TGIF, Mate...TGIF

Do you ever feel like you're hurtling through weeks, swinging from one anxiously-awaited Friday to the next? Where Monday through Wednesday is some lengthy abyss that seems never-ending, until suddenly it's Friday and you feel a glorious reprieve...only to have the next Monday come all too soon? It's like you're on a weighted pendulum, with the momentum all at the wrong end. Meanwhile, Fridays keep flying past you, 'til suddenly it's past mid-June, and you wonder where all the weeks went. They went the way of the endless roller-coaster of anticipation and dread.

Yes, I suspect some of you might be familiar with that feeling. It's called the rat-race, and it's probably the reason why every Friday I log into Facebook and half the words on the screen are TGIF. And I nod in blessed agreement every time I see it. I wish there were some way to slow it down and balance it out. To even out the time spent on work I don't want to do versus projects I love to work on.

I want a life where I can scale things back. Where I can bake my own bread and smother it in pesto sauce made with fresh herbs from my garden. Where I have a garden full of staples like bell peppers, onions, garlic, tomatoes, and a lime tree. Where I have the time to read and write books, and still work on artsy-crafty things for the house. A life measured more by pride in my little projects and less by convenience.

And this is why I feel so lucky to live in the States. We have the option to scale it back and still live luxuriously. We "can" bake our own bread (with ingredients from local farmers), not "have to". Or we can shop at Nordstrom's and Urban Outfitters, and have a night on the town, cocktail-style. We can choose between a mass-produced life or one wholly closer to home. We can even move fairly effortlessly back and forth between those options at whim.

The trick is to find a way to do more of what I love and less of what I don't and still have a sustainable income. I haven't figured that part out just yet.