Sometimes we need to remember to take care of ourselves for once

Last week as I left work on Friday, I told my co-workers that I was going to head home and sleep the whole weekend.
My son had battled the flu all week and though I wasn't in as bad shape as he was I was feeling very run down and drained.
I said I was going to spend my weekend sleeping knowing that wouldn't happen, but I had every intention of taking it easy, relaxing and recuperating.
Unfortunately I do not have a mind that works like that. We had been out of town most of the weekend before, so I had most of two weeks worth of laundry to catch up on. Usually going up and down the stairs to the utility room doing laundry is barely even noticeable, but doing it while not feeling well made it feel like I was climbing the stairs of the Empire State Building. That in its self should have told me something, I should have slowed down and taken a break. But, that’s not how I work, so I did all sorts of laundry including washing all of the bedding in the house, because I’m weird about having clean bedding and wash and change my sheets every Sunday and the comforters and rest of the bedding every other Sunday no matter what.
I also proceeded to rearrange furniture in one of the rooms of my house, we moved last month and I am still deciding where I want everything, and move a bunch of my kitchen cabinets around again. Then don’t forget about the boxes I pulled up from the storage room in the basement and went through to decide what stays and what was to get tossed.
I meal prepped lunches for during the week and prepared snacks for my son’s lunches.
The next thing I knew evening was fading away on Sunday and it was time to get my son bathed and ready for the next school week and I wanted to cry in a way.
“Where did the weekend go,” I asked my husband.
“You spent the whole thing doing laundry,” was his reply.
How did that happen, I’d had every intention of resting and recuperating during my weekend and now here I was facing another busy work week, maybe even busier, because in addition to putting out two papers we also have a Visitor’s Guide to publish and I hadn’t rested at all.
This is something I get after my aunts and my mom friends for often when we do take the time to ourselves for a visit. They need to make time to take care of themselves.
I need to heed my own advice and learn to take time for myself as well. Sometimes as working parents we get so caught up in making up for our time away from the house and children that we let our own well being and peace of mind left unattended to.
This weekend I might not spend the whole thing sleeping, but I am going to spend a good chunk of it relaxing and enjoying family time. This weekend I am going to make a point of recuperating after a long week.