This so the officially temporary Gracelesscurran Guide to Having a Peaceful Saturday.

Wake up time is 6. But you must stay in bed, dozing and having strange dreams until 7. During that time, your wonderful husband will feed the dogs and toss them out long enough to get them to do something. Which means when you finally emerge from your sleep cave, you have two fewer responsibilities than were originally expected to be done.

Then, the wonderful husband leaves for camping with scouts which means you have the house and the remote control to yourself. And, yes, I love my husband. I also love having the remote control.

So, you brew a massive mug of coffee. Curl up in your favorite comfy chair, decide not to read the headlines, and instead turn on The Walk on Netflix because it’s a movie with a happy ending that you already know how it ends because it’s based on a historical event that you’ve already read about.

But wait. You are also playing silly games on your phone because you know how the movie ends but it’s still making you a little nervous because it is an emotional movie with an emotional soundtrack. But the games go smoothly as you kill fruit with your chainsaw and turn their bits and pieces into juice and smoothies and jam. But it’s okay. White dot people buy the massacred processed fruit and it’s just ridiculous.

Play this game for about an hour. And then go outside to do the outdoor chores. But then you notice how gorgeous the day is. How alluring the morning is.

So you finish your chores. And then you go upstairs to the Game Room where you gather your crafty projects and paints and brushes and a Harry Potter Lego set and go outside to the patio table.

But anxiety from the day before has made you downright jittery. You have talked with people about issues and have been given viable solutions but you still feel overwhelmed and anxious and your chest feels like concrete.

And you remember the recent lessons about the Vague nerve and the importance of easing tension centered in that nerve. Because logical and rational thinking eases the brain but the body is still in flight mode.

You remember the deep breathing exercises. The deep sense of satisfaction radiating from your diaphragm. So you stand on your deck and face the sun and do your version of yoga sun salutations. And the anxiety sieves through your skin as the sun warms your body and your muscles ease. The fears diminish. The anxieties and stressors flee.

So you settle at your table and pull out the crafts you are painting for your friends for Christmas. You are doing this to teach your perfectionist brain that thrusts steel hooks into unrealistic expectations that mistakes are not catastrophic and most likely can be repaired. And that your friends love you enough that they will not notice or will overlook the mistakes.

So you sweep paint across the crafts. Maroon red. Iridescent white. Gravelly gray highlighted by a pale slate blue. Greens blend into one another and the mistakes are made. The edges are rough and the paint splattering.

But you have found a podcast of a preacher you like. And it’s been five years since you were in church because of the political invasions into the pulpit. And you miss church. You miss learning about your faith. You is those moment s when the banal and terrestrial become ethereal.

And today, you feel like God has spoken to you because the first sermon you listen to is about anxiety and stress and finding peace within faith.

So you paint through one sermon and then another.

And the sun rises higher and the sunlight floods across the deck and your dogs sprawl across their pillows or migrate into shadows when they overheat.

But then you bore with painting so you pop the tape on the Harry Potter set and open the first bag. And you build the Ministry of Magic. The floo powder chimney and the telephone booth.

You are deep within memories that are not painful. You are living in sunshine. You are living in peace.

You eat an early lunch. You return to painting. After three sermons, you shift to a podcast book discussion of Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The dogs travel around the deck.

And then your phone rings and it’s your oldest child. And you chat. Not talk. Chat. You chat about recent life events. You chat about frustrations and situations and sun salutations and the dogs and painting and Legos. You talk about the future and the present and time slips and the sun moves past its zenith and the wind flits autumnal leaves onto your table.

But wait. Paintings is getting boring again. So it’s back to Legos. It’s time for afternoon chores. It’s time to hang up with your oldest child and finish another bag of Legos.

It’s time to feed the dogs. Rotate the laundry. Eat dinner and the last two of your white chocolate macadamia nut cookies. It’s time to turn on silly television (Taskmaster) and ignore it while you write.

You were thinking of starting your next novel . But the computer won’t connect to the internet and you want to play more silly games and the evening is approaching.

Time to write. While tucked in your favorite comfy chair. And then a shower followed by cozy Jammie’s and silly games. And then to bed to be bookended by the dogs. And so ends a wonderful, peaceful Saturday.