a feel for wind, temps, cloud movement, humidity, what the little birdies are doing, etc. Sometimes if it's not real obvious I will walk up the street about 200 feet so that I can get a clear view of the mountains and what's going on there - I have been caught skittering up the sidewalk in my bare feet and sleeping attire a few times by neighbors. (This has been my wake up routine for almost my entire life no matter where I am or what I'm doing.) Then I go for a run/do yoga/strength train for an hour or so. I look forward to running outside so much and can't wait for sun rise to get early enough again. My husband walks the dog for a mile in the morning after his exercise and I always try to be done in time to join them.
Since I work from home if I'm done exercising by six most days I will work for an hour before breakfast. In the summer on Saturdays we go to the grocery store, and have all the shopping done by seven. Sundays are my rest/recovery days so when I get up at five I do some stretches, go for a walk, then go down to the basement and clean fossils or prepare rock samples for a few hours while listening to bluegrass - I just love bluegrass on a weekend morning when I'm puttering - so my husband can have the slow waking up kind of morning that he likes. Then it's BREAKFAST TIME. Yayyyyy breakfast! We try to make a breakfast that takes time to make so we can spend time together, even if it's just boiled eggs and fruit/cheese. On Sundays we try to have a fun meal. In winter time it's usually delicious thick cut oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamon, and fruit. Sometimes I will throw some apples in the skillet and tenderize them a bit before throwing them in the oatmeal. In the summer it's baked eggs/salmon/kale in a skillet.
While breakfast is cooking I jot down a quick list of what I want to do that day along with an estimation of how long each task will take, and then I prioritize it. After breakfast I do the highest 10 minute or less priority task on the list. Then I sit on the front porch for 30-45 minutes if I can, even if I really have to bundle up - I've got 3-4 outdoor blankets ready to go at all times - drinking an entire pot of hot tea and reading, and oh! what joy that time is every day. If the weather is bad enough I can't do that then I may curl up in our reading chair and check the Mefi, email, etc., then it's work time! But first I take a brisk 15 minute walk around the block so that I feel I like "left for/went to work".
Around 11 my productivity usually takes a big dip until about 1, so that's when I either tackle less mentally taxing things on my task list, get a coffee, respond to emails, do a housecleaning task (I try to do one - two things a day to spread out the cleaning), take a shower, check MeFi, snack, etc. Somewhere in there I'll read for a bit. Then I take a 15-30 minute walk with the dog and come back to work for 3-4 hours. Then it's time for another walk, sometimes to the store for dinner fixings if we don't have anything on hand, after which I sit on the porch or in the backyard again I can, often with a glass of wine, and read or check the internets until my husband comes home. Sometimes if it's been a day with a lot of anxiety or my ADHD is kind of bad I will go for another quick but real easy run during lunch or after work instead. And anything goes in the evening - friend & family time, food time, fun time, work time, dog time, more reading time.
Most weekends we're doing something in the mountains but if not, Saturdays are errand/friends/family days and Sundays are READING DAYS. Bliss.
posted by barchan at 12:30 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
We have one of those Phillips sunrise alarm clocks that gradually brightens the room and wakes you to the sounds of birds twittering, which I'm mentioning only because I truly think it's been a tremendous help for my SAD. The very very first thing I do every morning is check the weather by running around the house peeking through the curtains and checking the sky/clouds in every direction, then standing on the front porch and looking towards the west/NW for a few minutes so I can also get a feel for wind, temps, cloud movement, humidity, what the little birdies are doing, etc. Sometimes if it's not real obvious I will walk up the street about 200 feet so that I can get a clear view of the mountains and what's going on there - I have been caught skittering up the sidewalk in my bare feet and sleeping attire a few times by neighbors. (This has been my wake up routine for almost my entire life no matter where I am or what I'm doing.) Then I go for a run/do yoga/strength train for an hour or so. I look forward to running outside so much and can't wait for sun rise to get early enough again. My husband walks the dog for a mile in the morning after his exercise and I always try to be done in time to join them.
Since I work from home if I'm done exercising by six most days I will work for an hour before breakfast. In the summer on Saturdays we go to the grocery store, and have all the shopping done by seven. Sundays are my rest/recovery days so when I get up at five I do some stretches, go for a walk, then go down to the basement and clean fossils or prepare rock samples for a few hours while listening to bluegrass - I just love bluegrass on a weekend morning when I'm puttering - so my husband can have the slow waking up kind of morning that he likes. Then it's BREAKFAST TIME. Yayyyyy breakfast! We try to make a breakfast that takes time to make so we can spend time together, even if it's just boiled eggs and fruit/cheese. On Sundays we try to have a fun meal. In winter time it's usually delicious thick cut oatmeal with butter, brown sugar, cinnamon, cardamon, and fruit. Sometimes I will throw some apples in the skillet and tenderize them a bit before throwing them in the oatmeal. In the summer it's baked eggs/salmon/kale in a skillet.
While breakfast is cooking I jot down a quick list of what I want to do that day along with an estimation of how long each task will take, and then I prioritize it. After breakfast I do the highest 10 minute or less priority task on the list. Then I sit on the front porch for 30-45 minutes if I can, even if I really have to bundle up - I've got 3-4 outdoor blankets ready to go at all times - drinking an entire pot of hot tea and reading, and oh! what joy that time is every day. If the weather is bad enough I can't do that then I may curl up in our reading chair and check the Mefi, email, etc., then it's work time! But first I take a brisk 15 minute walk around the block so that I feel I like "left for/went to work".
Around 11 my productivity usually takes a big dip until about 1, so that's when I either tackle less mentally taxing things on my task list, get a coffee, respond to emails, do a housecleaning task (I try to do one - two things a day to spread out the cleaning), take a shower, check MeFi, snack, etc. Somewhere in there I'll read for a bit. Then I take a 15-30 minute walk with the dog and come back to work for 3-4 hours. Then it's time for another walk, sometimes to the store for dinner fixings if we don't have anything on hand, after which I sit on the porch or in the backyard again I can, often with a glass of wine, and read or check the internets until my husband comes home. Sometimes if it's been a day with a lot of anxiety or my ADHD is kind of bad I will go for another quick but real easy run during lunch or after work instead. And anything goes in the evening - friend & family time, food time, fun time, work time, dog time, more reading time.
Most weekends we're doing something in the mountains but if not, Saturdays are errand/friends/family days and Sundays are READING DAYS. Bliss.
posted by barchan at 12:30 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
Wordshore, a Portuguese colleague of mine brought in pasteis this week, I’d forgotten how good they are!
posted by ellieBOA at 12:57 PM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by ellieBOA at 12:57 PM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sundays are a day of Monday/week prep for me. This can result in some brittle inflexibility about disruptions as leaving anything means it will have to be resolved during the week when I have less time/patience, etc. I am often a sufferer of Sunday Blues, as too my chagrin, I'm not great with changing from one thing to another, and when that other is work that's not going fabulously, even more so.
After the cats - who in the absence of their regular 6:15 feeding, rouse me from my bed by running over me repeatedly - I'm the first one up. Some weetbix, a very large pot of tea, chased by some mefi, then I'm ready to do jobs.
The two main jobs on Sundays are washing, and doing as much cooking as I can for the week. This means prepping around 5 meals, plus a fruit salad for my bircher muesli in a couple of hours or so, then cleanup. Meanwhile the washing machine is purring away, and I'm ducking outside to hang up and take down clothes.
I used to do my long run (20-25km) on Sundays, but I've recently switched to Saturdays, and it's been much better as it gives me a back a solid 2.5 hours when you include the stretching etc.
I find the cooking very relaxing, generally. I'm an excellent cook so can semi-auto pilot most of it. This week's menu includes Snapper Curry, aloo mattar, brined chicken salad, black bean beef.
posted by smoke at 1:35 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
After the cats - who in the absence of their regular 6:15 feeding, rouse me from my bed by running over me repeatedly - I'm the first one up. Some weetbix, a very large pot of tea, chased by some mefi, then I'm ready to do jobs.
The two main jobs on Sundays are washing, and doing as much cooking as I can for the week. This means prepping around 5 meals, plus a fruit salad for my bircher muesli in a couple of hours or so, then cleanup. Meanwhile the washing machine is purring away, and I'm ducking outside to hang up and take down clothes.
I used to do my long run (20-25km) on Sundays, but I've recently switched to Saturdays, and it's been much better as it gives me a back a solid 2.5 hours when you include the stretching etc.
I find the cooking very relaxing, generally. I'm an excellent cook so can semi-auto pilot most of it. This week's menu includes Snapper Curry, aloo mattar, brined chicken salad, black bean beef.
posted by smoke at 1:35 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
I love this kind of topic.
Sundays are a treat for me, but not a restful one, not the first half anyway. I wake up somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on how much work I have and how slothful I am, wash yesterday's dinner dishes, and settle down to correct people's English writing over the Internet; if I'm lucky there will be a submission from the guy who posts diary entries about the latest cute thing his small daughters did (smoke, I bet his kids are about the same ages as yours, a pity they can't play together). I wake up my husband about 6:30, because his weekend is skewed and Sunday is his earliest day, and put some coffee on for him in the magic Nescafe thing. (Today I said "hon, it's 6:30, when do you want to get up?" "mmmm i don't have to get up yet...OH SHIT IT'S SUNDAY WHAT TIME IS IT THANKS ARGH" and he leapt up nearly braining me. That was 15 minutes ago.)
I leave the house after he does, around 7:30, schlepping my cello case, and head for orchestra practice just north of the city. On the way I stop at the place with the good o-nigiri (rice balls that they make fresh when you order them, with warm rice and your choice of fillings) and have an extravagant breakfast. Orchestra lasts until 12 or 1 depending on the day, and can be fun or frustrating depending on the content, but it's always fulfilling and I look forward to it all week. Today is the sightreading festival, the first day with new pieces after the last concert, and I love sightreading so I hope it'll be fun.
Afterwards I groan my way home (I love my instrument, but damn it's a big heavy thing and I'm a small woman, vertically at least), eat something on the way or buy takeout Thai food or occasionally heat up leftovers for lunch, and spend the afternoon at home working and lazing--sometimes a nap, sometimes just reading and messing around online. (In another month there'll be baseball to watch on Sunday afternoons, yay.) In the evening I cook something, usually a slow-simmer Sunday kind of dish--in recent weeks I've made a decent New England potroast and a terrific beans-spinach-sausage-tomato thing--and when my husband gets home we eat together, watch a bit of the classical program on TV, snuggle some, and that's the day.
(Oh, Margalo Epps--I always find myself reading your comments as if the actual Margalo from the book was writing them, now grownup, especially when you've posted about your mom and stepdad, etc. I always catch myself thinking "so glad Margalo's grown up and doing well, wonder how Mikey is..." and so on. Enjoyed ;) )
posted by huimangm at 1:54 PM on March 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
Sundays are a treat for me, but not a restful one, not the first half anyway. I wake up somewhere between 5:30 and 6:30 depending on how much work I have and how slothful I am, wash yesterday's dinner dishes, and settle down to correct people's English writing over the Internet; if I'm lucky there will be a submission from the guy who posts diary entries about the latest cute thing his small daughters did (smoke, I bet his kids are about the same ages as yours, a pity they can't play together). I wake up my husband about 6:30, because his weekend is skewed and Sunday is his earliest day, and put some coffee on for him in the magic Nescafe thing. (Today I said "hon, it's 6:30, when do you want to get up?" "mmmm i don't have to get up yet...OH SHIT IT'S SUNDAY WHAT TIME IS IT THANKS ARGH" and he leapt up nearly braining me. That was 15 minutes ago.)
I leave the house after he does, around 7:30, schlepping my cello case, and head for orchestra practice just north of the city. On the way I stop at the place with the good o-nigiri (rice balls that they make fresh when you order them, with warm rice and your choice of fillings) and have an extravagant breakfast. Orchestra lasts until 12 or 1 depending on the day, and can be fun or frustrating depending on the content, but it's always fulfilling and I look forward to it all week. Today is the sightreading festival, the first day with new pieces after the last concert, and I love sightreading so I hope it'll be fun.
Afterwards I groan my way home (I love my instrument, but damn it's a big heavy thing and I'm a small woman, vertically at least), eat something on the way or buy takeout Thai food or occasionally heat up leftovers for lunch, and spend the afternoon at home working and lazing--sometimes a nap, sometimes just reading and messing around online. (In another month there'll be baseball to watch on Sunday afternoons, yay.) In the evening I cook something, usually a slow-simmer Sunday kind of dish--in recent weeks I've made a decent New England potroast and a terrific beans-spinach-sausage-tomato thing--and when my husband gets home we eat together, watch a bit of the classical program on TV, snuggle some, and that's the day.
(Oh, Margalo Epps--I always find myself reading your comments as if the actual Margalo from the book was writing them, now grownup, especially when you've posted about your mom and stepdad, etc. I always catch myself thinking "so glad Margalo's grown up and doing well, wonder how Mikey is..." and so on. Enjoyed ;) )
posted by huimangm at 1:54 PM on March 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
Everyone has such relaxing and restorative routines! Our Sundays vary but they tend to follow a loosely predictable, but sort of busy, pattern. Sunday mornings circa 6:00-7:00 am are often for snuggling and sex; it’s by far the best time of the week for us given the hectic pace of the other six days a week. We shower, have a little breakfast, glance at the paper, and get ourselves, and the teenagers, ready for church. Handbell choir rehearsal is once or twice a month at 8:15. We then go to Sunday School by 9:00 most Sundays and are home most weeks by noon or 12:30. Then it’s lunch, whatever laundry and cooking for the week that didn’t get done Saturday, calming down the 11th grader who’s inevitably waited until the bitter end of the weekend to really get into her homework, yardwork, bill-paying, and maybe a little reading and puttering around the house. We might see my parents or mother-in-law once a month.
At the risk of being a total downer, surely I’m not the only person who spends most Sunday nights in a state of mild depression and alarm about the work week to come? (On preview, I’m right there with you, smoke.)
posted by cheapskatebay at 2:03 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
At the risk of being a total downer, surely I’m not the only person who spends most Sunday nights in a state of mild depression and alarm about the work week to come? (On preview, I’m right there with you, smoke.)
posted by cheapskatebay at 2:03 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm going to do a little bit of a different take on this question. My mother died unexpectedly on January 26th. I have been living in her condo where my husband and I will be moving and working on taking care of everything that has to be done after someone dies. For the first month or so, it was a full-time job. I spent anywhere from 9 to 15 hours a day on various tasks. After a few days of this I found it absolutely necessary to take Saturday off and do nothing. Between the work, the minutiae, and dealing with the grief, I was absolutely exhausted. So my routine was watching movies and eating favorite snacks. A couple more weeks have passed and things have slowed down. I totally lost my appetite at one point and was very weak. I have slowly regained it and am doing better. I missed bring on MF.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 3:42 PM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 3:42 PM on March 2, 2019 [17 favorites]
I meant to add that one thing I did was install a bird feeder at the condo which has been bringing me much joy. So far I've had a titmouse, mockingbirds, Blue Jays, a male and female Cardinal, and a nuthatch. Red-tailed hawks and vultures are also in the neighborhood.
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 4:00 PM on March 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
posted by KleenexMakesaVeryGoodHat at 4:00 PM on March 2, 2019 [7 favorites]
Sundays are "most-likely-to-say-the-hell-with-it-and-take-a-long-drive-for-excellent-Mexican-food" days. The busy highway is a lot quieter, and the drive is less stressful, and oh my God, the food--it's this little hole-in-the-wall place with a doubtful parking lot, jammed between a gas station and a car repair shop, and cheerful murals painted on the walls inside. You can order lunch and then take a stroll through the tiny store in the back. That's the place to get the good cans of refried beans and the most beautiful tomatillos (even in winter!) and fat limes. The cheese, it is melted perfectly over beans and enchiladas, and the kids fight over the last of the guac appetizer, and ahh, that first bite--fresh, flavorful, made with love. We all eat until we are stuffed, and then dread the drive home because it's suddenly full-belly naptime. The worker ant in my soul is offended by how much time this outing takes up--time that could have been used Productively! Efficiently! Getting Stuff Done!--but I have quieted her for a few hours by sating her with enchiladas, and the argument about supporting a local business. Which is to say that given my druthers, I'd spend Sunday puttering on projects, but being pried away once in a while for a feast is a lovely change.
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:09 PM on March 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
posted by MonkeyToes at 4:09 PM on March 2, 2019 [13 favorites]
Sunday is the most non-work scheduled day for me, heh.
Get up at 7 if it's a handbell performance Sunday, 8:30 if not.
Put clay mask on face, read while mask sinking in. Shower. Eat Hershey bar with almonds in car on the way to church for breakfast, remember to hide wrapper so mom won't yell about it.
Pick up mom for church, go to church, optional handbell performance. Wait ten years for mom to finish talking, talking, talking to her friends, she's always the last one to leave. (This is a Thing she's done my entire life, thank Christ for iPhones.)
Go to mom's for lunch. Pray that something interesting happened at church or during the week, otherwise she will lecture me about how healthy the meal is and bitch about how awful her life is (it's way better than mine will ever be). Listen to her talk about she's going to make millions from the latest book that she's trying to write but won't finish. Optional game of "hey, I haven't tried to control you enough lately, so here's a minor task that I NEED YOU TO DO RIGHT NOW" with a side of "OMG I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS SIMPLE COMPUTER FIX EVEN THOUGH I COULD DO THEM JUST FINE YEARS AGO AND THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED."
Take mom grocery shopping, more of same. Schlep heavy bags to her apartment, argue over whether we need the shopping cart.
Get home around 6 p.m., try to get back into craft projects, too mentally tired to try, watch Columbo episodes instead.
She's actually not terrible, just a self-absorbed boomer with a lot of anxiety, and she thinks I'm her therapist, when I could really use one myself. I have good boundaries with her (THANK YOU METAFILTER), but it's exhausting to have to re-set those boundaries week after week, year after year. Putting everything into one day, Sunday, compartmentalizes everything and that helps.
posted by Melismata at 4:14 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
Get up at 7 if it's a handbell performance Sunday, 8:30 if not.
Put clay mask on face, read while mask sinking in. Shower. Eat Hershey bar with almonds in car on the way to church for breakfast, remember to hide wrapper so mom won't yell about it.
Pick up mom for church, go to church, optional handbell performance. Wait ten years for mom to finish talking, talking, talking to her friends, she's always the last one to leave. (This is a Thing she's done my entire life, thank Christ for iPhones.)
Go to mom's for lunch. Pray that something interesting happened at church or during the week, otherwise she will lecture me about how healthy the meal is and bitch about how awful her life is (it's way better than mine will ever be). Listen to her talk about she's going to make millions from the latest book that she's trying to write but won't finish. Optional game of "hey, I haven't tried to control you enough lately, so here's a minor task that I NEED YOU TO DO RIGHT NOW" with a side of "OMG I DON'T KNOW HOW TO DO THIS SIMPLE COMPUTER FIX EVEN THOUGH I COULD DO THEM JUST FINE YEARS AGO AND THEY HAVEN'T CHANGED."
Take mom grocery shopping, more of same. Schlep heavy bags to her apartment, argue over whether we need the shopping cart.
Get home around 6 p.m., try to get back into craft projects, too mentally tired to try, watch Columbo episodes instead.
She's actually not terrible, just a self-absorbed boomer with a lot of anxiety, and she thinks I'm her therapist, when I could really use one myself. I have good boundaries with her (THANK YOU METAFILTER), but it's exhausting to have to re-set those boundaries week after week, year after year. Putting everything into one day, Sunday, compartmentalizes everything and that helps.
posted by Melismata at 4:14 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
It depends on the specific Sunday. Usually I get up and drink coffee while my wife usually sleeps later. I'll go and hit the gym usually but I'm not always that ambitious. I often try to do some photography related activity, either going out for a shoot, developing some film or just organizing my photos. Every other week I go to a photography critique session on Sunday evening so I'm often getting something ready to present for that.
The third Sunday of the month is the "Walkers' Brunch" which is a rotating neighborhood brunch club with twelve member families who each host a brunch once a year. The host family has to invite the other 11 families but can also invite anyone else they want. When you're hosting, you have to, as a minimum, make some central dish (we usually do Chicken Chili), have a bloody Mary station and buy a case of Prosecco. Everyone else brings a dish and some alcohol and then eats and drinks all Sunday afternoon. When we've hosted it, it's gone on as late as 10PM in the evening before we managed to get everyone to wander home. Fortunately, everyone lives within walking/stumbling distance.
posted by octothorpe at 4:40 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
The third Sunday of the month is the "Walkers' Brunch" which is a rotating neighborhood brunch club with twelve member families who each host a brunch once a year. The host family has to invite the other 11 families but can also invite anyone else they want. When you're hosting, you have to, as a minimum, make some central dish (we usually do Chicken Chili), have a bloody Mary station and buy a case of Prosecco. Everyone else brings a dish and some alcohol and then eats and drinks all Sunday afternoon. When we've hosted it, it's gone on as late as 10PM in the evening before we managed to get everyone to wander home. Fortunately, everyone lives within walking/stumbling distance.
posted by octothorpe at 4:40 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I have been in a long-distance relationship (3 hours by car) for almost 5 years, so almost every weekend is either visiting or being visited. (I am BFFs with several of the crew on the Amtrak Downeaster train.) I like being visited best, because overall central Maine is so much nicer than greater Boston, plus which I have cats. There is no set schedule, but weekends generally involve meals out, extensive walking when the weather permits, admiring the dogs we see when out walking (also rabbits in Massachusetts), errands to the pet store to buy cat food (and admire doggies), cat petting (when in Maine), looking for stuff to listen to on the shortwave radio, and watching the latest litter on Tinykittens, trains in Ashland, VA, and old Perry Mason tv shows. Lately we've also been listening to this old radio show. Everywhere we go, I make sure I carry a book, because Boyfriend often gets phone calls that become very long as he deals with some work emergency, but as long as I can sit and read this is not a problem.
This particular weekend, because of snow concerns (I am cool with travelling in snow at the beginning of the winter, but by late February/March I AM OVER IT and nope out a great deal), we are each at our own homes. So I do all the cleaning I'm behind on, and cook things for the freezer (today, black beans in the slow cooker), and I just got done watching the finals of the Festival da Canção and am relieved that Portugal made the right choice of who to send to Eurovision. Tomorrow I will cook something that will generate leftovers for during the week (tomato soup, I think) and I will probably watch an opera and read some books and practice on the ukulele. And pet those cats.
my 2 cats wake me up when they get hungry, around 8
Sheesh! Mine start at FOUR A.M. I often have to toss them out of the bedroom and close the door, and then they play a little game called Barbarians At The Gate, which is noisy but still better than being jumped on.
posted by JanetLand at 5:07 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
This particular weekend, because of snow concerns (I am cool with travelling in snow at the beginning of the winter, but by late February/March I AM OVER IT and nope out a great deal), we are each at our own homes. So I do all the cleaning I'm behind on, and cook things for the freezer (today, black beans in the slow cooker), and I just got done watching the finals of the Festival da Canção and am relieved that Portugal made the right choice of who to send to Eurovision. Tomorrow I will cook something that will generate leftovers for during the week (tomato soup, I think) and I will probably watch an opera and read some books and practice on the ukulele. And pet those cats.
my 2 cats wake me up when they get hungry, around 8
Sheesh! Mine start at FOUR A.M. I often have to toss them out of the bedroom and close the door, and then they play a little game called Barbarians At The Gate, which is noisy but still better than being jumped on.
posted by JanetLand at 5:07 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
My partner and I have been trying to get our chronically ill asses into the habit of moving more, so on Sunday mornings we go and get bagels for breakfast, and then walk at the mall for 30 minutes. Used to only be able to handle 10-15 minutes so the routine must be working! Then we come back and I either do homework or research or clinical work (whatever grad school currently demands), or if I'm lucky and made enough progress earlier in the week I do some chilling stuff. Either way partner plays Warframe. :)
Around 5 or 6 we go over to my in-laws (they live 10 minutes away) for a Sunday family dinner; the parents rent the bottom half of a duplex from their son, who lives in the top half, so everyone is there except the daughter in Florida for college (and she's there during the summer/winter break). My mother-in-law was living across the country for the past two years, so she's still super excited about making us homecooked meals every Sunday. It's lovely.
posted by brook horse at 5:54 PM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
Around 5 or 6 we go over to my in-laws (they live 10 minutes away) for a Sunday family dinner; the parents rent the bottom half of a duplex from their son, who lives in the top half, so everyone is there except the daughter in Florida for college (and she's there during the summer/winter break). My mother-in-law was living across the country for the past two years, so she's still super excited about making us homecooked meals every Sunday. It's lovely.
posted by brook horse at 5:54 PM on March 2, 2019 [4 favorites]
Tomorrow my Sunday will go like this:
4:45a - RIDE JAH BIKE alarm goes off
4:46a - Sunshine begins morning meal/begging routine
4:45 - 5a - Dress in layers, prepare for moisture in atmosphere
5 - 5:30 - oats meal and coffee
5:30 - 6 - pack pack and pack bike, load up, feed cat
6:30 - meet sawyer
7 - 8 - catch a lift up to Red Box on the shuttle
8a - 3pm - Haul chainsaw, swamp deadfall, clear trails
3pm - ? - BBQ w/ Gabrielinoists
Should be a good day.
posted by carsonb at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
4:45a - RIDE JAH BIKE alarm goes off
4:46a - Sunshine begins morning meal/begging routine
4:45 - 5a - Dress in layers, prepare for moisture in atmosphere
5 - 5:30 - oats meal and coffee
5:30 - 6 - pack pack and pack bike, load up, feed cat
6:30 - meet sawyer
7 - 8 - catch a lift up to Red Box on the shuttle
8a - 3pm - Haul chainsaw, swamp deadfall, clear trails
3pm - ? - BBQ w/ Gabrielinoists
Should be a good day.
posted by carsonb at 6:01 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
I feel strongly compelled to point out that thanks to this thread topic I keep freaking out and thinking "Shit, it's Sunday already?!? Where the hell did the weekend go??", then having to consciously calm myself and remember that this post comes out on Saturdays. So thanks for that, Metafilter!
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:11 PM on March 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
posted by Greg_Ace at 6:11 PM on March 2, 2019 [6 favorites]
I hesitate to mention this - 'cause it sounds incredibly spoiled and obnoxious - but I feel like I haven't had a genuine day off in 20 years. Every minute I spend relaxing means I have to spend more time working tomorrow.
As a early/mid career academic, I love my job. I've never met anyone whose job I'd prefer. (I could probably be talked into Stevie Wonder's job, if the swap included musical genius.) I spend half my time doing fun things and the rest of my time working to enable other people to do fun things, my income is in the global 1%, and I have no real boss.
But, there's no such thing as a day off. I feel bad about every minute I spend not working. I spent three days during my post-graduation trip in southern Peru dealing with complicated data archival policies and finishing edits on a many-author paper. I've called into telecons from campsites in the middle of nowhere, holding the phone over my head to remain connected. I only joined three telecons during my honeymoon. . . which I'm unreasonably proud of. Sunday is the day when I figure out which of the 20 things I've promised colleagues in the last two weeks are most important.
When my spouse, who lives several hundred miles away, visits our home, I usually bring her breakfast in bed on the weekend. (I typically get up several hours earlier.) It's become a routine. But, we typically spend the rest of the day working next to each other. Last weekend we played hookey and spend the day hanging out and having fun. But, it meant I had to wake up at 3am to prepare a lecture for my monday class, and she had to grade 50 papers in a desperate rush on an airplane.
When I talk to my parents, who have far less fun, working-class jobs, I'm immensely grateful that I have the job that I do. But, they also get to enjoy real weekends. I'm sure if you added up the time I spend on metafilter and twitter and listening to podcasts while cooking needlessly complicated things during the week, it would total at least half a weekend. But, somehow, I can write those off as momentary distractions, while a whole day off makes me feel guilty.
posted by eotvos at 6:29 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
As a early/mid career academic, I love my job. I've never met anyone whose job I'd prefer. (I could probably be talked into Stevie Wonder's job, if the swap included musical genius.) I spend half my time doing fun things and the rest of my time working to enable other people to do fun things, my income is in the global 1%, and I have no real boss.
But, there's no such thing as a day off. I feel bad about every minute I spend not working. I spent three days during my post-graduation trip in southern Peru dealing with complicated data archival policies and finishing edits on a many-author paper. I've called into telecons from campsites in the middle of nowhere, holding the phone over my head to remain connected. I only joined three telecons during my honeymoon. . . which I'm unreasonably proud of. Sunday is the day when I figure out which of the 20 things I've promised colleagues in the last two weeks are most important.
When my spouse, who lives several hundred miles away, visits our home, I usually bring her breakfast in bed on the weekend. (I typically get up several hours earlier.) It's become a routine. But, we typically spend the rest of the day working next to each other. Last weekend we played hookey and spend the day hanging out and having fun. But, it meant I had to wake up at 3am to prepare a lecture for my monday class, and she had to grade 50 papers in a desperate rush on an airplane.
When I talk to my parents, who have far less fun, working-class jobs, I'm immensely grateful that I have the job that I do. But, they also get to enjoy real weekends. I'm sure if you added up the time I spend on metafilter and twitter and listening to podcasts while cooking needlessly complicated things during the week, it would total at least half a weekend. But, somehow, I can write those off as momentary distractions, while a whole day off makes me feel guilty.
posted by eotvos at 6:29 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
I try to make Sunday a day of rest, and I find it really works to reset me. I love my job, but by Friday afternoon and even through Saturday, I am Done With It. By Sunday evening, I'm ready to dive in again.
I usually wake up on the early side just because I'm a lark, and because my cat is an asshole. This will be my first Sunday where I have two cats! I feed the animals and make myself a big press pot of coffee, and loll around in bed and cuddle with the cat(s) and read the New Yorker and dick around online. (I'm trying to do more of the reading thing.) It is very peaceful and civilized.
I've recently started attending Quaker Meeting, and really pleased that I found one I like, with the magical bonus that there are people of my age cohort there! Who are also childless! And really friendly. (The whole Meeting is really kind and welcoming, which has not always been my experience with Meetings. It feels incredibly good to be home.) It's still cold, so I will take the bus there tomorrow morning, but I'm hoping to switch to my bike very soon. That also makes it easy to keep going after Meeting, and make a real ride out of it. My current goal is to make it to the northernmost tip of Lake Washington and back.
I like to keep Sunday for making things. Occasionally I'll start with a bit of edible, but I pretty much always just go with whatever calls to me. I'm working on a weaving project I don't love, but I want to get it done, and see how it turns out. I have a sweater that I will be knitting for the rest of my natural life, or so it feels. And there's always spinning, embroidery, sewing, or another knitting project. These all require greater or lesser degrees of actual creativity versus a kind of rote meditation. I have a book club this week, though, so that will have to be pushed to the evening.
I grew up with my mother making a big Sunday dinner, but found I hated that once I live on my own, so now I heat something up quickly, or get take-out. (I am a serviceable but not great cook, so take-out especially is a treat.) I definitely get the 4pm on a Sunday doldrums, but I'm trying to transform that into being present and peaceful. Also making tea. I will often go for a walk by the Sound on Sunday evening, and it's very lovely and there are a lot of dogs to look at.
posted by kalimac at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
I usually wake up on the early side just because I'm a lark, and because my cat is an asshole. This will be my first Sunday where I have two cats! I feed the animals and make myself a big press pot of coffee, and loll around in bed and cuddle with the cat(s) and read the New Yorker and dick around online. (I'm trying to do more of the reading thing.) It is very peaceful and civilized.
I've recently started attending Quaker Meeting, and really pleased that I found one I like, with the magical bonus that there are people of my age cohort there! Who are also childless! And really friendly. (The whole Meeting is really kind and welcoming, which has not always been my experience with Meetings. It feels incredibly good to be home.) It's still cold, so I will take the bus there tomorrow morning, but I'm hoping to switch to my bike very soon. That also makes it easy to keep going after Meeting, and make a real ride out of it. My current goal is to make it to the northernmost tip of Lake Washington and back.
I like to keep Sunday for making things. Occasionally I'll start with a bit of edible, but I pretty much always just go with whatever calls to me. I'm working on a weaving project I don't love, but I want to get it done, and see how it turns out. I have a sweater that I will be knitting for the rest of my natural life, or so it feels. And there's always spinning, embroidery, sewing, or another knitting project. These all require greater or lesser degrees of actual creativity versus a kind of rote meditation. I have a book club this week, though, so that will have to be pushed to the evening.
I grew up with my mother making a big Sunday dinner, but found I hated that once I live on my own, so now I heat something up quickly, or get take-out. (I am a serviceable but not great cook, so take-out especially is a treat.) I definitely get the 4pm on a Sunday doldrums, but I'm trying to transform that into being present and peaceful. Also making tea. I will often go for a walk by the Sound on Sunday evening, and it's very lovely and there are a lot of dogs to look at.
posted by kalimac at 7:24 PM on March 2, 2019 [5 favorites]
Sunday mornings are relaxing, but I go into a Sunday night "freak out" as my GF calls it worrying about the work week and all the stuff I did not get done over the weekend. Heck, I still have stuff on my to-do list from 2017. But Sunday mornings, we sleep until 10:00, cuddle then go to our favorite diner for breakfast/lunch. We have gone so many times that the waitresses all know us and we have gotten our frequent diner card filled up twice (21 times and a free meal!). We try to beat the after Church crowd so we can get a booth by the window. Then, we come back, light the fire and I get to watch some sports on TV while she reads the internet on her laptop.
After the traditional stir-fry dinner with chocolate milkshakes, I start to "freak out'. She has a scotch and I have a bourbon. Then to bed after watching 60 minutes and Sunday night football.
posted by AugustWest at 8:03 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
After the traditional stir-fry dinner with chocolate milkshakes, I start to "freak out'. She has a scotch and I have a bourbon. Then to bed after watching 60 minutes and Sunday night football.
posted by AugustWest at 8:03 PM on March 2, 2019 [3 favorites]
It depends on when, where and how I wake up, so we'll start the clock with 00:00 as whenever I acknowledge that the universe still exists.
-15 to -60 minutes: Dim awareness of consciousness begins. Ideally this happens slowly and doesn't sneak up on me in the dark, otherwise skip to 00:01.
00:00: Bitterly acknowledge that reality is still even a thing.
00:01: Therapeutic screaming and re-orientation session begins.
00:15: Curl in fetal position and debate the merits of coffee vs. staying in bed.
00:20: Put on water for coffee, curl back in bed. Here's where a lazy tiny house is king.
00:25: Drink coffee. If it's not raining, go outside and sit in sun. Scream at sun. If it's raining, scream at the rain.
00:30: Put on more water for coffee. Or tea. Usually coffee.
00:35: Briefly consider breakfast, experience existential revulsion, stop considering breakfast.
00:40: Renew vow to find and break whatever sick entity trapped me in this flesh prison.
00:45: Smoke a bowl, drink more coffee. Get munchies, paradoxically still avoiding considering breakfast.
00:50: Check hummingbird feeder. Get cursed at by hummingbird. Assholes.
01:00: Forget I was smoking a bowl, look at news and internet. Scream at the internet.
01:01: Remember bowl. Pack another. Forget halfway through again.
01:15: Hexes and spells. Sometimes yoga.
01:30: More coffee. Ponder new ways to extinguish the sun.
01:45: Internally debate the merits of getting dressed versus simply lighting oneself on fire.
01:50: After experimenting with fire, give up and maybe put on actual clothes.
02:00: Reorientation with the nature of reality mostly complete. Start screaming.
02:15: Crawl back into bed.
posted by loquacious at 8:55 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
-15 to -60 minutes: Dim awareness of consciousness begins. Ideally this happens slowly and doesn't sneak up on me in the dark, otherwise skip to 00:01.
00:00: Bitterly acknowledge that reality is still even a thing.
00:01: Therapeutic screaming and re-orientation session begins.
00:15: Curl in fetal position and debate the merits of coffee vs. staying in bed.
00:20: Put on water for coffee, curl back in bed. Here's where a lazy tiny house is king.
00:25: Drink coffee. If it's not raining, go outside and sit in sun. Scream at sun. If it's raining, scream at the rain.
00:30: Put on more water for coffee. Or tea. Usually coffee.
00:35: Briefly consider breakfast, experience existential revulsion, stop considering breakfast.
00:40: Renew vow to find and break whatever sick entity trapped me in this flesh prison.
00:45: Smoke a bowl, drink more coffee. Get munchies, paradoxically still avoiding considering breakfast.
00:50: Check hummingbird feeder. Get cursed at by hummingbird. Assholes.
01:00: Forget I was smoking a bowl, look at news and internet. Scream at the internet.
01:01: Remember bowl. Pack another. Forget halfway through again.
01:15: Hexes and spells. Sometimes yoga.
01:30: More coffee. Ponder new ways to extinguish the sun.
01:45: Internally debate the merits of getting dressed versus simply lighting oneself on fire.
01:50: After experimenting with fire, give up and maybe put on actual clothes.
02:00: Reorientation with the nature of reality mostly complete. Start screaming.
02:15: Crawl back into bed.
posted by loquacious at 8:55 PM on March 2, 2019 [9 favorites]
My normal farting-around day is Saturday. Sundays are for running errands and getting ready for the work week - mostly doing laundry and grocery shopping. If the weather is supposed to be nicer on Sunday, though, I might swap them.
Saturdays are for sleeping in late, then getting up and taking a looong shower. I'll make some sort of eggs for brunch, then spend a little time to tidy up a bit so I can relax at home for the weekend. Spend some time reading/messing around on the internet, reading Twitter/MeFi/etc. By mid day, I'll usually head outside for a hike/walk, or in the summer for some kayak time. In the early afternoon, I usually FaceTime with my parents in Sweden, often right as they are cooking dinner. It's nice to virtually hang out and chat while they cook.
Often, I stay out in nature until after dark. But lately my Saturday evenings have been all about going to Open Studio for the ceramics class I'm taking. Usually it's about 3 hours of chill me-time in a studio full of potter's wheels but few people, focusing on something creative and hands on. I will often grab some fast food on the way home after - stuff I don't normally eat during the week (been on a Taco Bell kick lately...).
Later on Saturday evening is for playing video games while chatting with my friends online. Like TF2 before it, Overwatch is basically the world's most complicated voice group messaging app, allowing you to do something together while chatting about what's up in your life. After gaming, it's a bit more messing around online, then reading a little bit of my book (can't sleep without reading!) until I fall asleep.
Most of my weeks are crazy busy, and having an off day that's all about being outside and doing fun things is totally necessary for me. I looove Saturdays...
posted by gemmy at 9:25 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Saturdays are for sleeping in late, then getting up and taking a looong shower. I'll make some sort of eggs for brunch, then spend a little time to tidy up a bit so I can relax at home for the weekend. Spend some time reading/messing around on the internet, reading Twitter/MeFi/etc. By mid day, I'll usually head outside for a hike/walk, or in the summer for some kayak time. In the early afternoon, I usually FaceTime with my parents in Sweden, often right as they are cooking dinner. It's nice to virtually hang out and chat while they cook.
Often, I stay out in nature until after dark. But lately my Saturday evenings have been all about going to Open Studio for the ceramics class I'm taking. Usually it's about 3 hours of chill me-time in a studio full of potter's wheels but few people, focusing on something creative and hands on. I will often grab some fast food on the way home after - stuff I don't normally eat during the week (been on a Taco Bell kick lately...).
Later on Saturday evening is for playing video games while chatting with my friends online. Like TF2 before it, Overwatch is basically the world's most complicated voice group messaging app, allowing you to do something together while chatting about what's up in your life. After gaming, it's a bit more messing around online, then reading a little bit of my book (can't sleep without reading!) until I fall asleep.
Most of my weeks are crazy busy, and having an off day that's all about being outside and doing fun things is totally necessary for me. I looove Saturdays...
posted by gemmy at 9:25 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
I get up about thre-ven,
Head out to work half 'fore five,
I reach there by walking, yo!
'Cos bussing's a waste of my time,
Shift only pays upta ten and,
I get outta that place by half-past,
Feet up and watching BBC News on the hour,
Because I blow that joint real fast,
I wish I worked for Lidl,
But the Lidl wouldn't take me,
So this shitjob grows worse and worse,
I just keep trying to find a little bett'job,
Just a Lidl better than this was,
Always dancing with Mr Bootstrings,
My life he's cancelling,
Makes my Sundays his own,
Won't leave me alo-oh-ohne,
Won't leave me alone,
Yowsa!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:33 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Head out to work half 'fore five,
I reach there by walking, yo!
'Cos bussing's a waste of my time,
Shift only pays upta ten and,
I get outta that place by half-past,
Feet up and watching BBC News on the hour,
Because I blow that joint real fast,
I wish I worked for Lidl,
But the Lidl wouldn't take me,
So this shitjob grows worse and worse,
I just keep trying to find a little bett'job,
Just a Lidl better than this was,
Always dancing with Mr Bootstrings,
My life he's cancelling,
Makes my Sundays his own,
Won't leave me alo-oh-ohne,
Won't leave me alone,
Yowsa!
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:33 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Not my best work, but you get the idea.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:34 PM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 9:34 PM on March 2, 2019 [1 favorite]
And I'm kidding. Mostly.
posted by loquacious at 9:38 PM on March 2, 2019
posted by loquacious at 9:38 PM on March 2, 2019
Sunday tends to revolve around long runs in the morning and long afternoons spent cooking, so today for example:
Wake up at 7. Immediately regret decision to sign up for a run this morning. Attempt to talk myself out of it. Fail.
Eat breakfast. Shower.
Jog down to the start of the run. Say hi to the people I remember, try to work out if I've met the other people before (I have terrible face recognition).
Spend a couple of hours slowly running hill trails. Yay! [Alternatively if I'm training I might run on my own a bit further and faster].
Hit a cafe for coffee/milkshakes/frittatas.
Jog home, stopping off at the vege market.
Lunch, laze around for a while. Web/gaming if its winter, outside with a book if it's summer.
Cook a long slow meal, like a lasagna or curry, enough to last for the next few days.
Dinner, laze around, Netflix etc. Read in bed. Try to fight the creeping sense of dread at having to go to work. Especially strong today as I have to fly to another city early tomorrow to run some training sessions, and I'm not feeling it.
posted by Pink Frost at 10:00 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
Wake up at 7. Immediately regret decision to sign up for a run this morning. Attempt to talk myself out of it. Fail.
Eat breakfast. Shower.
Jog down to the start of the run. Say hi to the people I remember, try to work out if I've met the other people before (I have terrible face recognition).
Spend a couple of hours slowly running hill trails. Yay! [Alternatively if I'm training I might run on my own a bit further and faster].
Hit a cafe for coffee/milkshakes/frittatas.
Jog home, stopping off at the vege market.
Lunch, laze around for a while. Web/gaming if its winter, outside with a book if it's summer.
Cook a long slow meal, like a lasagna or curry, enough to last for the next few days.
Dinner, laze around, Netflix etc. Read in bed. Try to fight the creeping sense of dread at having to go to work. Especially strong today as I have to fly to another city early tomorrow to run some training sessions, and I'm not feeling it.
posted by Pink Frost at 10:00 PM on March 2, 2019 [2 favorites]
All of my routines have been in chaos for the last year, but hopefully it’s all settling into an actual routine soon. The excellent thing that’s become a consistent part of Sunday is a food exchange a couple of friends in the neighborhood and I have started doing. We all make a big batch of something(s) on Sunday and get together in the evening to check in with each other and trade food. This covers most of the week’s meals, we don’t get sick of our own cooking, there’s no excuse for not bringing lunch to work - it’s great. Last week the haul was a spicy chicken and tomato thing with black bean pasta, something like caprese salad but with crunchy little cucumbers added, winter squash enchiladas, green salad with pears and black radishes and nuts, roasted root vegetables with lamb sausage, a cabbage and ground meat stir fry, sweet potato oven fries, and oatmeal cookies with chocolate chips and dried blueberries in them. I really look forward to Sundays now.
posted by centrifugal at 10:13 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by centrifugal at 10:13 PM on March 2, 2019 [8 favorites]
Since I'm an unemployed person all days are the same:
1. Naturally wake up around 1 PM
2. My god this bed is so comfortable
3. Hit snooze every 9 minutes until 4 PM
4. It's starting to get dark I should probably get out of bed
5. Work on a personal coding project for a while
6. Go buy alcohol of some kind
7. Pot
8. ???
9. Profit
posted by bendy at 12:53 AM on March 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
1. Naturally wake up around 1 PM
2. My god this bed is so comfortable
3. Hit snooze every 9 minutes until 4 PM
4. It's starting to get dark I should probably get out of bed
5. Work on a personal coding project for a while
6. Go buy alcohol of some kind
7. Pot
8. ???
9. Profit
posted by bendy at 12:53 AM on March 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Why would I have a routine on a Sunday? It's one of the few days in the week where I don't have to have a routine! It's lovely.
posted by lollusc at 1:31 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by lollusc at 1:31 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
It sort of depends if I'm going to the protest or not. There's almost always a protest. If so, then I go to that, do some activist prep and work with my coms, and end up at somebody's place or a park or some corner of the uni just hanging out.
If I'm not going to the protest, then I just do stuff around the place, get some cleaning done, make sure I've done my readings, maybe make a stew, tutoring prep, contact work.
Today I did not go to the protest, because last night was the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I'm an absolute wreck but it was amazing.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 1:37 AM on March 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
If I'm not going to the protest, then I just do stuff around the place, get some cleaning done, make sure I've done my readings, maybe make a stew, tutoring prep, contact work.
Today I did not go to the protest, because last night was the Sydney Gay and Lesbian Mardi Gras. I'm an absolute wreck but it was amazing.
posted by AnhydrousLove at 1:37 AM on March 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
Tonight in a fit of androgen-induced hungry madness I ate an entire package of Gorton’s popcorn shrimp. I feel really quite ill now so I checked the package and lo and behold- whey in the breading. Dairy my one true nemesis has reared it’s ugly head again and I am hoping against hope the pepto and 2am mint tea is enough to prevent me from once again worshiping the porcelain god.
Pray for me.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:14 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Pray for me.
posted by Homo neanderthalensis at 2:14 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
I am very hungover because wine is the Devil’s own but having a snoozing kitty on my lap is helping me recover. (Also, kiittttties! I have kitties now! They have an Instagram as @pepandjess)
My sundays are generally fairly quiet - the main things tend to be laundry day and making lunches for the week. We meal plan on a Sunday as well and I tend to spend a fair bit of time on the sofa crafting while t’hb plans out stuff for the D&D game he is running with friends. I will occasionally do a roast or when we lived in Brighton we’d go out for Sunday lunch. Not found a good Sunday lunch pub in new location yet.
Today I will probably remain mostly on the sofa in my enfeebled state and t’hb will probably pop out for groceries and kitty litter.
posted by halcyonday at 2:26 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
My sundays are generally fairly quiet - the main things tend to be laundry day and making lunches for the week. We meal plan on a Sunday as well and I tend to spend a fair bit of time on the sofa crafting while t’hb plans out stuff for the D&D game he is running with friends. I will occasionally do a roast or when we lived in Brighton we’d go out for Sunday lunch. Not found a good Sunday lunch pub in new location yet.
Today I will probably remain mostly on the sofa in my enfeebled state and t’hb will probably pop out for groceries and kitty litter.
posted by halcyonday at 2:26 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Sunday is laundry day. Every week, we say we will get up to town early, then we drink coffee and putter around on the internet. I do the dishes, husband takes a shower, then I have to wait until the water heats up again so I can take mine. We usually don't get out of here until noon or 1:00, but get home in time to chill out before supper.
If I feel like it, I'll make breakfast, bacon and eggs with toast, but mostly we grab our own. Today I'm making biscuits and gravy, because it has come to my attention that my husband has never had biscuits and sausage gravy, which is a crying shame, and I usually have one cheat day a week (all other days are oatmeal or a fruit smoothie).
Then we head upta town, do our laundry, and come back home. Sometimes I'll make a fancy meal, other times we'll get takeout, usually some type of sub, and I'll eat half and save the other half for lunch the next day. My husband always eats a whole large sub and then complains that he shouldn't have done that.
We find a movie or show we've been binging, the cats curl up next to me on their special blanket, and my husband goes to bed fairly early, as he has a long commute. I might stay up a little later, but more often than not, I'll go to bed shortly after he does and read for a while.
In warmer months, we might combine grocery shopping and laundry into one day, then use Sundays to go to Goodwill and drop off donations and buy books, go to Target or Lowes (for plants, etc.), and eat a late lunch at the Mexican restaurant.
In summer, we might take a drive to the western mountains and go tourmaline picking, or visit some nature preserve/state park, or a farm with a store, or go blueberry picking, depending on the month. Mostly we stick around here, because living on a lake means summer is the best time to stay at home, but if there are a lot of summer people around, we'll sometimes take a drive just to get away and do something different. This year, he's got the whole week of 4th of July off, so we're going to do some staycation stuff, a few outings, and lots of sitting in chairs outside looking at the water. There will be grilling, and fresh tomatoes from the farm stand down the road, hummingbirds at the feeder, and chipmunks running around everywhere. Cheeky little buggers, they have no fear.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:58 AM on March 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
If I feel like it, I'll make breakfast, bacon and eggs with toast, but mostly we grab our own. Today I'm making biscuits and gravy, because it has come to my attention that my husband has never had biscuits and sausage gravy, which is a crying shame, and I usually have one cheat day a week (all other days are oatmeal or a fruit smoothie).
Then we head upta town, do our laundry, and come back home. Sometimes I'll make a fancy meal, other times we'll get takeout, usually some type of sub, and I'll eat half and save the other half for lunch the next day. My husband always eats a whole large sub and then complains that he shouldn't have done that.
We find a movie or show we've been binging, the cats curl up next to me on their special blanket, and my husband goes to bed fairly early, as he has a long commute. I might stay up a little later, but more often than not, I'll go to bed shortly after he does and read for a while.
In warmer months, we might combine grocery shopping and laundry into one day, then use Sundays to go to Goodwill and drop off donations and buy books, go to Target or Lowes (for plants, etc.), and eat a late lunch at the Mexican restaurant.
In summer, we might take a drive to the western mountains and go tourmaline picking, or visit some nature preserve/state park, or a farm with a store, or go blueberry picking, depending on the month. Mostly we stick around here, because living on a lake means summer is the best time to stay at home, but if there are a lot of summer people around, we'll sometimes take a drive just to get away and do something different. This year, he's got the whole week of 4th of July off, so we're going to do some staycation stuff, a few outings, and lots of sitting in chairs outside looking at the water. There will be grilling, and fresh tomatoes from the farm stand down the road, hummingbirds at the feeder, and chipmunks running around everywhere. Cheeky little buggers, they have no fear.
posted by Marie Mon Dieu at 3:58 AM on March 3, 2019 [5 favorites]
I've worked on Sundays for the last ten or so years (I'm at work now, cough). I actually love it - a lot of people make visiting the bookshop part of their Sunday routine, and generally customers are in relaxed and happy moods. Reading all the things that Mefites do with their time makes me feel a bit wistful for the things that Mr Boa and I could be doing together, but in fact I think we both benefit from having our alone time - I love having my Fridays off.
posted by featherboa at 6:17 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by featherboa at 6:17 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Now that it is Sunday, I'm feeling pretty lazy. I slept in until 8:30; cleaned the accumulated pile of dishes in the sink; had some egg whites with spinach and salsa. Wife was up until 3am on an international conference call for work so I doubt that I'll see her for a few hours. I have a roll of B&W film that I shot yesterday to test out the 1960s Pentax Spotmatic that my father-in-law gave me for Christmas so I'll be heading down into the basement to develop that in a few minutes. That Pentax has been all over the world while my father-in-law was in the Airforce during the sixties and seventies so I'm happy to keep it in use for a few more years.
I'll try to get over to the Y to swim some laps before the big snow hits us this afternoon. I'm getting so tired of winter by this time.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 AM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'll try to get over to the Y to swim some laps before the big snow hits us this afternoon. I'm getting so tired of winter by this time.
posted by octothorpe at 6:32 AM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Sundays, she has visitation with her dad, an hour and some change down the road, so I get up with the dog and let her sleep in as much as I can and start the coffee. She eventually gets up, muttering, and I try to get some coffee and yogurt in her and get her in the shower. I'll pack her up with Monster and string cheese while she's in the shower, because she's going to get hungry halfway down the highway to the prison.
Once she gets moving and down the road (I don't get to go to visitation anymore, her stepmother threw an unnecessary hissy fit a year and a half ago and her dad took me off the visitation list to keep the peace), sometimes I go up to campus and do some work, sometimes I go hiking or to the rec depending on the weather, I usually go to the grocery store unless I'm punting and using Shipt that week (which is more likely in the coming months, March and April are going to be soooooooo busy). I meal plan for the week if I haven't already. I've been trying to get better at meal prepping on Sundays lately, with moderate successful, but I'm going to have to get better (see also, March and April are going to suck).
She'll get home between 230 and 3, depending on traffic and if the guards were on duty that sometimes let her grab a little more time. We might get a nap, we might fold clothes, I might do some work. Football season we'll watch the game of the week. Lots of Sundays, my favorite cousin comes over for supper. Sunday evenings, I usually try to make something a little nicer than normal for Sunday supper. We'll eat the foods and fuck around on Youtube and visit.
This is getting ready to change - her dad isn't do well at all, fuck cancer. This year, a lot of things are going to change, though (favorite cousin is getting ready to move to the DR to be with his wife, hopefully our roommate moves out this spring, etc.) But that's how it is for now.
posted by joycehealy at 6:37 AM on March 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Once she gets moving and down the road (I don't get to go to visitation anymore, her stepmother threw an unnecessary hissy fit a year and a half ago and her dad took me off the visitation list to keep the peace), sometimes I go up to campus and do some work, sometimes I go hiking or to the rec depending on the weather, I usually go to the grocery store unless I'm punting and using Shipt that week (which is more likely in the coming months, March and April are going to be soooooooo busy). I meal plan for the week if I haven't already. I've been trying to get better at meal prepping on Sundays lately, with moderate successful, but I'm going to have to get better (see also, March and April are going to suck).
She'll get home between 230 and 3, depending on traffic and if the guards were on duty that sometimes let her grab a little more time. We might get a nap, we might fold clothes, I might do some work. Football season we'll watch the game of the week. Lots of Sundays, my favorite cousin comes over for supper. Sunday evenings, I usually try to make something a little nicer than normal for Sunday supper. We'll eat the foods and fuck around on Youtube and visit.
This is getting ready to change - her dad isn't do well at all, fuck cancer. This year, a lot of things are going to change, though (favorite cousin is getting ready to move to the DR to be with his wife, hopefully our roommate moves out this spring, etc.) But that's how it is for now.
posted by joycehealy at 6:37 AM on March 3, 2019 [7 favorites]
Officially, Sunday is my day to get up with our kid. In practice, now that the kid is old enough to more or less take care of himself on weekend mornings, we can both sleep in. I'm not a great sleeper-inner though (and yet I am also not a morning person--the struggle is real) so I often get up around 8. I have my morning chai and make poteggos (scrambled egg and potato hash, the house breakfast specialty). We get the Sunday NYT delivered because I desperately want to be the kind of person that spends a leisurely Sunday morning reading the paper, but I really need to cancel it because I just don't. My kid usually ropes me into some wacky activity once I'm done breakfast. (This morning we programmed simulations of logic gates with Scratch because we really know how to party.) I let the chickens out of the coop and get dressed at some point.
Often but not always my husband will invite one of his musician friends over to play music Sunday afternoons for a couple hours. I usually try to take this opportunity to take the kid to the indoor bike park or similar activity.
Sunday is laundry day, but my husband handles that and it keeps him kind of tethered to the house. I think he likes it that way, though.
Sunday night is (homemade) pizza night, and we usually do Science Sunday or Science Fiction Sunday where we eat pizza and watch a documentary or sci fi show together.
I'm about to leave on a work trip, though, so I'll be missing out on the rest of the Sunday goodness this week. Sounds like we're going to get a big snow right after I'm wheels-up, and I can't say I'm upset to be missing it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:56 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Often but not always my husband will invite one of his musician friends over to play music Sunday afternoons for a couple hours. I usually try to take this opportunity to take the kid to the indoor bike park or similar activity.
Sunday is laundry day, but my husband handles that and it keeps him kind of tethered to the house. I think he likes it that way, though.
Sunday night is (homemade) pizza night, and we usually do Science Sunday or Science Fiction Sunday where we eat pizza and watch a documentary or sci fi show together.
I'm about to leave on a work trip, though, so I'll be missing out on the rest of the Sunday goodness this week. Sounds like we're going to get a big snow right after I'm wheels-up, and I can't say I'm upset to be missing it.
posted by soren_lorensen at 6:56 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
This morning, husband is making challah French toast. That is all I care about today. Perhaps there will be laundry done around 2 PM or so.
posted by Sophie1 at 8:47 AM on March 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
posted by Sophie1 at 8:47 AM on March 3, 2019 [8 favorites]
Sunday is my one guaranteed day off each week. Alarm at 7ish, lounge in bed for a while, bicker about who's going to get up first to make the coffee (it's usually her, because she's better than I am). Gym's not til 8:30, but between coffee and morning stuff (feeding and bathrooming of humans and dogs, maybe throwing in a load of laundry) we inevitably wind up going, "SHIT it's 8:10 we're gonna be late!" Rush to gym, lift heavy things for 45 minutes, go for breakfast to the greasy diner down the block from the gym. Linger over egg sandwich and coffee, but eventually go home, embark on a house project and/or chores, maybe take a nap, maybe head to roller derby practice in the afternoon. We'll often have dinner with a friend on Sunday evenings so I'm either cooking or picking up beers when I'm done with derby. Home by 9 or 9:30, bedtime, up by 5:30 the next morning.
posted by coppermoss at 8:49 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
posted by coppermoss at 8:49 AM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
I've got my son 50% of my week, including every weekend until Sunday at noon. We start the day with breakfast and an episode or two of something (lately it's been My Name is Earl, Malcolm in the Middle and Regular Show). Play some LEGOs or UNO or spend some time reading together before church.
Post-lunch, I get to do whatever I want. Usually some online time, a long walk around the neighborhood, planning meals for the week, laundry, whatever. Today I'm cleaning out the basement before tennis and dinner with a friend.
Sunday night always feels like dread (I do really like my job and all but I love not working much more than working) so it's nice to have a good chunk of Sunday to do what I'd like.
posted by Twicketface at 11:22 AM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Post-lunch, I get to do whatever I want. Usually some online time, a long walk around the neighborhood, planning meals for the week, laundry, whatever. Today I'm cleaning out the basement before tennis and dinner with a friend.
Sunday night always feels like dread (I do really like my job and all but I love not working much more than working) so it's nice to have a good chunk of Sunday to do what I'd like.
posted by Twicketface at 11:22 AM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
My enfeebled status has been lifted by the passage of time and fluids, so I have been amusing myself by annoying the cats with treat hiding. They’ve had to fish their kittycrack (I.e. Dreamies) out of egg boxes, toilet rolls that have had the edges squashed in a bit or hidden inside a ball made of toilet roll slices.
I am about to cement my status of history’s greatest monster by double-sided sticky taping the sofa to encourage them to use the scratching post or pads.
posted by halcyonday at 11:23 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
I am about to cement my status of history’s greatest monster by double-sided sticky taping the sofa to encourage them to use the scratching post or pads.
posted by halcyonday at 11:23 AM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
The only way I have ever wanted to mess with time was this morning, and the wish dealt with the short duration consuming and enjoying, a banana Moon Pie. Otherwise I have been examining and trying to resore function to an antique Conklin gold fountain pen, I got fer nearly nothin' yesterday. My thirty year old jar of midnight blue ink went gray, so I picked up ink cartriges yesterday and made a mess, but again have my favorite ink color. I bought my first fountain pen in 1957 when I was seven. I saved up $7.50 for a beetle green Parker. My dad was with me when I bought it. He didn't say a thing as I went through the entire process of stating what I wanted, he took me to the store, I negotiated, picked it out and bought it. I still remember the squirting sound when you cleared the old ink, and then sucked the new into the pen. Anyway, all my days are the same. Except my neighbors are around on the weekends.
posted by Oyéah at 12:21 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
posted by Oyéah at 12:21 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
I'm another person who works on Sunday. My regular workweek is Sunday-Thursday in the gardens followed by a 9-3 day in the office of the non-profit that funds the work in the gardens. Saturday is layers of taking the kid to ballet, groceries, laundry, playgrounds, the library, and trying to sit down quietly for a minute.
I miss being able to read in bed.
posted by sciencegeek at 12:36 PM on March 3, 2019
I miss being able to read in bed.
posted by sciencegeek at 12:36 PM on March 3, 2019
I didn’t think I had a Sunday routine but then I just looked at myself dancing around the kitchen to the Jackson 5 with 3 or 4 random projects going at once (none of which are the clean all the things project that is supposed to be the Sunday routine) and thought, aha, maybe I do have one! Later I will take the dogs to the beach or a beach adjacent area, do the weekly grocery shop and, sigh, the laundromat. Until then I’m making a weird light box thing for cyanotype exposure, sorting & organizing framed art & pictures into labeled bins in preparation for getting them into the attic, clearing old photos off the desktop and into Dropbox, and fiddling around with a little sculpture thing that’s slowly coming together. Good Sunday hurrah.
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:12 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by mygothlaundry at 1:12 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
My dog says, "There is no sleeping late in this house!" However, I do allow myself to skip the usually 5:30 am walk in the frozen darkness and instead just let him out into the yard.
Then I cook a Big Ass Breakfast and freeze whatever parts of it are amenable to freezing, for use during the week. Today it was waffles (freezable!) with sautéed apples in caramel sauce (probably freezable but we'll never know), baked bacon from the 1/4 heritage hog I bought in the fall (freezable and FUCKING DELICIOUS), fried egg and coffee.
Then usually I go to church (UUs), and afterward meet a friend for an off-leash hike with our dogs, but I just had surgery for uterine polyps and endometriosis and she just had a double mastectomy so none of that happened today.
Then I do whatever it is I do that always results in my asking myself "Where did the day go?" Usually it involves you all.
posted by HotToddy at 2:15 PM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
Then I cook a Big Ass Breakfast and freeze whatever parts of it are amenable to freezing, for use during the week. Today it was waffles (freezable!) with sautéed apples in caramel sauce (probably freezable but we'll never know), baked bacon from the 1/4 heritage hog I bought in the fall (freezable and FUCKING DELICIOUS), fried egg and coffee.
Then usually I go to church (UUs), and afterward meet a friend for an off-leash hike with our dogs, but I just had surgery for uterine polyps and endometriosis and she just had a double mastectomy so none of that happened today.
Then I do whatever it is I do that always results in my asking myself "Where did the day go?" Usually it involves you all.
posted by HotToddy at 2:15 PM on March 3, 2019 [4 favorites]
I don't have a routine on the weekend as such. A few "only on the weekends" things have come and gone over the years, and I don't fuss about it when they leave.
Right now, the only weekend-only things are:
* Saturdays, when my CSA is in season, I get up early-ish and try to be one of the first ones there. They have a fairly narrow window for distribution, and I find that if I get there early then I not only get the pick of the produce, but I also beat the crowds. ....Also I usually have made it back home in time for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on the radio.
* On weekdays, when I make coffee it's just regular coffee; but on weekends, it's cafe au lait.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:20 PM on March 3, 2019
Right now, the only weekend-only things are:
* Saturdays, when my CSA is in season, I get up early-ish and try to be one of the first ones there. They have a fairly narrow window for distribution, and I find that if I get there early then I not only get the pick of the produce, but I also beat the crowds. ....Also I usually have made it back home in time for Wait Wait Don't Tell Me on the radio.
* On weekdays, when I make coffee it's just regular coffee; but on weekends, it's cafe au lait.
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 2:20 PM on March 3, 2019
with sautéed apples in caramel sauce
HotToddy you have my attention..... I have three apples that need using. Care to share the recipe?
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 2:52 PM on March 3, 2019
HotToddy you have my attention..... I have three apples that need using. Care to share the recipe?
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 2:52 PM on March 3, 2019
It's not really a recipe! You just saute the apples in plenty of butter, then when they're soft and a little browned, push them to one side and add some brown sugar and cook until it's thick and bubbling. Then add some heavy cream and let it thicken again. You can add other things at this point--bourbon, vanilla, cinnamon, etc. The amounts and timing are totally flexible, it will work no matter what you do, pretty much. So just taste as you go along. It's also delicious done with bananas or peaches.
posted by HotToddy at 3:45 PM on March 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
posted by HotToddy at 3:45 PM on March 3, 2019 [11 favorites]
Also a tiny pinch of salt.
posted by HotToddy at 4:43 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
posted by HotToddy at 4:43 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Awesome! Yum. Thanks so much!
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 4:43 PM on March 3, 2019
posted by Gyre,Gimble,Wabe, Esq. at 4:43 PM on March 3, 2019
I think of our routine more in terms of the entire weekend rather than just Sunday so I'll just give you the whole thing.
There are lots of things that change from weekend to weekend but also some constants.
We wake up as late as possible, which is usually not that late because of our toddler son. But often he will accept a bottle of milk at 5:30 or 6 and go back to sleep so we snooze with him in our bed.
Saturday mornings I think of as our errand morning. The post office, the bank, UPS etc are open. It also used to be our time to get and return library books but our local branch is being renovated and the interim branch is not open on Saturdays. So that now has to be something we squeeze into the weekdays.
Depending on the exact errands we need to run I may or may not cook a special breakfast - pancakes or a complicated omelet or something.
Around this time I'd have finalized my meal plan and grocery list for the week and my husband will go to get groceries while I look after toddler son.
After he's back we'll usually do something fun. We find that one fun activity per weekend day is necessary to get us out of the house and allow the toddler to work off some energy. This might be a playdate, the children's museum, brunch with a friend, aquarium, visit to Mt Auburn cemetery etc etc. Some social thing is necessary to keep us all sane. Somewhere in there we eat lunch too.
Then it's back home. We loll about, playing with or reading to the kid. We also read our own books. I cook a fair bit, trying to get ahead of the week. Dinner is always between 6:30 and 7. Baby is put to bed at 8 and is usually asleep by 8:10. My husband does all parts of the bedtime routine, except I always give him his last bottle.
Then it's adult time - we read together or watch something, drink tea and usually eat a final snack. Sometimes I'll have a cocktail. Most nights we do 15 minutes of strength training using a Fitness Blender video. We usually head to bed around 10.
Sundays are much the same except we do fewer chores and more fun stuff. Again at least one proper fun activity that gets us out of the house.
I quite enjoy our weekends. Despite the presence of a demanding 18 month old, I usually do feel rejuvenated when I head back to work on Monday.
posted by peacheater at 6:06 PM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
There are lots of things that change from weekend to weekend but also some constants.
We wake up as late as possible, which is usually not that late because of our toddler son. But often he will accept a bottle of milk at 5:30 or 6 and go back to sleep so we snooze with him in our bed.
Saturday mornings I think of as our errand morning. The post office, the bank, UPS etc are open. It also used to be our time to get and return library books but our local branch is being renovated and the interim branch is not open on Saturdays. So that now has to be something we squeeze into the weekdays.
Depending on the exact errands we need to run I may or may not cook a special breakfast - pancakes or a complicated omelet or something.
Around this time I'd have finalized my meal plan and grocery list for the week and my husband will go to get groceries while I look after toddler son.
After he's back we'll usually do something fun. We find that one fun activity per weekend day is necessary to get us out of the house and allow the toddler to work off some energy. This might be a playdate, the children's museum, brunch with a friend, aquarium, visit to Mt Auburn cemetery etc etc. Some social thing is necessary to keep us all sane. Somewhere in there we eat lunch too.
Then it's back home. We loll about, playing with or reading to the kid. We also read our own books. I cook a fair bit, trying to get ahead of the week. Dinner is always between 6:30 and 7. Baby is put to bed at 8 and is usually asleep by 8:10. My husband does all parts of the bedtime routine, except I always give him his last bottle.
Then it's adult time - we read together or watch something, drink tea and usually eat a final snack. Sometimes I'll have a cocktail. Most nights we do 15 minutes of strength training using a Fitness Blender video. We usually head to bed around 10.
Sundays are much the same except we do fewer chores and more fun stuff. Again at least one proper fun activity that gets us out of the house.
I quite enjoy our weekends. Despite the presence of a demanding 18 month old, I usually do feel rejuvenated when I head back to work on Monday.
posted by peacheater at 6:06 PM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
There is nothing relaxing about this Sunday. Our son was taken down by norovirus on Friday Night, which meant Saturday started at 2:30 AM for me... also note that this meant he missed his pinewood derby AND his first vision appointment. This rolled into 'lazy Sunday' which consisted of our daughter throwing up on my wife's side of the bed at 12:30AM on Sunday morning and our lives being a hell on earth of vomit and poop from the beginning to the end.
So all Sunday, I've slaved getting an inordinate amount of laundry through the machine... knowing full well we're eminently about to get inundated with snow and could lose power - ignoring the more obvious choice of my wife and I expect that at least one of us will be puking by morning. There is an hour until I can get the last load into the dryer and into a state I'd like to consider 'I don't have to think about this until AFTER I finish puking.' C'mon immune system - just last 50 more minutes.
Oh, and I have a frickin conference to attend tomorrow - or more than likely call into, the kid's school has already been canceled, and... eh - a partridge in a pair tree.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:27 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
So all Sunday, I've slaved getting an inordinate amount of laundry through the machine... knowing full well we're eminently about to get inundated with snow and could lose power - ignoring the more obvious choice of my wife and I expect that at least one of us will be puking by morning. There is an hour until I can get the last load into the dryer and into a state I'd like to consider 'I don't have to think about this until AFTER I finish puking.' C'mon immune system - just last 50 more minutes.
Oh, and I have a frickin conference to attend tomorrow - or more than likely call into, the kid's school has already been canceled, and... eh - a partridge in a pair tree.
posted by Nanukthedog at 6:27 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Returning briefly to the thread to survey the crime scene. Kids, don't drink and filk! (I am quite proud of "half 'fore five" though). Slightly annoyed with myself that I'm not comfortable going into specifics, but I had a really comfy back end to this week, Thursday at work was incredibly rewarding and similarly Saturday spent with scarce-seen friends. Sunday was smoother than I expected.
Just because everything is terrible forever doesn't mean everything is terrible forever.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:07 PM on March 3, 2019
Just because everything is terrible forever doesn't mean everything is terrible forever.
posted by I'm always feeling, Blue at 7:07 PM on March 3, 2019
About once a month, I take my nearly 10-year old son into Manhattan for the NY YoYo Club meetup. He yoyos and chats with the other yoyo-ers, and I read and web surf. Other Sundays, I might take him to the park while my spouse does some housework or naps, or all three of us play board games.
Sunday evening, we order delivery, watch some family TV (sometimes a movie, or Doctor Who or other SF; tonight was Great British Baking Show). After dinner, we have the weekly phone call with my parents.
Now that he's in bed, we are going to catch up on some Bob's Burgers.
posted by fings at 7:55 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Sunday evening, we order delivery, watch some family TV (sometimes a movie, or Doctor Who or other SF; tonight was Great British Baking Show). After dinner, we have the weekly phone call with my parents.
Now that he's in bed, we are going to catch up on some Bob's Burgers.
posted by fings at 7:55 PM on March 3, 2019 [1 favorite]
Snuggletime in bed with kids.
Small 1st breakfast, skype date with grandparents.
Leisurely stroll to neighborhood café, 2nd breakfast and chat with regulars. At this point my family is encouraged to leave me behind with a cup of coffee and some reading (the heavy stuff I can’t focus on with kids around). Grocery shopping on the way home and cooking lunch.
Afternoon is spent hanging out with friends or making music (classical piano in front, blues guitar in the back of the house, the kids kind of vacillate in between). Coffee/teatime with homemade cake. Homework and violin practice for big kid. Today the homework was to do an interview about mom’s favorite protest song, so an extra dose of music (have I mentioned I love the school? ‘’The times they are a-changing’ is a great song because it is true and it has harmonica.’).
Dinner and bedtime. Days with little kids are kind of short but feel long enough.
posted by The Toad at 9:10 PM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Small 1st breakfast, skype date with grandparents.
Leisurely stroll to neighborhood café, 2nd breakfast and chat with regulars. At this point my family is encouraged to leave me behind with a cup of coffee and some reading (the heavy stuff I can’t focus on with kids around). Grocery shopping on the way home and cooking lunch.
Afternoon is spent hanging out with friends or making music (classical piano in front, blues guitar in the back of the house, the kids kind of vacillate in between). Coffee/teatime with homemade cake. Homework and violin practice for big kid. Today the homework was to do an interview about mom’s favorite protest song, so an extra dose of music (have I mentioned I love the school? ‘’The times they are a-changing’ is a great song because it is true and it has harmonica.’).
Dinner and bedtime. Days with little kids are kind of short but feel long enough.
posted by The Toad at 9:10 PM on March 3, 2019 [2 favorites]
Awaken grudgingly around 8:30. Reconcile myself to consciousness over the course of a ten minute shower while the kettle works itself into a whistle. Dry and dress, letting the French press sit a little too long. Vitamins and coffee with cream. I wear nearly the same thing every day, and have been putting off getting a pair of shoes that aren't black leather sneakers for a year; they're not very nice for church, but they are perfect for hospitality afterwards. Comfort and removing unnecessary choices wins.
Phone, bus pass holder, keys, lipgloss, choir robe, book. On Sundays, the bus is faster, giving me 35-40 minutes each way to read. Usually something for class, or else something I couldn't leave on the school library shelf. Having a library within a few minutes' walk is pure happiness.
Arrive at church a few minutes late for the technical start of choir rehearsal, but usually before the actual start, because it takes a solid fifteen minutes before everyone settles themselves down. Taking no credit for it, but we have one of the better small church choirs in the city, and a majority of even the volunteer singers are professionals. That, and an indulgent and utterly beloved director who is sometimes the worst culprit, means that the atmosphere is usually pleasantly rowdy. Warm up and run hymns, anthems, solos if there are any, then we robe up and head upstairs for the final anthem run. This often goes laughably badly, at which point our director gives us over to God.
Church. I make a lap around the perimeter during the passing of the peace so that I can hold the hands of the people in the back and say something nice. It is painful to hear, from people elsewhere, that they hate that part of the service. I love few things better.
To our continual and undiminished surprise, the anthem always comes together. The sermon is usually good, usually aiming at something better, but, although it is radical enough to keep us a small church, it's never radical enough for me. But I appreciate the effort, and so do others. Today, almost certainly because of the Methodist vote, we had over 20 visitors; on a normal Sunday we might see 2. A horrible reason for what would otherwise be a lovely thing to see, but I'm grateful they felt welcome enough to visit us. The volunteer churchwardens hung our Pride banners across the streetfront last week and so you can spot us easily from a block or so away. Our reputation precedes us as far as locals go, but just in case.
After church, choir rehearsal or, on hospitality days, rushing downstairs to help serve lunch. Sometimes both. If I'm cooking, I'll often bring a full backpack or a crockpot in a plastic tub with me on the bus. Lent is secretly one of my favorite times of the church year because Lenten lunches are soup, and soup, being an adaptable and forgiving food, is where I excel.
If there is no lunch at church, and if there is no protest (for, as AnhydrousLove says, there is often a protest) my honorary uncles usually take me out to lunch. If there is a protest, I walk over (if downtown) or take the bus up to Oakland. I keep most of my signs at church, anyway, and bring in supplies as needed.
Whatever the activity, by the time I get home I am entirely ready for a nap. Fridays are inevitably late nights at work and Saturdays tend to involve volunteering so I take it easier on Sundays when I can. If I haven't had lunch at someone else's prompting, I rarely will eat before dinner. If I need to get cleaning done, I get motivated with youtube Clean With Me videos (bizarrely effective). Otherwise, I read or play a game until time to sleep.
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:36 PM on March 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
Phone, bus pass holder, keys, lipgloss, choir robe, book. On Sundays, the bus is faster, giving me 35-40 minutes each way to read. Usually something for class, or else something I couldn't leave on the school library shelf. Having a library within a few minutes' walk is pure happiness.
Arrive at church a few minutes late for the technical start of choir rehearsal, but usually before the actual start, because it takes a solid fifteen minutes before everyone settles themselves down. Taking no credit for it, but we have one of the better small church choirs in the city, and a majority of even the volunteer singers are professionals. That, and an indulgent and utterly beloved director who is sometimes the worst culprit, means that the atmosphere is usually pleasantly rowdy. Warm up and run hymns, anthems, solos if there are any, then we robe up and head upstairs for the final anthem run. This often goes laughably badly, at which point our director gives us over to God.
Church. I make a lap around the perimeter during the passing of the peace so that I can hold the hands of the people in the back and say something nice. It is painful to hear, from people elsewhere, that they hate that part of the service. I love few things better.
To our continual and undiminished surprise, the anthem always comes together. The sermon is usually good, usually aiming at something better, but, although it is radical enough to keep us a small church, it's never radical enough for me. But I appreciate the effort, and so do others. Today, almost certainly because of the Methodist vote, we had over 20 visitors; on a normal Sunday we might see 2. A horrible reason for what would otherwise be a lovely thing to see, but I'm grateful they felt welcome enough to visit us. The volunteer churchwardens hung our Pride banners across the streetfront last week and so you can spot us easily from a block or so away. Our reputation precedes us as far as locals go, but just in case.
After church, choir rehearsal or, on hospitality days, rushing downstairs to help serve lunch. Sometimes both. If I'm cooking, I'll often bring a full backpack or a crockpot in a plastic tub with me on the bus. Lent is secretly one of my favorite times of the church year because Lenten lunches are soup, and soup, being an adaptable and forgiving food, is where I excel.
If there is no lunch at church, and if there is no protest (for, as AnhydrousLove says, there is often a protest) my honorary uncles usually take me out to lunch. If there is a protest, I walk over (if downtown) or take the bus up to Oakland. I keep most of my signs at church, anyway, and bring in supplies as needed.
Whatever the activity, by the time I get home I am entirely ready for a nap. Fridays are inevitably late nights at work and Saturdays tend to involve volunteering so I take it easier on Sundays when I can. If I haven't had lunch at someone else's prompting, I rarely will eat before dinner. If I need to get cleaning done, I get motivated with youtube Clean With Me videos (bizarrely effective). Otherwise, I read or play a game until time to sleep.
posted by notquitemaryann at 9:36 PM on March 3, 2019 [6 favorites]
Today was pretty lazy. I was supposed to climb today, but my climbing partner has a migraine, so I took the dog running in the redwoods, which was lovely but muddy and slow. Then I futzed around the house, read up some more on the Iditarod, listened to Hard Core History, made a batch of Smitten Kitchen cookies, and invited a friend over for dinner. Possibly drank a bit too much wine while watching 4 episodes of Russian Doll.
All in all, a pretty good Sunday. I'm finishing up by checking the Iditarod standings.
posted by suelac at 9:50 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
All in all, a pretty good Sunday. I'm finishing up by checking the Iditarod standings.
posted by suelac at 9:50 PM on March 3, 2019 [3 favorites]
Sunday begins the night before, when I, bleary eyed, double check my roster for the morning service. If my husband is on sound we wake together, and go for an 8:30 start (mercifully later than the 8 o'clock start when we (we being the church) were nomadic and had to set up chairs in a school gym). If I'm not rostered for something I like to go to the before service prayer meeting for the whole time, or I slip out at about 9 if I am on welcoming. If my husband is not on sound (a rare occurrence) and neither am I rostered, we go late, sliding in just a little before 10. If I am rostered, I often watch my husband arrive just the other side of 'on time', after a deliciously long sleep in.
Church is a heartbeat to my existence, a regular happening. I feel strangely hollow if I miss it.
After church we often gather for lunch as the 'young people' - a restaurant, a picnic in the park, byo takeaway to someone's (ours, usually) living room. I enjoy this. It's good gathering with people.
Afternoons are for naps. I try and get all my school work done on Saturday, so Sundays are for resting, being present, and enjoying.
posted by freethefeet at 4:21 AM on March 4, 2019 [5 favorites]
Church is a heartbeat to my existence, a regular happening. I feel strangely hollow if I miss it.
After church we often gather for lunch as the 'young people' - a restaurant, a picnic in the park, byo takeaway to someone's (ours, usually) living room. I enjoy this. It's good gathering with people.
Afternoons are for naps. I try and get all my school work done on Saturday, so Sundays are for resting, being present, and enjoying.
posted by freethefeet at 4:21 AM on March 4, 2019 [5 favorites]
No laundry was done, but I pulled a lot of weeds. So, all in all, a great Sunday.
posted by Sophie1 at 6:54 AM on March 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
posted by Sophie1 at 6:54 AM on March 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
Sundays are when I usually do some type of fancy cooking project, like last week I made blueberry muffins and dulce de leche brownies. Then I usually make a slightly more complicated dinner than I usually can handle making on weeknights -- the last couple of Sunday suppers were meatloaf with fresh asparagus and buttered noodles, lasagna, corned beef and cabbage, and next week I think I want to try jerk chicken.
Anyway, yesterday's deviated slightly, because we had brunch with the in-laws, then instead of cooking fancy treats, I went to the annual Jewish Food Festival and bought fancy sweets instead. This year's haul included strudel, two kinds of hamantaschen, rugelach, a babka, some black and whites, mandelbrot, and macaroons. So many fancy tasty things! I almost also bought a honey cake, but I'd run out of cash by that point.
Afterward, I popped over to the park for a quick Pokemon Go raid and chatted with some of the local players for a bit, which is always fun. I then grabbed a couple of things from the grocery store, and came home to make soda bread (SO TASTY) to eat with the corned beef and cabbage. Then after dinner, we were under a tornado watch with severe thunderstorms, so we settled in to watch Murder on the Orient Express while feasting on the plethora of snacks from the festival.
It was a nice day. I should make more soda bread, since I've about eaten all of the first batch.
posted by PearlRose at 8:18 AM on March 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
Anyway, yesterday's deviated slightly, because we had brunch with the in-laws, then instead of cooking fancy treats, I went to the annual Jewish Food Festival and bought fancy sweets instead. This year's haul included strudel, two kinds of hamantaschen, rugelach, a babka, some black and whites, mandelbrot, and macaroons. So many fancy tasty things! I almost also bought a honey cake, but I'd run out of cash by that point.
Afterward, I popped over to the park for a quick Pokemon Go raid and chatted with some of the local players for a bit, which is always fun. I then grabbed a couple of things from the grocery store, and came home to make soda bread (SO TASTY) to eat with the corned beef and cabbage. Then after dinner, we were under a tornado watch with severe thunderstorms, so we settled in to watch Murder on the Orient Express while feasting on the plethora of snacks from the festival.
It was a nice day. I should make more soda bread, since I've about eaten all of the first batch.
posted by PearlRose at 8:18 AM on March 4, 2019 [4 favorites]
Yesterday was a pretty typical Sunday:
"Slept in" till 7:30 AM, when the squawking of Wee Milkman-Paperboy woke us up.
7:30 - 9:30: British style tea with milk and sugar for me, aeropress coffee for Mr. Milkman-Paperboy, sippy cup of milk for the kid. Husband made pancakes, which was exciting for everyone. Kiddo acted like the pancakes were made of poison for reasons neither of us could figure out, since he loves all kinds of unusual flavors and Saturday night's dinner was bok choi and salmon in hoisin-ginger sauce, which went down easy.
9:30 - 12:30: Kiddo napped. We watched Saturday Night Live. I worked on the tech effects for a comedy show. Husband edited a podcast.
12:30: Kid woke up from nap. I did lunchtime, then took him to the park to run off some of the energy which would otherwise be put into destroying our small 2 bedroom apartment. Husband went to a seminar on writing for Pro Wrestling. Which is... a thing?
3:30: Got home from the park, far more exhausted than my toddler was. Put on an amount of Sesame Street that, if you follow American Pediatric Society guidelines, is the equivalent of handing the kid a pack of cigarettes.
5:30: Husband returned from seminar. I showered and gathered props, costumes, and thumb drive of technical effects and went out to my comedy show. Husband did dinner/bathtime/bedtime, freeing me up to go be an adult for the evening.
6:30: show technical rehearsal. HUGE PROBLEM with one of the video bits we wanted to play. I FIXED IT and felt like a bit of a hero in this group of theatre people who will often do things like touch screen a 27" iMac.
8:00: Show time! My friend F's sketch about immigration got a literal standing ovation, which... isn't a thing in comedy? Hell yeah.
9:30: Stuck around to watch another show, because it's the nice thing to do.
11:00: home and supposed to be in bed, but was still too wired from the show to feel sleepy. Watched Last Week Tonight and played games on my phone instead. Finally went to bed around 12:30. It was a good day.
posted by the milkman, the paper boy at 1:24 PM on March 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
"Slept in" till 7:30 AM, when the squawking of Wee Milkman-Paperboy woke us up.
7:30 - 9:30: British style tea with milk and sugar for me, aeropress coffee for Mr. Milkman-Paperboy, sippy cup of milk for the kid. Husband made pancakes, which was exciting for everyone. Kiddo acted like the pancakes were made of poison for reasons neither of us could figure out, since he loves all kinds of unusual flavors and Saturday night's dinner was bok choi and salmon in hoisin-ginger sauce, which went down easy.
9:30 - 12:30: Kiddo napped. We watched Saturday Night Live. I worked on the tech effects for a comedy show. Husband edited a podcast.
12:30: Kid woke up from nap. I did lunchtime, then took him to the park to run off some of the energy which would otherwise be put into destroying our small 2 bedroom apartment. Husband went to a seminar on writing for Pro Wrestling. Which is... a thing?
3:30: Got home from the park, far more exhausted than my toddler was. Put on an amount of Sesame Street that, if you follow American Pediatric Society guidelines, is the equivalent of handing the kid a pack of cigarettes.
5:30: Husband returned from seminar. I showered and gathered props, costumes, and thumb drive of technical effects and went out to my comedy show. Husband did dinner/bathtime/bedtime, freeing me up to go be an adult for the evening.
6:30: show technical rehearsal. HUGE PROBLEM with one of the video bits we wanted to play. I FIXED IT and felt like a bit of a hero in this group of theatre people who will often do things like touch screen a 27" iMac.
8:00: Show time! My friend F's sketch about immigration got a literal standing ovation, which... isn't a thing in comedy? Hell yeah.
9:30: Stuck around to watch another show, because it's the nice thing to do.
11:00: home and supposed to be in bed, but was still too wired from the show to feel sleepy. Watched Last Week Tonight and played games on my phone instead. Finally went to bed around 12:30. It was a good day.
posted by the milkman, the paper boy at 1:24 PM on March 4, 2019 [3 favorites]
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The boys get home around 4, at which point I take a shower, make dinner, and when my husband gets home around 6 I head out for an evening fun class and don't come home until 2/3 of my children are in bed. I pass a Culver's on the way to and from my class so sometimes I get myself cheese curds (my fast-food weakness!) and don't have to share them with anybody.
Three-day weekends where the boys are off school on Monday really screw up my whole week! Tuesdays are just not nearly as satisfactory a day off, I have toddler activities that day and I absolutely have to grocery shop by Tuesday, and the rest of the week is lousy with appointments and extracurriculars and stuff, so I get very grumpy when I miss my Monday!
Sundays are our family day off; my husband makes the kids pancakes for breakfast and I sleep in a bit, then we go to forest preserves or parks or the Botanic Garden or museums, ride bikes (when it's not fucking freezing for months on end), visit friends and family, and then most weeks I make "feast," sometimes very elaborate theme feasts, sometimes just simple roast chicken or pork tenderloin with sides. On the last Sunday of the month all the local McGees get together at one of our houses and eat something simple (pizza or burgers on the grill or a big pot of a family-recipe stew) and the kids have cousin fun. They're not quite as routine-y but it's our day for family stuff and it's nice.
posted by Eyebrows McGee (staff) at 7:30 AM on March 2, 2019 [12 favorites]