So, how do I fill my day? Well some days I simply don't; it's quite surprising how time flies when you have all day to do things, and how easy it is to while a way a day doing nothing. Life is no longer a mad, frenetic rush, running errands on my way home from work, spending my days off catching up on housework and frantically fitting in family commitments, a social life and getting all the chores done at the weekend before another working week starts all over again.
I can take my time. I can easily turn what was planned to be a 15 minute trip to the supermarket to pick up a few groceries into an hour's expedition around town. I still have major issues with American supermarkets, knowing what to buy and how to cook it, and because all the stores are comparatively smaller and their range of stock is less than back home, I sometimes end up visiting two or three different stores just to find everything on my list. Whilst supermarkets here are tend to be far less busy than their British counterparts, if there is a queue at the checkout, it can be amazingly slow. Americans do not pack their own shopping; their patience at standing in line whilst the cashier slowly puts the shopping into numerous plastic bags never ceases to amaze me. These are the same people who honk their horns at you if so much as wait for one second before moving away at a green traffic light, yet here they stand, calmly waiting as docile as lambs. I'm the one that's chomping on the bit ready to go - why don't you just pack it yourself? Yet what's my rush? I've got nowhere else to be, or a schedule to meet. I'm the lady of leisure.
And I am at leisure - I'm on quality "me" time. I'm a lady who lunches - I have enough friends and acquaintances here now who I can regularly meet with for lunch; I can stroll around town, sit in a pavement cafe, watch the world go by. And then of course, once a week I go to "work", to my gardening. It's great having a job that is only one day a week. As I make my way through the Arboretum to the Rose Garden, passing a couple of peacocks roaming across the lawn, or some Canada geese paddling across the lake, I marvel at my good fortune. How far removed is this from that past life I had, driving to work every morning, in the cold, through the rain, to my local government office in the middle of a dreary housing estate, where the phone didn't stop ringing, paperwork piled up, deadlines had to met, people had to be appeased....Look at me now! Here I am doing something I love, where did I always go whenever I had five minutes to spare, or needed to de-stress? Out to my garden, and I thought I was pretty fortunate to have one third of an acre to play around in; here there's 127 acres. How lucky am I?
It really is a charmed life and I can please myself! I've tried exercising but the gym bores me; I'd rather be out walking in the fresh air and I do try and walk for at least half an hour every day, most days more (but that's a whole new blog!) I swim as much as I can, I read - I've found a second hand bookshop and I've even started to read all those classics I thought I'd never get round to in an effort to self improve. I did have intentions of further self-improvement through watercolour painting, sketching, sculpture...but when can I fit it in? Then of course there is e-mailing and skyping; keeping in touch with everyone back home, and holidays and travel to plan and investigate, and now there's blogging to fit in too - so time consuming! And what about that novel I was always going to write? Then there is still the dusting and the cleaning, all that boring housewifey stuff - shirts still need ironing, beds still need changing, even in California unfortunately!!
It really is a charmed life and I can please myself! I've tried exercising but the gym bores me; I'd rather be out walking in the fresh air and I do try and walk for at least half an hour every day, most days more (but that's a whole new blog!) I swim as much as I can, I read - I've found a second hand bookshop and I've even started to read all those classics I thought I'd never get round to in an effort to self improve. I did have intentions of further self-improvement through watercolour painting, sketching, sculpture...but when can I fit it in? Then of course there is e-mailing and skyping; keeping in touch with everyone back home, and holidays and travel to plan and investigate, and now there's blogging to fit in too - so time consuming! And what about that novel I was always going to write? Then there is still the dusting and the cleaning, all that boring housewifey stuff - shirts still need ironing, beds still need changing, even in California unfortunately!!
And yet amongst all this luck and good fortune I do sometimes, stupidly, feel guilty that I am not doing something more constructive. Shouldn't I really be tending to the sick and the poor rather than a few plants? After all there's plenty of them here in LA. Why do I still have this feeling that I am "wasting time" when I sit down to take a proper lunch or take half an hour out to read a book, shouldn't I be up and about, doing something else? Is having "me" time shallow and self-indulgent? How useless do I feel - unemployed, unable to make a contribution. I'm not part of something anymore. I'm on my own, it's just Team Me!
Well go Team Me! It wont last forever, I'll be back in England before I know it and back to that working week again, and then I'll wish I had made better use of my time - I'll wish I had read more books or written more books (or at least one), why didn't I do a whole year's course in water colour painting or hand craft an entire range of garden ornaments? That's the trouble you see, when you do have time, you waste it. Like now you see, too busy blogging, and what time is it? Time for the school run again, and I haven't even thought about the evening meal, let alone bought the ingredients, sorted the laundry or taken out the trash......Takeaway tonight anyone?
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