I was thinking the other day about how a year and a half ago or so when I was doing freelance consulting from my house in exurbia and only working two and a half to three days a week, I used to shut down my computer on Thursday nights and pretty much, with a few exceptions, not start it back up again until Monday morning.

I know — what in the world did I do with all that time? Well, let me tell you. I baked. I did art projects with Quinn — and I mean some serious crafting which involved weekly trips to Michael’s. I took Quinn on outings. I cooked involved meals from scratch. I think I had Thor a bit frightened at times with my zest for fuzzy pompoms and pipecleaners — but it was fun.

I realized that I never do that anymore — oh, I still do art projects with Quinn from time to time (on a much more low-key scale and I haven’t been to a Michael’s in over a year) and we do at least one outing or more on weekends. The cooking and baking are another story. But what I mean is I never just tune out for the weekend. Even in Santa Cruz at the family beach house a couple weekends ago I was patiently checking my email with my father-in-law’s painfully slow Verizon EvDO.

So yesterday I tried something. I woke up, turned on my computer to check the weather and print the directions to the hiking spot where we were meeting Quinn’s pre-school class and teacher for a Sunday tadpole study and didn’t look at my computer again until this morning.

It was great. I may just try it again some time.