responsible procrastination

I've begun to realize that, as an unemployed mom, I've kind of taken on a different persona than I had as an employed one. My new persona is kind of lazy.

When I was working, I didn't procrastinate. I couldn't afford to. If I didn't do something right away, or in the time I'd allotted to it, it wouldn't get done. I couldn't put it off until later because later, there would be no time to do it. Being home all the time, I do actually have time to get things done later. The problem is that I'm not very disciplined in my procrastination. I say I'll do something later, then I never get around to doing it.

When I was working, I had time scheduled to exercise, to read a book, to read blogs, etc. Being home, I just assume that I'll eventually do one of those things when I feel like it. Nate works his hardest to make sure that I don't get to do those things. When I was newly unemployed, we were still getting up pretty early in the mornings, and we would take long walks to get some exercise. We haven't done that in a long, long time. Also, we sleep much later these days. Even Nate sleeps later.

I used to plan our menu for a week at a time, use that to buy groceries, and cook 3 times each week. I don't know how often I cook now. I cook when we have no leftovers left. I don't always know what I'm going to cook when I buy groceries. Our menu for next week is thus: something with chicken, leftovers of chicken, something with beef, leftovers of beef, thaw some chicken tortilla soup on a cold day, maybe pizza. Nice, eh?

At least I am keeping up with our chores calendar/schedule. I definitely feel like I'm being lazy, though. One thing that will help me to feel like I'm not lazy will be to initiate a "get up" time, rather than sleeping as late as Nate will let me. I'm ok with having a looser schedule since I have nowhere to be most days of the week. However, I will feel more productive, and probably be more productive, if I have some kind of daily schedule.

Also, when I say I'll do something later, I will actually have an intended time when I will do this thing. I'll call it responsible procrastionation.