Fridays Are All About Me

I love Fridays. When signing my current long-ish term consulting contract with the Big International Corporation, one of my conditions was that I would only work Monday through Thursday. Fridays are my day, a time for jewelry making, cooking, photography, emails, writing, errands, lunching with friends, cocktails, sleep or whatever else strikes my fancy.

Today I made a Brazilian-style carrot cake covered with homemade chocolate ganache, did some verandah gardening (my poor ficus trees had such a bad scale infestation that the only way of saving them was to cut off all the leaves and green stems), played with the cats, updated my jewelry spreadsheet and addressed some wedding invitations.

I always forget exactly how much effort it takes to do calligraphy en masse. I did the calligraphy for my mom's wedding invitations several years ago, and I vaugely remember it being a lot of work, but nothing like the mammoth task that addressing our own wedding invitations has proven to be. Granted, we have a reasonably long guest list (150 invites going out), but it's been a seemingly endless endeavour. I have to admit, though, that the hand cramps and shaky forearm are well worth it for the satisfaction of seeing a stack of envelopes with beautiful calligraphy on the outside!

Speaking of things wedding-related, Rico and I have semi-started our campaign to get in shape by July. We're playing squash several times a week with our friends A. and M., who conveniently have a squash court at their residential complex. Rico is unbelievably, disgustingly good at squash. He used to play all the time with his friend Chocolate, who is going to be our best man, and despite the fact that he's been off the courts for a while, it shows that he used to play regularly in the past. The rest of us play decently well, including me (total and utter shock), becuase I tend to suck at all sports.

I actually really like squash, to the point where I find myself looking forward to playing. The only other time this has happened to me, where I look forward to serious exercise, is with dance classes (Nia, cardio salsa). It's so nice to finally have found a sport that I can play with Rico and other friends, get a great workout, and have it be a social event in the process.

I've just had a piece of carrot cake (okay, the diet bit of "let's get in shape for the wedding" has yet to seriously kick in) and am off to play some squash and then have a beer with A., M. and Rico, followed by a barbeque at Jenny's house.

Looks like a fine start to the weekend.

Happy Friday, everyone!