Weekends are the worst

They are.

And I cannot believe I am saying that. Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of weekends. It's a very nice ideology – but most of the time they end up being even busier than week days. I have found that this is true not only in this current context that I found myself in. Weekends at Bluffton sucked too, though for many different reasons. Typically, when Thursday night comes around I start to dread all the crazy stuff that we have going on during the upcoming weekend. And we always have something. Needless to say, I have a difficult time trying to have a good attitude and take one day at a time.

This is how I was feeling coming into this past weekend. However, (insert some type of fanfare here), I found a lot of gems this weekend that I hadn't expected to come about.

1. On Friday, for some reason my environment club that I also volunteer at got cancelled so I expected to be in the office for the whole of the afternoon. However, before lunch Christian (our Congolese neighbor/friend/practically housemate) asked me if I would help him with the daunting task of mowing BCI's property. At first I wasn't too thrilled, but I agreed and found myself an hour later push mowing the lawn around the church. And guess what? It was awesome. I forgot how much I enjoy mowing and since I have to be in the office and in front of a computer most of the time, it was a nice change of pace. Plus, I am trying to incorporate more exercise into my life and I was pumped to walk around with this crazy push mower for roughly four and a half hours. Conclusion? I think I am going to try and help Christian with this project every week – even on Fridays when I do have A Rocha club.

1.5. This one is a secret so don't tell. (Ha. Well not really). Basically I skipped half night of prayer in the evening and finished the short story I was writing instead. I pretty much punched out this story in about a week and a half. It feels so nice to actually finish something again.

2. I was dreading Saturday with all of my heart. Here is why. The church was having a "leader's conference" for all the New Zion Ministry churches (the overarching church that BCI is a part of). And due to bad communication (again), I am still not exactly sure if we were really expected to be at this thing. Basically it was just like church all day on Saturday. During the first session, I scribbled something on my paper, poked Gabby, and made her read it. The note read "secret plan of secretiveness?" Translation: Want to skip the next session? (I realize I am completely incriminating myself by posting this part. Gabby nodded and then a few minutes later I wrote another note that said "Essence?" (Essence is this café that is nearby that is completely magical in so many ways). At that the deal was done. So during the tea break, Gabby and I took off for our favorite spot in PMB and had a delightful lunch complete with coffee and good conversation. It was very much needed. I don't necessarily mind being here, but when BCI demands so much of our time and energy, it is definitely nice to step out of a moment or two and take a much needed break. I definitely found that this weekend.

3. On Saturday evening the five of us headed over to Malcolm and Lyndle's house (a young couple from the church – Malcolm is also the bookkeeper/ general rock star for BCI, so we see him every day). It was awesome. We had dinner first and then played a Karaoke game on the PS2 (similar to guitar hero except with singing of course). Even though I generally hate stuff like that (hate scale 6/10), after we all stopped caring, it was a blast. We laughed a lot, which was much needed too.

As I was reflecting on this weekend in my journal on Sunday evening I realized how ridiculous it was to dread the weekend as much as I did. It's often easy for me to get overwhelmed and distracted from being the moment. My brother-in-law, Jeron, likes to tell me to "be like Scooter." Scooter is their dog. You would think I would take offense to this, but I don't simply because he is just trying to remind me to be like Scooter, who, like every trained dog, doesn't have a care in the world, but rather lives completely in the present. That is definitely a hard thing to do for me – but something that I want to work at for sure.