Just Because You Have a Basement...

This is a particularly glorious week.  You see, last week I finished the spring semester, and next week I start the summer semester, which means that I'm off this week.  Officially off.  Like, just barely checking email off, or stopping by the office only once to sign some paperwork off, or not seeing any students, or teaching any classes, or grading any kind of anything off.

Let me say it again: it's glorious.

And, since I'm eternally ambitious, I decided to use the week to paint our basement, which, in retrospect, is a terrible way to spend your one week off when you're weary from the prior 16 weeks that have been entirely on.  It's like going out for a run after you've finished a marathon.

Right as I was putting my sixth grade algebra to good use by calculating the area of our basement ceiling and deciding how many gallons of paint to buy from Lowes, I spoke out loud, as if my heart knew something my mind hadn't grasped yet.

"You know, I don't want to paint the basement." 

My husband looked at me as if I were returning to the land of common sense and reasonable judgment.  "Good," he said.  "Just because we have a basement doesn't mean you have to paint it during your one week off."

Just because you have a basement doesn't mean you have to paint it.

Oh people, I've never been so happy to not paint a basement than I've been during this week of non-basement painting.  These past few days, instead of taping baseboards, I've read books and magazines.  Instead of spreading drop clothes, I've taken walks.  Instead of using my one-and-a-half inch angled brush to cut in edges, I've done little projects -- fun ones -- around the house that I've neglected over the past few months.

Instead of going, going, going, and doing, doing, doing, I've occasionally planted myself on my front porch and just stayed planted.  Because I could.  Because nothing else, not even a basement that's waiting to be painted, was truly vying for my attention.

Just because you have a basement doesn't mean you have to paint it, after all.