A Weekend of Productivity

I had some lofty goals for my weekend. Since I frequently spend my weekends with my husband-to-be in the oh-so-glamorous town of Fayetteville, North Carolina, weekends I spend in Baltimore, alone, are usually jam packed with errands and chores that I can't squeeze in during the week. And now that the weekends before the big move are countable on one hand, the pressure is on to get a lot done.

My goals for this weekend were simple: steam clean my carpets (which are moving with me and it's easier to haul a rented steamer up three steps in the current house than two flights in the new place), pack everything that's not an absolute necessity for the next three weeks, and hit the gym Friday night, Saturday and Sunday.

Friday night, I had dinner plans with some friends I work with. They had to get home on the early side to walk their dogs, so I figured I would still have time for the gym afterwards. Well, as it turned out, a pretty good sized group of co-workers ended up at the same bar we were having dinner at for happy hour. So when my dinner buddies left, I joined the crowd for some more drinks. The motivation to shed some pre-wedding pounds vanished, but I stuck with Bacardi and Diet Coke, so at the calorie intake was somewhat limited.

I woke up Saturday morning, spent about half an hour enjoying the extreme comfort of my bed and plotting my day. I decided to get the carpet steaming out of the way first, workout second, and wrap up the day with some packing. As I headed to Safeway to rent a RugDoctor, I got a text from one my drinking buddies from the night before saying he was heading to the gym. I was tempted to shift my schedule, but decided that if I was to lose motivation mid-day, the carpet steaming was priority numero uno.

I had expected the steaming process to be a comedy of errors, but everything went off without a hitch. Even though I had a 24 hour rental window, I returned the RugDoctor immediately after, just in case the motivation waned as the day progressed.

On the way home, I called my old roommate, who lives about 20 minutes away to see if she and her dog could use a visitor. I hadn't seen her in ages and thought we could chat for an hour or two and I could go to the gym on the way home, leaving the packing for Sunday. Here's where my plans went way out the window. As it turns out, Maria is the only one of my friends who wanted to talk about wedding planning more than I. In fact, until yesterday, any wedding thoughts lasting longer than ten minutes stressed me way out. I have no idea how to start, where to start, and who to ask for help.

After five minutes of browsing through dresses on weddingchannel.com, we stumbled across a the site of a designer whose dresses were just my style. We got so excited that we found a bridal shop nearby who carries the entire Alfred Angelo line. After a quick shower to shave my legs and get feeling a little more bride-like, we were in the car.

I'll spare you the details of the four beautiful dresses I tried on, and leave it that I found a dress that I love. We went from the bridal shop to a sushi restaurant for a late lunch/early dinner and then to the liquor store for celebratory supplies. I arrived home around 9, had a couple glasses of wine, and was asleep at a decent hour.

Today, I managed to pack a few boxes and then get to the gym. With new found wedding dress motivation, I pushed myself to my limit. So much so that any thoughts of packing the rest of belongings vanished.

I find it disappointing that I don't feel that my weekend was productive when, in fact, I managed to get a lot accomplished. It's a bummer that, had I not set such high goals I would appreciate my productivity more. But the other side of that coin is that if I hadn't set those goals, far fewer items would have been crossed of my checklist.