Ben and I typically pack our Saturday and Sunday to the brim with to-dos. They rarely feel like a “weekend” at all. I’m usually busy getting to-dos done for my blog that I didn’t get to during the week. We’ll sneak in a gym session or two for strength training. Our house to-do list is endless. Events with family and friends always find their way onto our calendar. What’s left of our weekend time is usually spent sleeping and getting ready for the week ahead.
Last weekend was looking like it’d be just like any other. I had made a to-do list on Friday mapping out what Ben and I would knock out over the next two days, but on Saturday morning it all spontaneously changed.
We took Nash on his morning walk around the neighborhood and couldn’t help but notice how nice the weather was. Florida was showing off with its temps as it tends to do in January. The next six words that came out of our mouths set the tone for the rest of the weekend: “we should go to the beach”.
I think the idea was first mentioned jokingly.
Any Floridian’s ideal weekend usually involves blowing off their to-do list and immersing themselves in the salty air soaking up some good ole’ Vitamin D. It’s what the snow birds move down here for, don’t they? The irony of the situation is that the only ones who never seem to have time to do just that are the Floridians themselves.
That Saturday we rewrote our weekend narrative and rolled with it. We tossed our to-do list to the wind. I put on a coat of mascara, called Buber (my grandpa’s version of Uber), and we rode down to Clearwater Beach with the windows down.
Between the beach bar hopping, the time in the sand, and ending our night with grouper sandwiches at Frenchy’s (sans snapping 100 photos of our food) – it was quality time much needed. Ben is always saying how we should treat our weekends like vacations and that’s exactly what we did that day. It was so nice to forget about the pressing responsibilities we always seem to have. The only to-do that day was to enjoy quality time together.
We were sure to carry the theme into Sunday as well and I’m glad we did. All too often we complain that we never use the bikes we have stored in our garage. With our to-dos forgotten about, we finally made time to take them out for a ride.
The weather again was beautiful – did I mention Florida temps have a way of showing off in January? We rode our bikes on the Ream Wilson Trail up to Buffalo Wild Wings for lunch and hung out for a while. No rush to get home, no rush to get to the gym, no rush because we had other plans to get to. The whole vibe was relaxed and it was amazing because it was so different than our typical weekends.
Having a weekend like that really opened my eyes to how important they are. I’d even go as far as to call them vital. It’s too often that I get myself bogged down with a to-do list to conquer on Saturday and Sunday with zero down time. Not only that, but it affects my quality time with Ben and Nash too.
Going into 2020 one of my goals is to keep treating our weekends like mini vacations. More quality time and less quantity of work. Will I still have blog to-dos on the weekend? Sure. Do I still expect to visit the gym on a Saturday? Probably. I can’t get rid of productivity on the weekends completely, but I can be more conscious of not making my entire weekend revolve around it.