Labor Day Leisure and Recreational Labor

Happy Holiday Weekend!

Do you have to labor on Labor Day?

For an online teacher, holidays are usually irrelevant (some schools give a week off at Christmas). But since I’m teaching f2f (face to face) on Monday nights, I actually get “a day off” from that! I’m planning to use the time to work on my grocery store scavenger hunt, unless we find something else to do.

Do you have picnics and parties planned? I don’t—I sort of forgot about Labor Day this year. I’m sure we can rustle something up if we want to. Honestly, Joe probably won’t—he has had a weird schedule lately due to a case he’s investigating, working all night one night and then the next day at noon. I’m sure if I had to do that I’d be pretty cranky–but he’s always in a good mood!

What’s your work schedule like? Do you wish it was different?

I have flip-flopped back and forth between being self-employed and then working for a company a couple times. It seemed like (for a while), whatever my situation was, I thought the opposite would be better. You know, the grass is greener issue.

I finally learned my mom’s lesson on that one—she’d always respond with, “Lisa, the grass is not greener, it’s just different grass.”

She’s right. But after my explorations, I have found that I love being self-employed and working at home a lot (with a little f2f sprinkled in). I’ve always loved being at home, and now that my new home is coming together (my clothes have a home!), it feels really good to be here. It also supports my experimental fitness/activity plan.

I’m on day 3, and I’ll spare you the play-by-play, but I feel pretty darn good right now 🙂

The foundation is that I go on several short walks during the day, and longer ones when I can fit them in (last night I walked for 75 minutes and then this morning my mom and I did that again). I also am making sure to do some kind of activity every single hour during the day (crunches, lunges, yoga, rebounding, etc.). I’m including the cliche things, like parking far away at the grocery store, etc., too.

Things to note so far:

• My feet kind of ache at times. I’m wearing (mostly) Merrell Barefoot shoes, which have a Vibram sole. But on my leisurely 5:30am walks (which I did not do this morning b/c I figured I’d walk with my mom a little later), I’ve been just wearing flip flops, and last night and today I wore running shoes to try and cushion the achiness a little.
• My hips are tight. The power walking I do with mom, up and down hills (where I live is mostly hilly), tightens them up. I should do more yoga, but it hurts 🙂
• This may be unrelated, but my appetite has been so normal—and when I’m hungry I just notice and then eat something and then I’m over it (normally, I think about food all the time)
• My arms look more defined—this is weird to me, b/c my emphasis has been more on lower body so far. But hey, I’ll take it. (maybe it’s left over from moving?)
• I’m not requiring a lot of sleep (this started with my new dietary changes and is getting “more” this way now). I enjoy getting up before anyone else (especially when it’s not to do work), and I find myself waking up at 3 and 4 thinking it is late enough to get up. I’m totally rested though–I budgeted in a nap, but I haven’t yet taken one. Not to say I haven’t done my share of relaxing and lounging!