Yesterday my sweetie and I got up, showered, fed the cat, went out to breakfast, went grocery shopping, then came home and put on our PJs for the day.

We bumped up the heat in the house so it was comfortable and quite frankly, took the day off.

WOW. Did I need that.

This is not to say that I didn’t end up doing a smidgen of adulting mid-afternoon. I spent a little time answering email, doing some site maintenance, etc. I wrote in the morning, but that was fun, finishing off a short story. (Wrote 10 short stories in Nov/Dec, the shortest being about 2000, the longest about 14K.)

Mostly, I was offline. Read stories that I needed to for the Science Fiction workshop. Played games on my phone. Purred with the kitty. Cooked a little.

Like most indie publishers, or perhaps anyone who works for themselves, the work is never done. I generally work seven days a week. I’m not putting in eight hours on the publishing, but I’m always working on it. Or doing something about it.

Because we don’t have good internet here at the property, I end up having to go into town every day to use someone else’s WiFi. For someone who is as much of an introvert as me, that’s tiring. Then add in the holidays and that stress. Plus last week we socialized almost every day. And then the crazy hormones.

It’s a lot.

I now have a PJ day assigned every month through July. I really need to start taking more time off. For a while, I had “no business Fridays” but that didn’t ever really work. Quite frankly, taking off one day a week is too much. Particularly since I still end up taking days off because I don’t feel well. Or I work through them but I don’t get enough done and so I can’t afford to take another day off.

I’ll be traveling for the holidays, and there may be some days when I don’t do much in terms of the business. However, I’ll be socializing every day while I’m gone. That will be tiring.

This morning, I get back to the novel I put down weeks ago. I’m looking forward to getting back to a novel, having a longer story. Writer brain needed a bunch of short pieces though. Quick stories, quick wins. It’s been a good break, but now, my brain is looking forward to a longer story again.

What sorts of breaks do you have planned for the next year? Either short ones or long ones. We will have some camping trips, and maybe a few other things. As well as PJ Day!