Yesterday I got an early mark from work. Remember those? In school? Well, in primary/elementary school, anyway. It was always so exciting to get out 5 or 10 or even a whopping 15 minutes early. So much opportunity when we weren’t picking glue paste off our hands or packing away the math tiles etc at the end of the day. Well, yesterday I finished a whole hour GASP right?! I know, a whole hour earlier since I started earlier. Hmm, whatevs, it doesnt sound as exciting when I say that. Anyhoo. I got an early mark, and the question on my mind that whopping 15 minutes before the imaginary bell went off for home-time was just what was I going to do with myself?

There’s always things that need doing – laundry, groceries, picking the kids up and starting homework – but there’s also the things I want to do – grab a drink at the bar, get something from the candy store, maybe jasmine tea and a scone at a cafe, browse a bookstore, etc etc etc etc etc. Should I cram in all the things I need to do and then rush around for the other things, or do what needs doing and then relax? Of course, I often find that doing all the things leaves no interest in doing my things afterwards, which is why my house is a pigsty – I care more about the fun stuff than the other stuff because there’s always more of the unfun stuff and it can piss off or take a number while I’m taking care of the good stuff. Yesterday, however, I made a more sensible decision.

So I dodged the bar and went straight to the candy store, didn’t make eye contact with the window-sitters in the cafe and headed to the book store.

let’s pretend that’s the only treat I ate

And then I did groceries and picked up the kids. Of course, being picked up early from the 2.5hrs of aftercare at school that they supposedly hate when Husband is out of town went down like a ton of bricks… “Omg you’re too early” etc. Sheesh! I made it up to them by telling them we could eat expired food from cans for dinner, but that’s another story.

So the moral of this story is live free or die; or, there’s always groceries and laundry so eat chocolate and go to the bookstore first.