Or are you like me, you make big plans and then wind up painting your toenails?

Oh, damn it, I should have painted my toenails yesterday. Now I have no time to do it this morning. Double damn.

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Answers

I'm the same way: every weekend I set out to accomplish *everything*, and I rarely manage even a fraction thereof. At-home vacations are just as bad, over a longer time period. I just had a month's vacation, most of which was spent at home, and I had high hopes. I was going to organize my closets, clean up my hard disk, make important new lifestyle changes, and perhaps get around to achieving world peace if I had time left over. Instead, I mostly ended up vegging out. Oh well, there's always NEXT weekend...

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Yes, I do quite often accomplish what I set out to do on weekends, but I rarely set out to do very much. I'm old and fat, after all, and just getting my massive butt out of bed on the weekend is a major accomplishment sometimes - so then if I also get it out the door and walk five miles up and down hills each day, I feel like I've accomplished more than most people who are not carying massive butts around at all, much less carting them up and down hills constantly.

But I never ever ever paint my toenails. My toes are just too gorgeous in their naked state to put paint on them. :)

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

I set out to do everything I wanted to do this weekend, which was absolutely nothing. (Except my journal entries and my story, but that's automatic every so often...the entry every day, the story every ten days.) Of course, now I have to finish the site redesign for September, and think about what I'm going to include on the September Lives On- Line (if I've never spotlighted you before, and you do an online journal, and you had a dynamite entry between July 7th and September 7th, email me. I WANT YOU, in big Uncle Sam pointing finger.) and my daily questions on journal-l and taking care of my three kids and a wife who catches illnesses like some hairbrushes collect lint and.... But yeah, pretty relaxing weekend.--Al

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Usually, no. Most weekends I have a vague idea of what I'd like to get done, but, unless it's a party (and sometimes even then) I hardly ever even consider doing these things once the weekend is underway.

This weekend, however, I was amazing, if I do say so myself. By channeling my anal-retentive ex-boyfriend, I made list upon list of what needed to be done (and when), what needed to be bought, cooked, mended, sorted and packed. I've been doing this for the past week, actually, and I'm almost done.

Why the big lists? Burning Man. The prospect of living on dead playa with nothing but what me and my friends hauled out there got my butt in gear.

Talk to you all after the burn...

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

I've always got big plans for the weekends. We just moved into our house three months ago, so there's always some big house project to do. I make a big list, and if we get half of it done I'm happy.

But Dave makes sure we take some time to veg too. All work and no play makes you a cranky bitch.

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Absolutely!

I *always* accomplish what I plan to do for the weekend!

Oh. You mean...accomplish it in the same weekend I plan to do it? What are you...some kind of fruitcake?!?

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

oh god. unproductive weekends have become quite the trend with me. i always have all of these fabulous ideas - take apart my ivar system and varnish it, get a storage unit to put all my excess crap in, do my bills, actually buy groceries (i'm going to be saying hello to homegrocer.com soon instead), get a haircut, buy some decent shoes, look for a new(er) car, update my cheque book, burn some cds, buy some new sheets and a new duvet cover, create my webpage so i don't have to admit that "yeah i have one of those free chickpages" to fellow web people... but what did i do this weekend? well, i took two absolutely delicious naps and hung out with a friend and her 7-month old baby while she ran errands. we were supposed to go to the touring impressionist exhibit (how amibitous!) but of course, the line-up was around the block (last day of the show) and with a baby on a cold chilly drizzly seattle day it just wasn't an option. oh and i think i did some reading. maybe NEXT weekend i'll get around to picking up that filing cabinet...

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

What? Isn't that what 5 a.m. on Monday morning is for? To finish the dishes and laundry and everything else that had to get done before the week started?

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Well -- I finally did this weekend. Some weekends I don't get a damn thing done -- more often than not this is the case, especially of late. Ever since I tried to go back to school and failed miserably, all of a sudden all of the house maintenance stuff had to be done on weekends instead of in short bites during the week. Used to be all we had to do on weekends major things like vacuuming, laundry and grocery shopping. If we slacked off one week it was a bear to deal with ont he following weekend, but could generally be done on Sat. still leaving Sunday for some quiet time and R&R.

The past 9 months have been hell in a handbasket and the month of August has been worse. I've been away 3 out of 4 weekends in August and 1 in July, 3 out of those 4 with Sabs and 1 of those 4 without, as he was out for the count with a wrenched back.

Yesterday and Saturday, I finally couldn't take it anymore and hit the war path. The bathrooms were mopped and scrubbed. The closets were cleaned out and reorganized. The dining room table was excavated from under a mound of mail a mile high. The cat food dispensers were moved, the bills were paid, the checkbook balanced and wonder of wonders -- I FOUND MY COAT. No not the one that some may remember me losing way back when 2 Hallowe'ens ago, but the rain jacket I thought I'd lost at my 2-year college reunion last spring. When I left my previous place of employment, I brought a large carpet bag for the pairs of shoes that were left in my desk drawer including, of all things my ice skates. My jacket got tossed in with them and has been hiding out in the corner of the carpet bag ever since.

Now it's back on the rack in theh allway and I keep smiling every time I look that way.

There are still other things to be done, but the major things that I've been needing to do ever since we moved into this place have been done. There are now SPACES to put things and we can walk through the kitchen without tripping over cat bowls and the trash cans. Now all I have to do is finish unloading the rest of the stuff we brought back from my parents' house and incorporating it into the apartment.

And we'll be golden.

Check back in another 9 months for progress report;)

-- Anonymous, August 30, 1999

Well ... we just had a three day weekend. I planned to finish my book (only 5000 words to go - an afternoon's work), clean the flat, sort through the crap cluttering up the spare room, and do some cross stitch. Instead, I went to the pub, went out for virtually every meal, and watched lots of TV. So, no. Never.

I'm so organised at work, and such a flake when it comes to sorting my own shit out. I really need a PA of my own.

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

Sometimes I do, sometimes I don't. It helps if my goals are small...

-- Anonymous, August 31, 1999

I chuckle at the thought.

I'm lucky if I get what I want to get done in the same MONTH.

Sometimes I don't even bother to eat. Too much preparation involved. I might actually have to move.

-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999

Laundry always gets done...not always folded, but washed and dried. I just hate going to work naked -- stretch marks frighten the women and blind the men.

Aside from that...getting to sleep in counts as an accomplishment, right?

-- Anonymous, September 02, 1999

I just write down a list of all the things I did, head it To Do list, check off everything on the list, and then go to bed Sunday night with a clear conscience.

-- Anonymous, October 21, 1999