I don’t know about you, but when I find myself with more free time than I thought I had, it’s awesome.  It’s like skipping class in college combined with finding free food at any point in my life.  Or at any point in my life that involved paying for my own food.  So the past eight years.

Tonight happens to be one of those nights.  My normal Thursday night commitment fell through (which is kind of sad, because I missed it for other reasons for the past few weeks).  I’m going to ignore the sad side of that and skip right to the happy.

I’ve been theoretically excited about Christmas 2010 since December 26, 2009.  It’s a season/day that I love.  But today is the first day that the perfect storm of holiday spirit has descended.  I have several free hours at my house with nothing scheduled, it’s December (and thus I’m allowed to be holiday spirit-ish), and there are probably at least six horrible Christmas movies on TV at one time.  Perfect storm.

While all of that bliss is going on, I’m also going to work on a new philosophy of mine.  Work is getting more stressful.  I thought it might just be a short-term trend, but I think it’s going to last.  It’s actually a good thing, since increased stress comes from increased responsibility and work load.  I like both of those things.

But what am I going to do about the stress?  I’m going to start running again so that stress-eating doesn’t turn me into a blimp, and I’m going to make a point of enjoying my free time even more.  I feel like I’ve earned free time when my work days are stressful.  My right eye is twitching as I type, and that’s okay.  In an hour and a half, I’ll be raising a warm mug of apple cider to a totally free evening.

This is that lucky time of life when I’m just responsible enough to be a full-fledged adult, and just irresponsible enough to have a night filled with absolutely nothing once in a while.  No homework, nothing gnawing away at me from my to do list.  I hope you’re enjoying whatever free time you find for yourself, too.  I know relaxation can be in short supply these days.