Day 13: The "Week-end"

Today was the first day of a three-day weekend for most folks, as we celebrate Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on Monday. It got me thinking about weekends in general and what they really mean.  I assume that the word "weekend" was conceived in relation to the concept that the week is finally over and now we have a time of rest before it begins again.

When you're growing up, the weekend is a nice break from all the craziness that is the week. You have fun playing with your friends or playing sports and going lots of new places. When you become an adult, the weekend continues to be a time of play, but now you and your friends go out, you may go watch a sporting event or travel to new places. The weekend holds up its definition up until this point in life.

It isn't until you become a parent that your weekend now becomes a time where you have to provide all of those activities (you know the ones we used to do ourselves?) for our own kids! We take them to play with friends, go play in their sports games and take them as many new places we can to teach them more about the world or just to spend time with them as a family. Of course, we love to do these things too, but calling it a time of rest would be a far cry from reality!

Every time my single co-workers ask me what I'm doing for the weekend and I list the many things we typically have planned, they always make a comment on how busy I am. To me, it's just normal; that's just what we do! That's the life of a busy LA family! I wouldn't trade it for anything, but it would probably be good to try to find some time to slow down at some point.

Tonight, my task is to just spend some time with my husband so that we can slow down and relax while watching a movie. This task has already been pushed a few hours by other last minute errands and things we remembered that we need to do. And it will probably be pushed again as I am finishing my blog and my husband needs to do another project on the computer once I'm done.

But at some point tonight, we will sit down to watch a movie together, I only hope it's not so late that we both fall asleep within the first 5 minutes! This happens all too often, but we both need to make a better effort to really take time for us. That's so important, not to get so wrapped up in the things of this world that we forget what life is all about. On that note, I'm out!