… You’ve got to make the morning la-ast!

The 59th Street Bridge Song by Simon and Garfunkel could be the anthem for my life. I’m always on — from 5 a.m. when Paige wakes to nurse until 12:30 a.m. when I finish the last of my freelance work, I am going. I can’t say I am constantly giving 110 percent as I would like to, but I do my best. Between work, freelancing, raising two kids, trying hard not to neglect my usually patient husband, cooking, blogging, and working out, I don’t have time to get sick and often say as much.

This past week? I got sick. Really sick. Like praying to the porcelain gods sick . . . yuck. (If this wasn’t a food blog, I would share my beloved poem about love that I wrote my senior year of high school now. It has similar figurative language. My professor thought it was genius.)

I was tempted to keep going at full throttle for about, oh, a minute. But I was dizzy, sick and staring at the computer screen just made me sicker. Finally, I conceded defeat and took time off to get better. I needed it.

One thing I learned from taking that time off was that everyone needs to slow down sometimes. (Hello, captain obvious!) A student at a local university interviewed me recently and asked if all that I do on a daily basis was heading me down a road to burnout. I’d love to say ‘No, never!’ but truthfully, I don’t know. Perhaps. But not if I can remind myself to slow down on a semi-regular basis.

I plan on trying to have unplugged days on a pretty regular basis – no email, no cell phone, no blogging, no surfing. Mark Bittman wrote about this in the New York Times fashion section. He called it a virtual break and said that it was quite challenging to do once a week during his test period, but he did eventually remember how to – say – just sit quietly and read a book. Sounds like a nice thing to remember how to do, if you ask me.

Tomorrow? I’m taking that virtual break. Today? I have a lot of work to do, so that I am comfortable with my virtual break.

Food’s coming later, folks. Check back. I’ve got a killer recipe for you.