I took a couple of days off last week to try and get caught up on some of the work around the house and some of the quiet time that my mind so badly needed. Of course, my idea of 'quiet time' involves hammering, sawing, tilling, grinding and other such activities.

With the responsibilities that I have taken on for myself and the other things that I end up doing, sometimes I find it hard to do the things I want to do for myself. Of course, my penchant for long- windedness in social situations and my inability to say 'no' can both contribute to the situation. I can go to the store for a gallon of milk and end up spending an hour there talking to people and end up agreeing to do two or three things if I'm not careful.

It's also true that no matter how much I do, I also keep on adding more things to the list as I go. It's true: no matter how much I accomplish, I can always find more things that need to be done. It's a good thing that I usually enjoy the process.

I have a good friend who works on a loading dock, generally engaged in more physical pursuits, while my job mostly consists of thinking and communicating. I tell people that the hardest things I have to do physically at work are wiggling my fingers and walking up the stairs to get to my office.

I've always said that those in the office stare out the window, longing to spend their time in the sun. Those working outside stare back inside, yearning for an air conditioned office. I've tried both kinds of work and both definitely have their positives, as well as their negatives. Both also require different forms of conditioning.

The kind of work I do now requires computer skills, thinking and planning ahead, researching issues, communicating and building relationships with people. You also have to learn to have thick skin, but not the kind that forms callouses.

Meanwhile, working with the body also requires some training of a different sort. Those who work at lifting and carrying every day have bodies that are accustomed to doing that sort of work.

I've managed to remind myself yet again that the physical conditioning cannot be taken lightly. After about three straight days of hard labor in the hot sun, I have a newfound appreciation for the difficulties of working outside. I also have a darker complexion. As a younger man, I worked in a few construction-type jobs that required lots of physical labor, sometimes in the sun. As time passed, I grew more accustomed to that sort of work and to being outside in all kinds of weather. I hardly noticed the work on most days and didn't usually get sunburned after I had acquired my summer tan. These days, a little bit of that kind of work wears me out and when I get a few days off and take off my shirt to work in the sun,

I'm white enough to almost glow. As you can imagine, with skin more fit for cave dwelling than sun bathing, it's hard not to get burned. We won't even talk about my physique.

I also learned a new definition for the word 'heavy.' I told my friend that heavy is a subjective word that can have many meanings. For instance, a person looking at a rock the size of his or her hand might compare that to a gravel and call it heavy.

However, my friend gave me three truckloads of large stones and, with each progressive load, I reinforced my new understanding of the word heavy. We each lifted large stones by ourselves, but the really big ones we lifted together. Some weighed in excess of 300 pounds, in my estimation. I must admit that I haven't weighed any of them in a formal fashion, but some of them felt like they may have weighed even more.

There were at least four stones that were so heavy that I wasn't sure the two of us were going to be able to hoist them up onto the truck. Amazingly, I lifted (or helped lift) all three loads and didn't come away with a backache (or worse).

I now hope to stack all those rocks on the bank around my house and not have to trim and mow there every week.

As a case in point for the need to do this work, I hadn't mowed one section of the bank behind the house this year, which made it seem nearly impossible to push a lawnmower through. Besides, my mower had been broken all year and I hadn't had the time to sit down and actually work on it. I also took machine maintenance on during my time off, tuning and working on all my equipment for summer. The push mower was going strong after a new plug, fresh fuel, an oil change, lubrication and other tweaks. It was going fine at least until the handle broke and I had to stop and rig it back together before I could start up again. After mowing the banks in the hot sun, I felt like I might suffer heat stroke. My face was red, my breath was puffing and I was pretty tired. Then I realized what a few years of finger wiggling will get you conditioned for—more finger wiggling.

Nonetheless, I still like the feeling I get when I can check off a job that has been on the list for a long time. Another such task was the ceiling in my bedroom, which I started on earlier this year. It consists of rectangular drop-ceiling tiles, each of which must be cut to fit and put in place carefully lest they break. The tiles are very brittle and the old ceiling usually has unmentionable mouse memories, fiberglas insulation and dust all over the top, which of course dumps on whomever removes them. I managed to get that job done in about half a day and hauled away the old ceiling and some garbage to the dump—it was only the first of two big loads that went and I already have another started on the way to my goal of taking the junk out of my yard (as in junkyard).

Other projects I completed included burning a brush pile, mowing the grass, working on my bee equipment, fixing a few things around the house, tilling part of the garden, flying a kite and cleaning out the kiddie pool. It may not sound important to others, but around the house, it was high priority.

In looking back, the time off passed so quickly that I can barely remember everything that I did. But I can easily look around my house and see all the things I didn't do. Such is life, I suppose. At least that'll be a good reason to try and take more time off—as if I needed a reason to want to stay home and mess around.

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