How do your weekends work out? Is it all sleeping in, staying in your pajamas, and going out drinking, or do you have lots of errands chores to keep you busy? Do you get a good balance of relaxation and accomplishment? And when do you feel better: Friday afternoon, or Sunday night?

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Answers

Personally, I prefer to have my weekends be all sleeping in and staying in my PJs, but usually it works out to be full of errands and running around town.

See, I just can't get up the motivation during the week to actually clean the house or run any important errands. I only have a few hours after work in which to relax, enjoy myself, and have some "me time." I'm not gonna waste it by going to IKEA to pick up the new dining chairs, or mailing a bunch of stuff at the post office.

Therefore, that's how I spend most of my weekends (I work in the sleeping in/PJs thing when I can).

This is why I'm going to miss having some Fridays off. Having a weekday off is GREAT. Nobody has any plans for you, because they're all working too. You can run errands if you want to, thus leaving Saturday open for sleeping in and eating Cocoa Puffs. You can do anything! It's Friday and you don't have to work! Woo-hoo!

So yeah, I guess I'll sort of miss that, a little.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Usually it's a nice mixture of errands and relaxation. For instance, this weekend.

Friday we usually go out to eat, but we'd gone out Thursday so we stayed home & watched sports & had drinks.

We got up early on Saturday and went to a rummage sale and some garage sales (fun) and then to San Francisco so I could get my hair cut and he could get a needle for the turntable (accomplishment). I wanted to walk around the Castro for a while, but he wanted to get home, so we only went to a couple of places.

Then we both did nothing for quite a while. I lay in the hammock for and read and he lay on the sofa. We had a BBQ that night. (fun)

Yesterday we got up early again. I went to the sauna place and he went to the driving range (fun) and then we both went to a party for our friends' baby's baptism (fun for him, more obligation for me). I left before he did and did some chores for my web site (accomplishment).

I like Friday afternoon best because the weekend is still ahead of me. Some weekends I enjoy looking back on what I've accomplished or done that was fun, on Sunday night. But usually I'm a little sad that the weekend is over.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Weekends spent in my jammies, sleeping in and relaxing? HAHAHAHAHA! That's a good one!

Weekends include housework, grocery shopping, laundry, other errands, and homework (I'm getting a master's degree while I work full-time). I'm out of bed by 7:30, usually.

However, I make it a point to go out to my local brewpub to to eat dinner and drink a cold one (or two) on Friday nights. One, because that's my only social life, and two, because it gets me out of the freakin' apartment at least once a week for something frivolous.

Still, even with all the stuff I need to do on weekends, and the even more stuff I *should* do and don't get to, I like my weekends better than the week. Probably because I'm in a dead-end job I dislike (hence, getting the master's, so I can change careers). So I definitely feel better on Friday afternoon than I do on Sunday evening.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I usually split the weekend up. Saturdays are busy, take-care-of- everything days. I try to clean up a little every day when I get home from work (I said I TRY, it doesn't always work) so I don't have to do a complete cleaning overhaul on the weekends.

Saturdays are reserved for the dog, he gets to go on car rides and to the park so he can get a good day of exercise in. Then it's on to the laundry, whatever cleaning needs to be done, weeding the flower beds, etc.

I try to take Sunday off completely. If I engage in any activity on a Sunday, it has to be something I want to do just because I want to do it--not because I have to or it needs to be done. I really try to take the whole day off from "have to" stuff. I'd go nuts.

I usually feel better physically but worse mentally on Sunday nights because I have to go to work the next morning. I am mentally ecstatic but physically exhausted on Friday afternoons. As soon as I get off work on Fridays I feel like every ounce of strength has been sapped from me and I want to collapse. I would love to sleep in but I usually just sleep about a half hour later than when my alarm usually goes off--which is pure, extreme irritation. I wake up at virtually the same time even if I go to bed at five a.m. and I can't go back to sleep. It's really annoying.

As much as I like to keep Sundays a "me" day, a decent portion of it is usually spent cleaning up the house. I try to keep it relatively neat but it is hard to do this when living with two male roommates.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

If I plan it right (and with a little luck), weekends are a mix of errand-running/work and fun. This weekend: spending money I don't have and the garden. I went on my annual underwear buying spree and bought Mexican Sage (Salvia)at one of the local gardening places. I also got a shovel and soil amenders and spent Saturday afternoon breaking up clay and turning soil. I LOVE planting and digging!

Every now and again, I'll have "bathrobe day"; it's usually a Sunday, and usually rainy. Then, yes, I lay around all day in pjs and do nothing but eat cookies and watch old movies or read magazines. But spring and summer, it's too beautiful to waste.

When do I feel better? I really enjoy Friday nights. It feels like a holiday to me; an excuse to go out for a beer and make goo goo eyes if I want or come home, shower and watch X-Files reruns. Sunday nights, I'm wiped out from all the weekend stuff.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I don't sleep very much, so on the weekends I'm usually up by 8:00am no matter how late I've been out the night before.

I try to balance my weekends with the right amount of errands and fun, but sometimes one or the other will win out.

If my apartment needs cleaning I'll usually get this out of the way first thing Saturday morning, along with laundry and any other chores that need to be done.

Saturday afternoon I usually meet up with friends for lunch and then either go shopping or to a movie. When the weather is nice (which it really hadn't been until this past weekend) I like to just walk around the city without a plan, maybe stopping at a flea market or a gallery or whatever.

I try to see a band at least one weekend night, which isn't too difficult since my neighborhood is filled with music venues and many of my friends are local musicians.

I also usually have at least one party to attend, but honestly I hate going out on the weekends. My favorite thing to do on Saturday night is to stay home, maybe have a few friends over and just hang out.

Sundays are most often reserved for traditional couch potato activities such as reading the New York Times, ordering food delivered and watching docudramas on Lifetime.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I spend a good number of weekends in Bellingham (an hour and a half north of Seattle) with my sweetie. He often has a number of errands and tasks he wants to get done (more than can ever be accomplished in the time available). This weekend:

• we got him a pair of sandals (I've been lobbying for buying something better than the cheapass ones that last one season only, and this time he took my advice),
• bought a video that he wants to show his friends at a weekly video night he's been having
• dug through his bedroom and assembled all the various bits of computer hardware so he can tell exactly *what* he has -- he did this upstairs, while
• I assembled a video storage unit
• assembled a smoker/cooker he's had for over a year (and barbecued/smoked a potroast, and invited some friends over to eat it)
• rearranged the furniture in his living room and cleaned up the kitchen and powder room before the friends arrived

And, we saw a movie friday night, and had a delightfully relaxed and romantic evening at home saturday night.

whew!

Many weekends are spoken for because of conventions or dance events, and he has his daughter with him every other weekend, plus he spends the weekends at my place often, and we go to see his folks. Meanwhile, my laundry is piling up...

Anita of Anita's BOD and Anita's LOL

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Today is the first day in my life since I was seventeen years old that I am officially (kinda sorta) "unemployed." (Until September 1st.) For the past eleven years, my weekends have always been about getting everything done that had piled up throughout the week because I was too busy at work and school to get to it. Now, with no job to answer to and soon no more school to go to, I had the most relaxing weekend ever, even though we did end up doing a lot of errand-type things. But here it is, Monday morning, and I am barefoot, pregnant, in my jammies, washing laundry and working on my paper hobby. (Not how I pictured living my life right after getting my Bachelor's Degree, but hey, whatever works!)

And I can do this for four months! Well, or at least until Daisy shows up. Then I'm sure I'll be pining for the office again. Just can't imagine it, though.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I try to do all my errands on weeknights so I have the whole weekend to myself. The post office, the bank, and the library I can do on my lunch hour. I vacuum every few days, weekend or not, because of cheap carpet and having a bird. Rich does the dry-cleaning and the bills. CostCo is a horrorshow (not in Alex's way) on weekends, so that's absolutely only a weeknight errand.

As far as weekly chores go, I like to do laundry on Monday only because that's when it happens in Laura and Mary's housekeeping poem (they recite it in Big Woods). (I don't bake on Saturdays, though.) The only advantage to using my complex's laundry facilities is doing three loads at once. I clean my bathroom while the laundry's in the wash and scrub the bird cage while it's in the dryer.

The only weekly chore we regularly do on the weekends is grocery shop. That's because shopping at Alfalfa's is pleasant, and we usually have lunch there as well.

The fact is that my house isn't the cleanest. I like to start out the week and the weekend tidy and vacuumed, which means Monday and Friday (or Thursday, if that's when Rich gets back from wherever he's been), but as far as dusting goes--it doesn't.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I try to make it a combination of both. Doesn't always work but a big push to do errands on saturday is the fact that I don't get parking with my apartment and I live *downtown* - as in, there are only meters and lots and 'free parking' is an oxymoron. So I usually get up relatively early saturday and run errands. Since I live across the street from the market, saturday grocery shopping involves actual grocery stores, with like ailes. I pick up my canned stuff, chicken that sort of thing. Also buying plants, visiting friends, cleaning my car - all happens on saturday. And going to work if I need to make up time. I come home when there's only an hour or so left to pay at the meter and generally take a nap. Dinner, then out out out! Or I try to clean my as-yet unpacked apartment and spend some time with my kitty.

Sunday is *sleep-in* day. And if it's sunny, market day! I head over to Pike Place and pick up organic veggies, fish, fruit and a soy-hot chocolate. Then I hit the park to people watch for an hour or so.

Then on the way back to the apartment, I like to wander around the gardening stores or maybe the funny condom store. Then I go home to put groceries away, eat lunch and just hang out. Nap? Read? Sometimes I vacuum or do laundry. Sometimes I go window shopping at all the downtown stores.

I don't like to move my car sundays - but if I know I'll be home after 8ish, then I'll head to a friends house for dinner or a movie (I don't have a t.v.).

Soon my desk will be together and I'll be able to paint or write, and maybe I'll have a chair soon so that when I read I don't have to lie on the floor.

So far, those are my weekends. I *love love love* living alone.

This weekend I went to brunch garage-saling with my the new guy I'm dating. We slept in late and just meandered around. It was a really really good day :)

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Mix of both. Neither Sabs nor I seems to have much energy when we get home in the evening, so chores during the week are pretty much non-existant.

I also get VERY pissy, if Sabs cops out and doesn't do chores on the weekend, because that means that they will accumulate until the following weekend, and if he cops out then ... well you get the picture.

This is how we wind up with 10 loads of laundry to do in one day, plus dishes and various pick up tasks.

We often organize our chores around a movie-going excursion. IE, stack the dishes in the washer, tidy up the living room and clean up the kitchen, go out to lunch, catch a matinee and then on the way home, drop by the grocery store and run other out-and-about errands, then come home and make dinner, or if we're feeling really splurgy, go out again.

Sometimes Saturday is the chore day, sometimes Sunday is, sometimes they get spread out across both days.

Now that we're on the West Coast, Sabs also likes to spend one weekend day down in San Mateo with his friend Sean. I don't mind this if we've taken care of stuff we needed to take care of first, or if it's Saturday and we still have Sunday to run errands.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

Brenda and I just bought a house. It has an automatic washing machine and drier. Also, an automatic dishwasher.

We each keep up with our own laundry. We sort of both unloand and load the dishwasher. That does not mean she does it 80% of the time and I hit it a lick and a promise.

I'll vacuum my own room, and sometimes the whole house, but by and large, she does inside chores and I work in the yard. I have a small yard and a push reel lawnmower. We bought a house with a small lawn on purpose. She has plants in back, flowers in front, and ferns in hanging pots.

I shop for groceries because I get home first. I ride my bike to work early, and leave early. Sometimes she cooks, sometimes I cook. On the weekends I usually barbecue one day and we may eat out one day.

Saturday is errands. Sunday we go to a matinee together. Unless we go see Balder, who lives in the same town (Atlanta), near the Georgia Tech campus, or Owen and Jeannie, who live in Athens.

Sometimes we go to a bluegrass festival on the weekends, or a family reunion.

I usually get up early Saturday and Sunday and write. Brenda may sleep in. She usually cooks breakfast. Sometimes she makes hot rolls, in her breadmaker, or biscuits.

Sometimes she will go out garage-saling, with a friend. Thrift-shop- prowling.

Sunday night is often a rented video, or reading. We don't watch much television. She has insomnia, and watches nature shows at night.

Pretty tame stuff. Pretty boring. She has a computer, we we each spend a lot of weekend, and evening time online.

I like Friday fine, now that the kids are grown up, and moved out, but weekend were an ordeal, when they were young. Especially if I was out of work, and we were broke.

I liked lving alone, which I did for three years, in an apartment, before Brenda quit her job, sold the trailer, in Florida, and moved up her, to be near Owen and Balder, and to find a better job, and to be reunited with me. She liked living alone, too.

The apartment we lived in before we bought the house was cramped.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I hit Submit accidentally.

Now that we have a room of our own, in a house, we are much more comfortable.

Sunday nights I get a little down, about having to go back to work on Monday.

Again, when the kids were home, it was almost a relief, to go back to work. If I had a job.

Mind you, I love my kids, was a conscientious parent, and enjoy seeing them now. We're close. No tension. But rasing them was much more work than we knew we were getting into.

I tried to do my part at home, since Brenda worked, once Balder was old enough to wean, and put in nursery school.

That and writing and working, when I worked, stretched me a little thin. That and working and putting up with my black looks and stalking got Brenda down.

And weekends were the worst.

It only lasts for 25 years, though.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

I try to do what Lisa does: get the errands done on the weeknights leaving me free to stay home on the weekends. It is nice not to have to worry about beating the crowds to the grocery store and it is great to be able to avoid all that Sat. traffic congestion. I like to sleep in both days (to 8 or if I'm lucky, 9 am.) Any later than that, Grey Lady comes in and meows at me to get up. I have coffee, read a little newspaper, make a stab at cleaning house and then settle in for more coffee at 10 with This Old House. Then putter and pick up some more and then settle in for more coffee and Pacer's Full Court at 11am. Then, I garden or mow or clean house or sort clutter. I try to go to a movie on Sat. nights unless there is a Pacers' game on. My husband and I rarely watched basketball, but I have now become a real fan. They are very lean, attractive young men and I enjoy watching them play and the game is exciting. A couple of weeks ago I went to a ballet on Sat. afternoon. Sundays I try to get through the newspaper and....Oh, yes, Pacer's Full Court is on Sun., not Sat. Well, then I clean house, or work on a project....like sorting clutter..right now am painting a bedroom....more of the same. I feel much more rested on Sun. eve., but much gloomier too because I have to go back to work the next day.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

What weekend?

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

When my husband wasn't working weekends, this is what we'd do so we wouldn't have to lift one finger Saturday or Sunday. On Friday evenings, we'd split up the chores -- I do all of our laundry at the local laundromat (nothing like doing five or six loads ALL AT ONCE!), while he cleaned the apartment, picked up videos and went grocery shopping. On his way back from the grocery store, he'd pick me up from the laundromat and we'd head back home. Team effort to put away groceries, then he'd cook dinner while I put away laundry. Then I'd do the dishes so we could wake up to a clean apartment Saturday morning.

The beauty of this system is that we'd have all of the food we'd need to lounge around Saturday and Sunday in the apartment if we were inclined. Our week starts off with clean clothes and underwear. And we can sleep in if we want. The downside? There goes your Friday night.

-- Anonymous, May 01, 2000

When I am not occupied by a buttload of homework (as I have been more frequently than ever last quarter, and this last weekend), my weekend is pajamas, lounging, drinking (okay, the last bit's maybe once every couple of weekends). I'm usually a huge slug the whole time other than going out once and having to do work. I spent last Friday night sewing. Alternately, I leave town and do none of the above much.

As for cleaning- my mother's not here, so HAHAHAHAHAHAHAH!

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

Most weekends we try and get some fresh air, maybe have dinner with some friends, and sleep late. We'll also try and get to the gym.

However, this weekend just gone (which was a three day weekend) I was at the office from 9.30 - 3.30 on Saturday and 9.30 - 5 yesterday (public holiday) because I had to get my assignments finished. On Sunday I didn't leave the house - I slept late, and then watched old movies and did some laundry. Tristan was away, and I was knackered from a fortnight of 5.30 am starts every day.

-- Anonymous, May 02, 2000

This weekend I'm going to a movie, despite being broke. This is a real switch for me, because I'm such a homebody. Usually weekends are a mix of work and fun. My boyfriend works Saturdays, so I do my housework and laundry (I hate laundry. I hate it). Jay usually comes over Saturday nights and sleeps over, and I spend Sunday with him, doing whatever. Last Sunday, we went to a baseball game, and if the weather is nice, we might go to Fort Edmonton Park, if it's open. I went to IKEA on the Saturday, and bought kitchen stuff.

This week, I've been a good little girl and kept my place really neat, so there's no huge pile of dishes to do or anything-- but I do have to tackle Mount Laundry, or I will have no clothes to wear to work next week. I just have to remember to pick up loonies on my way home from the movie. God, I hate laundry.

-- Anonymous, May 04, 2000