Oh the Guilt of a Non-Productive, Lazy Saturday...

Yesterday was a typical 10+ hour work day with the painful exception of a 10-hour-long headache; a rarity for me. I declined a dinner invitation—to one of my favorite restaurants with one of my favorite people that normally I would have happily accepted—because the thought of the noise level at the restaurant was stomach churning.

My son has a sore throat, my daughter left for a spring break trip to Europe congested, and her boyfriend is under the weather too. So I'm not totally surprised to have some symptom from this illness that's running through my house, even though I wouldn't have guessed it would be a temple-pounding headache.

Image courtesy of  EA at FreeDigitalPhotos.net

Today the headache is peeking around the edges and flirting—not quite here and not quite gone. This particular Saturday is a rare day of sleeping as late as the beagle who wants her breakfast would allow,  not working out, hanging out in my pjs, and catching up on some nonprofit tasks and emails. But mostly today is about being lazy—casual social media reading/posting for me and for work, reading a book, coloring on my iPhone coloring app, and drinking iced tea.

And, I feel guilty. The kind of playing hooky guilty you used to feel when you cut class in high school. All of the things I could be / should be doing are calling my name: clean me, load me, wash me, fold me, put me away, shop for me, fill me, cook me, write me.... 

It's 12:45 pm and I haven't left the house, haven't gotten dressed, haven't loaded the dishwasher, haven't run errands...haven't, haven't, haven't. All of those shoulds are calling, but I've put my figurative fingers in my ears and I'm humming to drown them out.

Being who I am, I did some google research to try and beat the guilt at its own game. I found some excellent guilt-reducing articles and blog posts: In Defense of Laziness, Reducing Your Guilt About Not Being Productive, and my new favorite article on wikiHow, How to Enjoy a Lazy Day, with yes, steps and photos, so I'm feeling marginally better about my non-productivity.

When do you draw the line? Do you have to be ill to allow yourself to take some time off and do nothing? How about a "Get out of a productive Saturday for free card?
Here's one you can use when you need a guilt-free day off.

I'm using mine today. :-)