Ten for Tuesday: How to Have a Perfect Weekend

This past weekend was so excellent for so many reasons. I feel like it was the first "real" weekend I've had in a long time, and it was much needed.

My job requires me to work weekends a lot without time off during the week to make up for it, and the weekend before this one was one of those times. That means that Friday was my 12th day of work in a row without a day off. It's rough, but it made this weekend seem even more special because instead of working I got to spend the entire weekend with Drew and had plenty of time to enjoy myself and relax.

This weekend was so good, in fact, that I think it may qualify as a perfect weekend. In case you're looking forward to the weekend already (I know I am) and need some suggestions for what to do, I offer you my steps for the perfect weekend.

Ten Steps to a Perfect Weekend

1. Have the weekend off of work. This is key, seeing as you'll need plenty of time to devote to everything on this list. If you're working you won't have much, if any, time to complete any of the following steps, which is a major bummer.

2. Spend lots of time with your significant other. Or your family or pet or best friend. Whoever you wish you could spend more time with, see that person this weekend and have fun together. Our activities of choice over the weekend included running errands, renting "Bridesmaids" and sleeping in late on Saturday. All excellent choices for quality time with the husband.

3. Run 5 miles. Spend the rest of the day feeling like a badass. Also feel sore and starving. But mostly feel like a badass.

4. Make delicious s'mores cookies. I have an "official" review of the recipe for these cookies planned for tomorrow, but for now you'll have to take my word that these cookies are awesome. So awesome that I ate about 15 of them within two days.

5. Enjoy dinner with friends. On Saturday night Drew and I went out to dinner in Owosso with our friends John and Carolyn. We ate at the always-delicious Wrought Iron Grill which was, naturally, delicious.

I enjoyed a beer whose name I've already forgotten and dominated my crab-stuffed fish entree (remember, running five miles makes you super hungry). We all had an awesome time catching up and are already planning our next "grill" night for the Red Cedar Grill in Williamston.

6. Attempt, and totally fail, the Pinterest Challenge. You may remember that I participated in Round 1 of the Pinterest Challenge a few months ago to make a belt for my wedding shower.

This belt is all squashed and weird looking now, but I totally wear it all the time anyways. Whatever.

Well, Sherry posted a new challenge to Young House Love last week, and I gladly accepted the challenge.

My attempt to create something along the lines of this cookie sheet magnet board, however, backfired horribly.

From Pinterest, via.

I'm going to attempt to salvage my monstrosity sometime this week, but for now I just have a plain & ugly cookie sheet sitting in our living room to remind me of my failure. Sigh...

7. Stay in your pajamas as much as possible. Seriously, is there any clothing more comfortable than pajamas? If I could wear leggings and a sweatshirt all day, every day I totally I would. Jeans are so overrated.

8. Make a tasty breakfast. After sleeping in til almost noon on Saturday, Drew and I had an excellent big breakfast together. I got up first and got to work on preparing bacon and scrambled eggs with cheese, peppers and onion. Delicious.

9. Clean your apartment. Okay, cleaning isn't really all that fun, but I love having a nice-looking apartment as a result. Especially when we know we're going to have company.

Our apartment is small-ish and has basically no storage space, so organizing our apartment requires some creativity.

But, luckily for us, our lease is up at the end of November, and yesterday we signed an application for a new apartment with two bedrooms and extra storage space in the building's basement. The trade off? A much smaller bathroom and no laundry in our unit, but it will totally be worth it for cheaper rent, more space AND the ability to paint the walls!

Our new apartment will be in Swartz Creek, about 20 minutes from where we live now and much closer to civilization (the mall, Target, other retail establishments that make me happy...). It's going to be awesome!

10. Relax. Take it easy (Mika, anyone? No? Okay.).

Seriously, getting to sleep in and take my time changing into real clothes and just be able to sit around is amazing. I love weekends like this where Drew and I can just lounge around together. Except for our honeymoon, I don't know when the last time we had a couple days to just sit around together happened.

Wedding planning pretty much consumed all of our free time the last few months, so it was nice to just be able to enjoy each other's company without having to worry about getting a crazy to-do list completed. We definitely accomplished a lot this weekend, but I never felt rushed or busy. It was glorious.

What are your steps to a perfect weekend? What are your plans for this weekend?