Not According to Plan

Dearest Rachel –

Yesterday did not go according to my plan for it, honey. Ordinarily, I try to fast over the weekend when I’m working the booth; and while there was the temptation of a party involving the worship team after the Saturday service (which for the sake of my social life, I probably should have considered going to), the fact that I feel obligated to pick dinner up for the boys on my way home, combined with a steady rain that I expected to either cancel or at least put a damper on (pardon the pun) the event caused me to stick to my routine on Saturday.

However, Sunday posed a bit of a problem, as the internet was down for the better part of the day. Obviously, this isn’t a concern for the morning; I’m busy at church at that point, and theirs works just fine if I want it anyway. But at home, we’ve gotten dependent on it for much of our entertainment. And boredom is a leading cause of cheating on one’s diet (not that I’m on one, but I assume you understand how it applies to my resolution to skip eating for the day). Sure, I could use my phone’s data plan, but it’s not the same as watching something on my bedroom television.

In addition, I’d gotten a delivery yesterday; I was starting to run out of that dark chocolate spread that I’d discovered late last year, and ordered a few more jars from Amazon the other day. Unfortunately, one of the jars seems to have broken in transit. 

In any event, between the temptations of boredom and the fact that I had consumed a few calories simply from trying to clean off the spoon (not to mention my fingers; it was a bit of a mess, as you could probably see. The stuff was oozing out over the bubble wrap, after all, and I can assure you that it didn’t get any better the further inside those wrappings that I went), I figured that I needed to do something to mitigate these situations.

So I headed out to the gym. It would kill an hour or so, I thought, and easily burn off what calories I’d taken in by trying to clean up the mess made by the broken jar. And to be sure, that worked out just fine; there was nothing eventful to report to you about that trip and what I did, apart from the unusual nature of having done so on Sunday in the first place. While I may not treat the Christian Sabbath as a day of rest to anywhere near the extent that would be considered ‘Orthodox’ – if nothing else, the job I’m assigned to in church would preclude it, paradoxically enough – I do make a point of taking things easy on most Sunday afternoons, even now that I don’t have the grind of the work week to deal with. It may be just a matter of recovering from a fairly long shift at church (since we’re up to three services on Sunday mornings) or the chance to hang out with Daniel for the one day in the week (since I usually spend my days at the ‘office’ just to keep myself busy – then again, this past week, I actually took several days off and dragged him around with me on this errand or that, so the fact that he and Logan hung out together wasn’t such a big deal as far as I was concerned).

Of course, the fact that the boys were doing stuff together – even without internet, Logan has a collection of anime on hard drives for them to watch (a provision that you and I would have both approved of, since we would do so much of that back in the day) – left me at a loose thread. My absence for the gym went, if not unnoticed, at least not remarked upon, and once I returned, there wasn’t all that much for me to do, since whatever it might be, I’d have to do it on my own. I did do a load of laundry, but after burning up so much energy, there was another need I felt I had to take care of. My stomach was pointing out that, since I’d put myself through my paces like I had, it would like to be replenished, vows of fasting be hanged. And since even my superego didn’t feel like arguing with its logic – I’d walked more steps than I do on a typical weekday, at this point (though I was still just under ten thousand for the day), and I took two meals on those days – I basically fixed myself an early dinner while I waited for the washing to finish up.

However, once I finished both my chili and the washing, I put the clothes in the dryer, and sat down to wait out the cycle – only to suddenly wake up in darkness, having fallen asleep for several hours. I mean, at least I didn’t snack any further than what I had with my meal, but sleeping right after one isn’t the best thing to be doing. Still, I got up, folded or hung up everything that I needed to (as well as discovering that I’d neglected the lint trap for a load or two from last week, much to my chagrin), and decided I’d best go back to bad, if I was that tired.

So yeah, yesterday didn’t go according to plan. As a final joke on me, just as I wandered into the family room to say good night to the boys, the internet finally switched on (although I never got that text message from our ISP indicating that everything was up and running, for whatever reason). But I knew better than to bother doomscrolling at that hour of the night – and a good thing, too, since I still managed to sleep until nearly six in the morning. Yes, that’s early – certainly earlier than I need to be up – but considering how I fell asleep first while it was still light, I got a lot of sleep last night. Sometimes, my body just needs that kind of rest, honey – and sometimes, I even let it have it.

At least I’m reasonably rested and ready to take on the day today. So keep an eye on me, and wish me luck; I’m going to need it.