Thinking about Spring Break

No, I'm not thinking of getting mostly naked and heading to a beach to get drunk. (Though I got a weird look from my husband when I brought up the subject, like I had suggested exactly that.) I am just thinking that I have next week off, and wondering what to do about it.

Let's see, what are my options?

I could just stay home and clean house. Well, we've seen how well that's gone recently. I don't really think that my chances of actually getting much work done are going to improve much just because it is spring break. It will be the same as any other week, minus the time I am in my actual scheduled ceramics class, minus Friday when I try to spend most of the day at school and minus the occasional Monday or Wednesday when I spend a couple of hours in the lab because there is something I have to do that just cannot wait for one of the other days that I'm already there. Mostly, it will just be the idea of spring break, and knowing that I absolutely cannot go to school no matter what I imagine I might get accomplished.

If I stay home the usual stuff will happen, and except for class there will be the usual excuses for not getting anything done. In the morning it is too early, and I will read or blog a bit until I decide that it is not too early anymore. Then if there's anything interesting going on in the blog world, I will waste time on other people's blogs writing comments and such. I might waste a whole day having a discussion about some post that I didn't even write.

Then, on a day when there doesn't seem to be anything going on, when there don't seem to be any distractions, my mother will call. On a good day she will invite me to lunch and ask if I want to go with her to run some errands. On a bad day it will just be the phone call, which starts out pleasant enough, but then gets rather long and usually ends up on a couple of subjects that I've already made it clear I don't want to talk about since talking just upsets me and doesn't change the situation. So if I spend a nice day with her I usually get back home and decide that I don't have enough time left to do anything useful and spend the rest of the day reading or on the computer or watching TV. If I have one of those long phone calls I'm usually too upset afterwards to do much of anything.

So on my most productive day of trying to clean the house I will first decide that it is too early, then decide that it is not too early, then try to get something done and possibly do both laundry and dishes but probably not much else, then have to take a couple of breaks to eat and possibly to cook and clean up the mess caused by the cooking, maybe realize that I've run out of something or for some other reason have to leave the house on some errand, do maybe a little bit more before I decide that it is now too late to do much of anything and then either read some more or watch TV. That is what most Wednesdays are like, unless I have to go to school for something, or unless maybe my mother calls. So if I stay home with the plan of cleaning house, it will probably be a whole week of what seems like Wednesdays, and probably having a whole week of Wednesdays will still not result in a nice clean and orderly house.

Okay, so the idea of staying home with the plan of cleaning the house is not so great.

There are other things I could plan to do while I am home. If it doesn't rain or freeze again for a bit, the backyard could use a lot of work. I usually want to have a garden, and you'd think that by this time I would have done something about it. This year I haven't really even given it much thought. I go out once in a while to see if any of the perennials are going to come back. I expect that many will not since I was so inattentive last year. I didn't even do half of the things I had planned to do in the last two years. So the place is quite a mess, and I'm really not looking forward to any major projects this year. But shouldn't I do something? Shouldn't I at least turn over last year's beds and get plants for the containers that I already have and stuff like that? Maybe. The thing is that after I've planted something I worry about going out of town. The plants will probably die while I'm out of town. If I have plans of going out of town after April or so I should just not plant anything new so I don't have anything to worry about.

In theory, I could take home a couple of ceramic projects and work on them. Except for the relief sculpture, which I have not yet selected a design for, this usually causes some problems. Like where to put the thing while I'm working on it. If I totally clean the kitchen and dinning room area first, and then have no plans to cook anything for about a week, I can work there.

Then there's the problem of worrying that my husband doesn't quite understand that he must not disturb the area at all for any reason whatsoever. Stay out, period. I don't care that you just wanted a piece of toast. Next time tell me and I'll get it for you. If you decide you need toast when I'm not around, then you'll just have to do without.

And then there's a bit of a mess to clean up, and while I do make an effort to clean up most of the mess I make at school, at school there is someone who is paid to deal with the rest of it. At home, the only person dealing with the mess will be me, and possibly the husband who might not understand that he still must not disturb the area until after I tell him that it is safe to do so.

Then there is the problem of getting said ceramic project back to school once I have done whatever I brought it home to do. The project can only travel in the leather-hard stage (except maybe for the relief sculpture), and it must be carefully wrapped and packed away in a sturdy plastic container. I cannot move the piece if it is too wet, because I would be unable to wrap it and move it without damaging it. If it is too dry, it will crack, and it will be difficult (if not impossible) to repair at that stage.

So taking home a ceramic project is something to think about, since the husband will probably be out of town that week.

Which brings me to what I will probably end up doing with the week off. I will probably go out of town with my husband. We like to get out of town once in a while, and fortunately he has a whole week out of town at the same time as I have a whole week off from school.

Unfortunately, it isn't anyplace far away or particularly exciting. It's a place that we used to like, but since it is so close we have been there a lot over the years, and by now we are rather tired of the place. It still has a few things that we like to do, but going there just isn't a big deal anymore.

So what I will probably do is pack up the knitting machine and see if I can knit a scarf and maybe a couple of baby blankets. Those are things that should be done before May, but if I don't manage to do them while I'm at a motel, they probably won't get done in time. Around here, knitting projects would have to compete with school and housework for my time. At the motel there will be knitting and cable TV and not much else. No responsibilities. Knitting, cable TV, lunch with my husband, more knitting, more cable TV, possibly a swim, maybe a nap, dinner by myself, followed by more knitting and more cable TV, and a day ending with one of those "how was your day dear" talks and then possibly more cable TV. Sometime during the week maybe a trip to the zoo, maybe a walk through the park, but not much else. Just a relaxing week doing mostly nothing and a bit of knitting.