It’s fall in New England and it’s the nicest time of year here. As a result, I have 4 weekends in a row planned that are all about fun. Last weekend we went up to a friend’s cabin that is in the middle of nowhere in the Adirondacks. We ate, canoed, picked wild cranberries off a bog that you could only get to by boat, made a roaring fire, talked and played cards. It was a wonderful weekend with friends…and they were extremely tolerant of my cranky 1.5 year old. Of course we dragged him canoeing with us. He looked very cute in his pint sized life vest and truly seemed to enjoy boating..for about 10 minutes. Hopefully his tolerance will grow with time. My 5 year old had an absolute blast. In fact, if the two of them did nothing except throw rocks in the water all weekend, it would have been worth the drive.
Just say no to Guilt
It got me thinking about how little time I actually spend relaxing and I quickly started feeling guilty about all the exterior painting I needed to do. I call this feeling “catholic guilt.” Anyone who’s been raised catholic or has been subjected to catholic school will know what I mean by that. I then said, “shut up brain” and told myself there are 52 weekends in a year and it’s okay to have fun 4 weekends in a row.
As it’s almost October, I wonder where all the time went this year? How are there really 52 weekends in a year? It does seem like a lot of time to not have accounted for. As I think back, there were many days where we could just barely keep up with laundry and grocery shopping. I also try to do one fun kid thing too such as a trip to the pool, the lake, museum, a local festival, or the park…and if I’m really ambitious, it may somewhere further like the zoo. Plus there are swimming lessons, music lessons, birthday parties. If I really think about it, I guess there is a lot we jam into the weekends.
Weekend warrior or Over scheduled?
I usually feel good on a Sunday night if we’ve either had fun, learned something new, or made forward progress on some house project. Treading water just seems like life’s passing me by and I’m not making the most of it. I can’t tell you how many people tell me that they blink and their kids are grown up. I want to have more memories of lazy summer days, but I know I’m just not wired that way. The good thing is, neither are my kids, so they’re always up for an adventure.
Babci’s getting older and I do want to make the most of the time we have with her, so I guess that’s why this summer was heavily weighted towards yard sales. I want my kids to remember her cooking, her garden and her general jolliness.
What will you remember from 2010?
The only purpose of this post is to ask, is time really flying by for all of us? What will make 2010 memorable for you? Is it some big milestone, either financial or otherwise? Is it a big family vacation, or a big job change? Or is it a lot of little things?
For me, 2010 felt like the year I started to get my life back a little. My baby is mostly sleeping through the night. We are spending more time outdoors again. I’ve had a number of moments this year where I thought “this is what I imagined my life with kids would be like” ie, doing most of the things we used to do, but dragging the kids along with us. Most of the major big ticket renovations at our house are finished. We only have my mom’s fixer to deal with instead of two places torn apart. We have a goal to have my mom’s bathroom finished before the end of the year..maybe it’ll be functional by then, but I doubt it’ll be done. Okay, that’s all for now.
What was 2010 like for you?
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