Overdue

Saturday is my day. It's the day I get to pretend that I don't have to work for a living, that I can relax, plan travel, read leisurely, and go for a run any time of the day. Trouble is, I don't get to do that very often.

This past Saturday, though, I did. I woke up at about 8:00 (three hours later than usual), drank tea, ate breakfast and walked the dog. I then drove to a nearby suburb and did a 10K.

The 10K was good, if a little cold. I started out strong but my body seemed to know when to start keeping a pace rather than getting too tired too soon. That's a good sign, when the body knows when to say when and the mind listens. The hills were no fun, but not bad. By mile 4 I was pretty tired but still able to keep my pace. I still am not back to the place I was a few months ago with my running but it is coming. I saw a few people I know from other races and visited with them while we drank hot cocoa. This is good hot cocoa, too- or maybe it's just because I ran 6.2 miles. Hmmm.

After driving home I walked the dog over to the park and let her run for a little while. She played with some kids and I just sat, listening to music on my new iPod- which I am in love with. In fact, I originally wanted to write an entire post about my iPod and call it "iLove It" or "iHeaven" but then decided there were two reasons I shouldn't do that. One, I'm so far behind the iPod boom that no one cares and two, no one cares. Nonetheless, I really do love the little thing. After the park, I spent a few hours reading and downloading more of my CDs so I could have music to clean to.

That's when I realized what a perfect Saturday this really was. I pushed the vacuum around my house, iPod clipped to the pocket of my robe, singing along with Journey and was overcome with how happy I was to be at home, doing nothing important. All day long.

Of all the time I spend dreaming about upcoming vacations (T - 10 days till I'm on the beach), it was here, in my home, pushing around the vacuum having just finished reading my third novel of the year that I felt more relaxed than I thought possible. Really, I should have seen this coming, this strange contentment in doing nothing. After weekends like this and this, I was clearly overdue. People usually go away to feel refreshed. Not me, I run, vacuum and iPod.