Sunday.  Lazy Sunday.  My chosen day to hang out in my pajamas, should I so desire, and sip coffee.  Brutus, the laptop, is parked on a ceramic cutting board that I’ve balanced on my legs as I sit cross-legged with CBS Sunday Morning playing in the background.  Words swirling slowly, for now, in my head, forming ideas, thoughts, possibilities.  Also, wishing I could get out on my bicycle.

I happen to live in an area where I can make a circuitous route on my cycle without crossing a highway for 19 miles.  The roads I can access also aren’t terribly busy except Thursday through Sunday when it’s canoe and kayak season on the Wisconsin River.  My bike?  A hybrid cycle my parents got me for Christmas twenty-one years ago when I was sixteen.  It still works.  I’ve changed out the seat a few times, need different handlebars and I probably need to take it in to get properly fitted.  But then I think how what I mostly do is road cycling and seldom go off pavement – so perhaps I should start to look for an actual road bike that is properly geared for road cycling so I can ride further in faster time.  I doubt that purchasing a new road bike will happen any time soon, but the seed has been planted.

The #reality of #seasonal #allergies. Mountain of tissues.

My road cycling, however, takes a backseat to allergies; it’s hard to ride bike and blow your nose at the same time… for the entire ride.  Rather than beat that dead horse again (I’ve talked about allergies many times before), I’ll take a slightly different tack.  I was rarely plagued by seasonal allergies until about six years ago.  Incidentally, that was about the same time I started exhibit the symptoms of Celiac Disease.  The two are probably tied together, however, this year has been particularly bad.  In the past few years, where I have dealt with feeling miserable for a few weeks at most, I have been hit with repeated salvos from the early spring through now, which starting late last week was: ragweed.  This year has been one of the worst on record for allergy sufferers in the state, so at least I’m not alone in my irritation.  I can only hope that the ragweed season doesn’t last as long as predicted.  So for today, no bike ride as I wait for my super-heavy duty allergy meds to kick in; that means relaxing.

I knew when I started to work full time again that I would need down time.  I’d spent most waking hours alone, keeping house and yard and able to spend hours of time writing; in between, I worked part time.  However, life happened.  Vacations were desired, along with a new washing machine, new tires for the one car, some landscaping work, some plumbing and heating work and padding the bank accounts.  The best course of action was to give up some personal comfort for long-term comfort, this does, however, mean that I need time set aside to relax.

So, my Sundays are now my relaxation day.  Coffee, pajamas, television, writing.  Oh, and one cat who is parking his face at the fan output of the laptop.  He needs to relax, too.

How do you spend your Sundays?

What is your favorite way to relax?