I had the last two weeks off since I took an extra week from my vacation days and added that onto the company supplied week off. My plan was to do a combination of productive and lazy days and that’s exactly what I did.
On some days, I did adult things like clean my apartment, put stuff in storage, and fight the ants. On other days, I slept in until noon, ate food, and played video games well into the early morning. I got lots of sleep and there were days I wanted to get up early but my body just told me to keep sleeping until noon.
I also saw my parents and my niece quite a bit over the last two weeks which is so precious and special to me. My niece is three years-old now and I think she is finally understanding the concept of what an uncle is. The last two times I saw my niece, I helped her play with Play-Doh, which is her current focus in terms of play and toys.
I also tried making chicken piccata again. This is my favourite thing to order from Cheesecake Factory. A few years ago, I tried making this at home and I did not come very close to replicating it. It was terrible to be honest. This time around, I used a new recipe and it led to a huge improvement. It’s still not close to how Cheesecake Factory makes it but I got a lot closer. It’s easy to make and compared to some meal kit dinners, it’s much less complicated and takes less time. I’ll continue to refine my technique.
Alas, the break is now over and tomorrow is the first day back at work for the new year. Part of me regrets not taking another week off after the break, as some of my co-workers have done. My hope is that the first week back will be fairly low-key and low-stress as people like me who are returning are trying to shake off the cobwebs and some won’t be back yet. I can’t say I’m expecting myself to be too productive this week and I’m glad it’s a short week anyways.