I felt rebellious yesterday. I knew I ought to work, but I didn’t feel like it, so I didn’t. My husband will be coming home today from the fleshpots of Las Vegas (I bet they really have fleshpots there, whatever fleshpots are), so yesterday was, in addition to being Saturday, probably the last perfect opportunity for unlimited lolling about in a quiet house reading.

“Unlimited” is the key here, because if you live with other people, you can certainly lie on the sofa with a novel in the silence for a little while, but there is always the awareness that at some point you will have to get up, feed someone, let them watch TV, stuff like that.

I did watch TV for a while as I worked on the two-piece dress for my SWAP. The top is finished, and the skirt needs a hem and zipper but is otherwise finished.

I continued watching Kitchen Nightmares, and continued thinking about my business. On the one hand, I have a nice little business which is growing at a reasonable rate and which provides pleasant employment for me and for #1 daughter.

On the other hand, as long as you have a service business with one person providing the service, the limit to the business is always going to be the number of hours per week that person is willing to work. A cognitive scientist in Britain sent me, yesterday, a suggestion for how to harness my expert knowledge on my subject and make it available to junior staff. A Macedonian guy asked whether I had any websites.

Yes, I said, pointing him to my professional site. No, he meant sites that made me money. I pointed him to my educational site, but admitted that it is hitting a record $300 this month. He earns 10 times that much with his.

So, if some potty-mouthed web pro went around like Gordon Ramsay roughing up web firms and improving their business practices, would he be saying to me, “Where’s your f-ing salesforce? Why aren’t you outsourcing your f-ing linkbuilding? Have you even tested your f-ing ads? Why the f- aren’t you doing any f-ing networking? This is supposed to be a f-ing business, not a f-ing art colony!”

Or is it okay for me to let the business grow organically and take the occasional Saturday off? After all, most of the people Ramsay is swearing at are in debt for hundreds of thousands of dollars and have no customers. My business has no debt and lots of customers. It may have unrealized potential, but is that a crime?

While I contemplate this deep question, it is the first day of the Holiday Grand Plan. If you do what these guys tell you, then you will be ready for all the holidays this year with no stress or last-minute madness. This week, you must clean your front porch and make lists. It is, in fact, List Week, so you should make lots of lists. Your Christmas card list. A list of the people you plan to give gifts to, with ideas and budget notes. Lists of the special foods you plan to make for the various holidays, including menus for the holidays themselves, a list of make-ahead foods for the freezer, and a list of the holiday goodies you’ll be preparing for gifts and to have on hand for visitors. A Master Shopping List of all the things you need for completion of all those lists.

It is also, for me, the last day before I begin a group diet with a bunch of very perky ladies, so I intend also to make a list of menus for the week. Then I have papers to grade, blogging to do, articles to write, and that hemming to accomplish, as well as homework for the online class I’m taking and the next Italian lesson. I still feel rebellious, frankly. I’d like to spend today lolling about and reading, too. Possibly with a box of chocolates. Church first… maybe after that I’ll feel more like doing all these things that I know will be good for me in the long run