Hey, Loverboy…

Oh, my…remember that song? There’s something so jovial, so absolutely jubilant about it.

Everybody’s Working for It.

Monday doldrums head to Tuesday which flows into hump day: Wednesday.

The song grows louder.

You can almost feel the freedom of Friday.

Almost.

Thursday hits and you’re basically there (I’ve been told that colleges everywhere have now deemed Thursday the new Friday, after all).

And then, the blessed day comes: Friday.

Or FriYay as my Norwegian girlfriend always texts me.

“Happy FriYay!”

You did it, you worked and now you get your reward: the weekend.

We’re all working for it, right?

 

 

 

 

As a workaholic currently in some state of recovery, trying to find that balance between laziness and a complete abandonment of sanity with 60 plus hour work weeks, this song makes me smile. It’s the finish line, the stop at the end of a work week sentence. Period. Pause.

Over the years, I’ve lived many incarnations of the work week. From the age of 14 on, I was working nearly full-time every afternoon after school (often missing class to leave early) and on Saturdays at one of the local gyms (my best girlfriend worked at the other one and we spent most of our time on the phone with one another).

This started my work habits and it’s been gung-ho ever since. From corporate 9-5’s to restaurant late-nights to owning a personal training business and working ungodly hours around the clock, work has always been a sort of comfort for me, a distraction and a safety net.

But the weekend? Be yours on a Sunday/Monday or Tuesday and Thursday, or the original Saturday/Sunday, well that is for you to keep.

Right?

That’s what the song is all about.

You work for the weekend.

 

 

 

 

Well, apparently we misinterpreted it out here.

For one, out here in Adult Summer Camp 2017, everyone has a different schedule. There’s no 9-5 normality here and if you have consecutive days off you’re praising some higher power (thank you, thank you!). Everyone is all over the place.

And that’s how it was for me too, until this year.

This year, suddenly, I find myself in a 9-5 type situation (although it goes from 7-3:30). I was so proud of myself for asking for the morning shift, to give myself some consistency even if it might mean less in the bank. Our goal was to eat at home more often (because when you work a 10-6 shift at a restaurant and your honey gets off at 6 and you don’t feel like cooking and wowee! there you are at a restaurant, you often cave, or at least we do) and my personal goal was to work a little bit less out in the world and focus on building my at-home career.

Gasp!

It freaked me out but I wanted to try it. I wanted to create space in my life for other endeavors, namely writing. And I wanted to start shifting my life to a more consistent pace instead of the fervor of Summer followed by the stasis of Winter.

That was cute, wasn’t it? That whole pesky planning thing again.

And so, just as The Restaurant was starting up and me with it…

I got a job offer.

The company I had worked for this Winter from home had a new project, a big one and they wanted to start when?

Now.

Of course.

I told them I’d already committed most-time but since I had cut back on hours I could commit some-time. It was moving towards what I eventually want to do, work online for a living and write. This is the shift, right?

It felt like the right step. I tried to pace it out and then, of course…

I was in over my head.

I’d work 7-3:30, leave the restaurant, fly home and then work until The Chief got home around 7:30 or 8, forgetting all about the dinners we had planned. After a week or two, I started getting better at the feminine forte of multitasking and some nights we were even eating before 10pm (a serious success in our new situation).

It’s funny how 10pm is a success in Summer and an abomination in Winter. Second dinner at 10pm maybe, but not 1st.

But then, small successes aside, things started going by the wayside. The house started to clutter and the laundry piled up and suddenly, I was doing it all over again. Overworking.

Despite my best intentions, there I was in the work spiral I had tried so hard to avoid.

But never fear, the weekend was here and I had three days off from The Restaurant (pretty much unheard of and something I am so grateful for).

Which really meant 2 off, since I was working all day Friday online.

Which really meant 1 because I couldn’t get all of my Friday work done in one day.

Which really meant about 1/2 day because of catching up on sleep (that Summer light sure does make you forget to go to bed, which is rough when waking at 6am).

And then, there was the house to care for.

Since the Mama is coming, we’ve kicked into high gear for Mom-Provements. Not that she would request them of us but because finally we have a catalyst and a time frame to make things happen. Of course it comes at the busiest and buggiest time of year but hey, what’s to be done? We needed it. The Ramp of Doom and my Mama cannot meet.

 

 

 

 

It’s funny out here, trying to find the time for home projects. In the Winter, it’s hard because of the cold, in the Spring it’s hard because of the rain, in the Summer it’s hard because of the bugs and the busy pace and in the Fall it’s perfect…

and then we leave.

And so, we have to fit it in where it fits in. In the nooks and crannies of time we carve out in between the other work and fun of the rest of the week.

Oh yea, did I not mention the fun? Yes, this is not to sound as if all we ever do is work. We have fire meetings on Wednesdays and Open Mic on Thursdays, we play softball on Fridays after work and The Band has been playing a lot of gigs on the weekends. We are chock full of fun and chalk full of work and so, the weekend we once worked for looks a little different.

And soon enough, the daytime all the time will start to turn towards night. Tuesday marks the day we head back towards Winter. But it will be a while coming and thank goodness because busy or not, there is a lot of Summertime weather specific work to do.

Saturday, we spent our day off building. We renegotiated our shower house situation, turning it from more of a stall into a house. I was the Cut Lady and The Chief the Securer and thanks to a little help from our neighbors, we were able to scrap enough materials together to finish it. Well, almost.

By 9pm we were both pooped and still had to haul water, make dinner, take showers, take the dogs we were dog sitting for a walk and find a little time to relax together.

We got all of the list done and substituted relaxing together for me falling asleep on The Chief as he read.

But hey, we were clean, we had water, we had a new almost finished Mom-Proved shower.

We had done it. Almost. The rest was for Sunday.

 

Before and…Almost After:

 

 

 

 

We had worked all week for the weekend and then worked straight through it.

It’s been a good challenge for me to accept this pace I tried so hard to avoid because the thing is the Summer is just plain old crazy. There’s no way to avoid it but certainly ways to better flow with it. Multitask like a maniac, let the sun fuel you and remember:

Soon enough we will be sitting by a crackling fire deciding whether to ski or read. Oh, the ebb and flow. Wild rapids to idyllic ponds. It’s ever-changing and always a surprise.

And there I go planning again. Perhaps the Winter will bring even more work than this last one, perhaps not. Maybe I’ll finally master (see: start) knitting. Maybe I’ll work 9-5’s all season.

Maybe.

Maybe.

Maybes.

And so, happy weekend to you whether it starts on Monday or Friday or somewhere in-between, whether you’re working it or not. It’s there somewhere. Find that little bit of respite, even if that means more “work”.

Happy Full-Swing Summertime.