Joe’s Definition of a Lazy and a Relaxing Day:

I’m not sure I know how to spend a day being lazy. How do you define a lazy day? Is it a day that you do nothing, or simply put, get nothing meaningful accomplished? Or is it a day that you “choose” to do nothing? You plan to do nothing. Perhaps it’s a day when you have nothing to do.

So, a day that you do nothing, to me, means that you lie in bed all day, cozy under the covers and don’t move. That is literally doing nothing.

But a day when you choose to do nothing is a day that you choose to lay in bed under the covers and not move. But the fact that you choose to do nothing but lie in bed all day is doing something. When you choose or plan to do nothing you are really doing something. You are doing nothing.

This esoteric debate can numb the mind. A lazy day to me is a day when you have few tasks that result in genuine accomplishments. A lazy day is when you have no chores to do, no job to accomplish, nothing on an agenda, no plan from hour to hour. That is very difficult for me. I am of the twitchy tireless type that thrives on always tending to tasks. I need to be on the move, and I am one of those people who will brand a day as lazy if I accomplish only a few things as opposed to nothing at all.

So, for example, it’s a Saturday in the summertime. I wake up, read, head to the gym, make breakfast when I get home, read some more, and maybe do a little yard work before it gets too hot. At about 2pm I head to the pool with a few cold beers, crash on the chaise, soak up some rays, and scroll through some Spotify playlists for a few hours. When the beer is gone, I head home to change, take a quick dash to Kroger for some food, return to the house about 5ish, start a BBQ, a few more cold beers, eat, watch TV and bed. That is a lazy day.

Perhaps it’s a Sunday in the winter. I wake up, read, shower, head to my home office, do some bills, update the checking accounts, watch a few YouTube videos, usually self-help or music videos, sometimes a variety of entertainment videos of people screwing something up at work, and then head back upstairs at about noonish. I might start some laundry, put the football game on and fold clothes while I watch the game. At 4 I’ll head to Kroger to get some food, return home to cook dinner, have a few cold beers, eat, watch TV and bed. That’s a lazy day too.

My lazy day is never having “nothing” to do. I have a hard time being idle and I feel like a loser if I don’t get at least one or two things accomplished. I’m not sure if I marvel at someone who can plant their arse in front of a TV and watch sports all day long or look at that person with disdain. Perhaps it’s a little of both.

So, my next question is, is a lazy day the same as a relaxing day? What is a relaxing day? A relaxing day is doing something that brings peace of mind “and” getting something accomplished. A day doing woodworking or potting plants or working in the yard on something is a relaxing day. Cleaning my closet and armoire is relaxing.

My favorite kind of relaxing day is a cooking blitz. This is a day I will be in the kitchen for hours making ready to eat meals that go in the freezer to re-heat on a weeknight. Cooking blitzes are fun for me and spending a day cooking between three and five different meals is relaxing.

The cooking blitz is planned when I notice the supply of food in the freezers is running low. When there is no more frozen spaghetti sauce or chili is generally a trigger. Planning the blitz will start in a moment of daydreaming at work, usually on Tuesday or Wednesday. My mind cooks up a menu. I’ll begin a written list in my planner. Chicken Kyiv, Cordon Bleu, Marsala, Chili, Meatballs, Stuffed Shells and so on.

I’ll let the list marinate in my head for a day or two and on Friday I whittle the long list down to four or five meals. Then the ingredient list begins. I’ll run through the preparation of each meal in my head and list everything I need to bring the meal to life. On Saturday afternoon I head to Kroger and buy my ingredients. I love food shopping, and I love prepping meals and cooking.

Now the actual preparation is usually on a Sunday. It usually starts at about 1pm. In the winter I’ll have a football game on as a background and in the summer, it is usually a Spotify play list booming through the sound bar and TV speakers in the background. It is time to start!

The ingredients are laid out on the countertop and organized by meal. What do I start first? That gets resolved by how long it will take to prepare and cook. If it has a long oven cook time that meal goes first, this way I can start the prep of the next meal while the first one is in the oven. Stuffed shells or Lasagna would be a meal I start with. They have a long prep time, and a long oven cook time. And from there I roll into the next meal and the next meal until I am finished.

As some of the meals finish cooking, I might set them to the side to cool and once they are cooled, I’ll prepare them for freezing and storage. As in any Italian kitchen, plastic storage and tubber ware type containers are abundant. There is never a question of how I am going to store any food. Just the right size container is selected from the various round, oval and square shapes available to me. The lids are always attached to the containers so there is never any hunting for the right lid and of course there is the blue painter’s tape and Sharpie pen to make sure everything is labeled. I also make sure I put the quantity on the labels so we know how many people this meal will feed.

It’s a process for sure and it sounds like a lot of work. It is but I enjoy it, and it is my way of relaxing.