Bonus Day

I dubbed Sunday Bonus Day - not that it was unexpected or extra, in the true sense of the word; rather, because I had absolutely nothing official on my calendar.  Saturday was almost as 'bonus', as there was only one must-attend engagement that day - the Santa Claus Parade.

The weekend previous had been the exact opposite with three or four commitments on both days.  With Heather out of town, I did my best to keep up with the various chores that needed to get done, but it felt like  a losing battle.

I am a self-declared creature of habit and gain strength from doing the mundane, regular, routine things that free time allows.  Doing laundry, as an example, is an activity that I enjoy doing - sorting huge heaps of clothes into piles of lights, darks and brights.  I have a very specific method that drives me to the end goal which is to have four baskets full of nicely folded pants, shirts, socks and various underthings, ready to be delivered to each bedroom by the end of the weekend.

Sorted by colour, I fold  the clothes on top of the front loading washing machine and place them in the basket of the family member to which it belongs.  Thankfully, we have four distinct baskets, each of which belongs to each person.  As one dryer load is fully folded and put away, the load in the washer goes into the dryer, and a new load goes into the washer - repeat until complete.

I'm also one of those guys who keeps track of my personal banking.  Subsequently, I always feel better after going through my accounts, updating my digital ledger, and balancing the books.  I'll spend hours trying to track down the source of an imbalance, going between the online report from the bank and my Quicken program till the missing item (or items) is found.

I end up going to the grocery store lots throughout the week, buying little bits at a time - whatever fits into one of those small fold-able grocery bag/boxes.  But, always thinking ahead, yesterday I tried to calculate what we absolutely needed to make it through the week ahead.  There is always a chance that getting to the grocery store could prove difficult with a heavy schedule.  So, instead of one grocery bag/box, we loaded up several and filled up the fridge.

Bonus Day was also great for catching up on some reading.  I'm intent to get through Sanjay Patel's The Future of Oil in advance of his book launch event on December 7th.  I suspect that it's not going to take me that long at all as the pages are flipping by rather quickly.  My iPhone was at the ready as I went from page to page, as I kept running into interesting factoids that deserved to be tweeted out.  There is a lot of information and misinformation about oil sands floating out in the world. In writing this book, Sanjay, an engineer working at Suncor Energy, focused on providing a straight story about the industry, its strategic importance to the global energy picture, and the facts, both about where we've come from and where we're going to in the coming decades.  Frankly, The Future of Oil should be mandatory reading for people living and working in this region.  It puts into context what it means to be living next to the "single largest industrial project in the history of mankind."

I write this blog early in the morning in my little office space that doubles as a walk-in closet next to our bedroom.  When life gets busy, this small working space gets painfully cluttered and disorganized.  Bonus Day gifted me the time to bring order to the chaos.  Everything is in the exact right spot starting out on Monday morning - nothing pleases me more.

Have a great week, and may the order and balance you achieved on your weekend flow into and through the days ahead.