A new word I've learned from reading foreign articles is "staycation": just a fancy term for spending some time off from work to stay home, having little or no cash to spend on travel expenses, especially that the US and European economies are in recession. Since hubby and I resolved to have only one travel vacation every year, and we already have plans to travel some time at the end of this year, we decided to spend this year's holy week at home, just resting, having a "staycation" as American yuppies are wont to call it.
Now that our five-day long staycation is finally over, hear are some finer points of our homemade R&R:
Day 1, Maundy Thursday
After having spent three days at work, this day was spent being idle: napping, Facebook browsing, novel reading. Around night time, because of too much inactivity I began to fantasize about things to do, places to visit; this inspired me to purchase online a month's worth of belly dancing classes. So much for trying to save up but hey: at least I got it on sale.
Day 2, Good Friday
Okay, symptoms of boredom are finally becoming apparent. Now beginning to picture my office desk with longing. I did feel unnerved at the lack of ringing phones and / or elevator bells. To counter this feeling, I began to memorize cookie and cake recipes for when I save up enough to buy an oven for baking. In the end, I microwave-baked three batches of cookies: plain chocolate chips, and two experimental flavors of double chocolate chip and oat-cinnamon chocolate chip. Mental note: use decaf coffee powder in the double chocolate chip cookie dough next time.
Day 3, Black Saturday
An idle mind is evil. Or the playground of the devil? Whatever, I decided to begin rearranging our study room. Even with his cough and fever (which had been going on for about a week), hubby helped me move my desktop PC / study desk downstairs, right next to the kitchen. This way I can be baking cookies and working on spreadsheets, for when I start my own baking business someday. (As you may have noticed, I did a lot of building castles in the air.) My new desktop setup is so sweet, with hubby's geeky World of Warcraft minis and my own collector's edition games, The Sims 3 and Spore Galactic Edition. And the living / dining / kitchen areas are now spotless and pomengranate-scented, thanks to my new reed diffuser, a gift from last Christmas. All these because I needed an outlet for my energies.
Day 4, Easter Sunday
Finally got started on my borrowed Batman comic books. In between scenes of Gotham City, I began to plot out my plans for an herb garden. So right after lunch I put on some sunblock and went to the palengke, hoping to get some herb seedlings. Unfortunately, the Pasig Public Market does not sell these, so I decided to take a bus to the Farmer's Garden in Cubao, right in my sweat pants and ratty tsinelas. When I found the right stall that sells the variety of seedlings that I wanted, I had a field day trying to catch the tindera's attention, who was having a very deep siesta. Begrudgingly, I had to take a halo-halo break and wait for her to wake up, in which I discovered a shop selling commercial-grade kitchen items, but still in shopping mall prices. I got myself a potato masher and a spatula since my old spatula got broken from my intense cookie-baking episode last Friday. When I came back to the Garden, I bought seven species of plants (thyme, basil, oregano, dill, tarragon, rosemary and sampaguita) and some potting soil. Immediately, I planted these in a tiny plot near our front door. I was so inspired that right afterwards, I took a shower and went to the mall to browse for some more gardening items and herb seedlings.
Day 5, Araw ng Kagitingan
Despite promising myself that I'll wake up early since its a week day, I still woke up late. Mental note: tomorrow, I can't be idle anymore. (Yay!) I spent the whole afternoon clearing up some more garden space in our yard and gathered enough kindling wood to barbecue a whole pig. I didn't know we had so much yard space hiding underneath all those dried leaves.
Five days off from work and I still found myself being productive. I guess I can take myself off from work, but not take the work off from me. But I enjoyed all those five days immensely. Mental note: take a real breather next time!
