Working For The Weekend?

Is it wrong that in my day-to-day, working full time, I feel like I only live for the weekends? By the time I get up, work until 5 every day, two evenings I go to boot camp after work, get dinner made for anywhere from 2-7 people, fulfill a couple of random cleaning tasks (a load of laundry, unload the dishwasher, vacuum) I feel I’ve just run myself into the ground. I’m exhausted. I can’t wait to get into bed so I can get up and start the same routine over the next day.

As Monday progresses into Friday, I swear my bed time gets earlier and my random cleaning tasks start to dwindle and I get less done. By Thursday night, I’m pretty much worthless and it’s easy for me to crawl in bed before it’s even dark out yet.

Then comes Friday! I always wake up with my feet moving before they even hit the ground. I’m ready to tackle the day and get through it as quickly as possible so I can get home, we can load the car, and head down to our lake condo getaway. We don’t do anything much different at the condo than we do at home. I still have similar tasks, but instead of sitting for 8 fun-filled hours in the office, I get to spend most of those hours at the pool or on the lake. We are in the habit of staying up later at the lake usually because we have friends or family from out of town staying with us, or we visit with our neighbors, so by the time we get home to start the work week over again I’m already starting off at a deficit.

I’m not sure when living for the weekend became the norm, but I yearn for the days of living life for each day. I miss catching up with my circle of friends, having meaningful conversations and lots of laughs. I miss not having the time to experience new things and meeting new people. You can’t fit it all in on the weekend. Or is it enough? When the job gets in the way of life and makes it more mundane, it’s time to re-think priorities.

Cheers to re-thinking! Comment below and let me know what you’ve had to re-think.

Staycation at Lake of the Ozarks, Missouri

For the Independence Day holiday, we managed a staycation to our condo at The Lake of the Ozarks. We headed down on Tuesday evening, with two of the kids, hubby’s mother, Grandma Marge, and our friend Captain Bill. Since we knew we would be staying through the weekend, we even brought the kittens. (Don’t let their angelic faces fool you!)

Kiki and Mia

Tuesday night was pretty low key with H Que BBQ take-out for dinner and swimming at the pool. After dinner, we all gathered on the pool deck to watch the fireworks that were being shot from Beaver’s at the Dam. It was a nice show that they put on.

The next morning, we all headed back to the pool since it was really too hot to do much else. Midday, hubby, Capt. Bill, and the kids headed down to the wave runners to test out the new tube we had brought down. After some vigorous attempts, they decided to call the tubing excursion a “learning experience” and wrapped it up. We then headed up to the Bagnell Dam strip for a little shopping, ice cream, and sight-seeing.

Grandmas Candy Kitchen
Fun on the strip

The day on the strip would not have been complete without a little fun at the Dogpatch Arcade and the kids trying their hands at Skee-ball. Needless to say, they didn’t win a pile of tickets for their efforts. Maybe next time.

That evening’s fireworks display was put on by Point Randall Resort. Hubby grilled kabobs for dinner and we were able to watch the show right from our deck.

The next day, we took the wave runners out and headed out for some lake sight-seeing. It turned out to be so hot, that we found a spot in a quiet cove and jumped off the wave runners for some swimming time. The water was still cool enough to be refreshing, so it was a good swim.

coved out

That evening we headed over to Dog Days for dinner. They almost always have live music, there are two swimming pools (one has a swim up bar which is reminiscent of an All Inclusive resort), and the food is really good. I had a Korean Beef bowl that was really tasty and not something I find on a lot of menus.

dinner at Dog Days

The following day was the day that the kids and hubby’s mom were headed home. That evening we ran over to Shady Gator’s to see one of my favorite bands, Dr. Zhivegas, perform. He’s considered to be one of the top St. Louis cover bands, but I consider him to be a funky master of multiple decades of rock and pop. He did not disappoint. It did not take long before we were dancing until we were sweating!

Dr Zhivegas rockin Shady Gators

This was our last full day at the Lake of the Ozarks. We hopped on the wave runners and headed up to one of our new favorites, The Boathouse. They are a lakeside and poolside restaurant that is known for their pizzas, but have a lot of other options on the menu as well. We gave the pizza a try and it was incredible! Now if we could just figure out how to carry-out on the wave runner.

pizza at The Boathouse

Above all else, we had a fun vacay experience just an hour away from home. There is so much to do at the Lake and we have just gotten started experiencing it all. Looks like we even exhausted Kiki during our few days there!

Kiki getting some sun