I have not really had weekends off since junior high. All during high school, I had rehearsals on the weekends. In college, I worked weekends. When I was older, I had Mondays off when I was acting and weekends were my biggest money days as a vendor in the baseball stadiums. Even after moving to the South and becoming a full time writer, I never took weekends off because my husband was an actor and he had Mondays off, so I took my day off from writing then.

However, almost three months ago we started having Sunday Soup at our house. If you haven’t visited that blog, I’ll just summarize it quickly. Every Sunday we have an open house from 4pm-7pm and I make a pot of homemade soup and fresh bread. Anyone we know can just drop in, and they’re encouraged to bring new people. It’s been really fun. And it’s given me weekends for the first time in my life.

The way that happened is that Saturdays have become the day when I go to the farmer’s market and buy up fresh ingredients, browse recipes, tidy up my kitchen, and make the soup. Somehow this has become an all-day project. Then on Sunday, we tidy up the house, do weekly chores (laundry, etc.) and I make the bread and reheat the soup and then people come over. I often do extra cooking for the week on either day too, like granola or casseroles or whatever sounds good.

Now…how does this tie into writing? Well, I have never, ever been good at taking days off from writing. There have been times I have actually had to hand over my laptop to my husband to keep me on the straight and narrow. But suddenly I like this time off! It’s fun and this morning when I realized that even though I’m deep into my new revision project, it was my day off, it made me feel good! I think this will give my brain a rest and my writing ideas a chance to percolate each week. Okay…off to the market for some fresh spinach, green onions, and eggs. Drop by Sunday Soup tomorrow to find out what I do with these things!