Unsuccessful Weekends

I had grand plans for this weekend. It's the last weekend I was going to be at home for the next 3-4 weeks so I had a whole list of tasks to complete as well as a pile of work to do. Now, I have restricted myself to working only one day of my weekend anymore (which for me is quite the accomplishment), but I really needed to get a solid day of work in this time. I have about six things to finish this week before I leave town and I seem to be drowning in meetings during the week lately. I manage to accomplish very little "work" during my actual "workday". Also, I wanted to clean my apartment spotless, as not only do I hate coming home from a trip to a dirty apartment, but I would really love to have a bunch of overdue maintenance stuff taken care of while I'm gone. I cannot stand the thought of having strangers in my house if the house is not clean (even if they are just repairing the smoke detector that I ripped out of the ceiling in the middle of the night because it wouldn't stop beeping that my battery was low). My apartment isn't a mess per se, but it could certainly use some straightening. Plus, my weekend is laundry time. I don't ever have enough time at home during the week to do a complete load of laundry. I can wash overnight, for example, then let the wet clothes sit until morning when I put them in the dryer before I leave for work. But then they just sit there, dry and wrinkling at light speed all day long while I'm gone. So I actually create more ironing for myself in this manner. Therefore, I do it all on the weekend when I can usually do a few loads at once and fold it right away, thus reducing both ironing time and the possibility that I would say "Screw ironing!" and just go to work wrinkled. Perhaps most importantly, though, I needed new shoes. Now granted, I am a graduate student so I'm not necessarily expected to dress up for work. Nor am I in a field necessarily known for its fashion sense. (In fact, it's quite the opposite!) But there comes a point when I would rather pull out my own teeth with a pair of pliers than wear sneakers for another day. I reached that point weeks ago. And all of my regular not-sneakers-but-not-stillettos shoes are nearly unwearable anymore. I have worn them to death. They have served me well, but they are well past their prime. So, on top of the cleaning, laundry, and general work to complete, I wanted to go shoe shopping. And boy, can I shoe shop. :) (I could give Carrie Bradshaw a run for her money in the shopping department, just not the actual purchasing department.)

Somehow, though, my grand plans did not work out.

I don't exactly know where all of my weekend went. I know where part of Saturday went at least. I did a college interview in the morning (with a perfectly nice young woman who still managed not to find me for 20 minutes even though I was sitting at one of the 8 tables in the coffee shop she suggested for the meeting with a college baseball hat on the table to identify me as the interviewer), then I went to work in the lab for a few hours to pack up a moving truck. (Long story, might describe more of my job at a later date). I was also dog sitting over the weekend. This normally wouldn't be an issue at all. Feed her in the morning before I leave, feed her dinner at dinner time, and hang out with her at night. Easy enough, plus she is a very cute dog. But this time around, the heat spontaneously ceased functioning in the house where I was dogsitting. So I returned to the house after packing the moving truck to decide what to do. I was planning to pack up the dog and take her to my house (where it was not 59 degrees indoors) when the house owners decided to try to go ahead and get the heat fixed then and there. So, I tried a few (unsuccessful) remedies myself, then talked to the heating repairman on the phone for a while and tried his unsuccessful remedies, and finally had to chill in the house while he came over that evening and fixed the heat. All in all, it was a many hour procedure. And thus, Saturday was entirely gone (and rather cold!)

Sunday, I did manage to do a load of dishes, cook meals for the week for lunches & quick dinners, and wash/dry/fold a single load of laundry. (Yay! I have clean socks!) But that's it. No work on my papers or proposals, no overall cleaning of the apartment, and most importantly, no new shoes. Very disappointing as a whole. I wonder if needing new shoes is a viable reason to take a day off this week....