Saturday, July 8, 2017

The swing

Years ago I told Hubby I wanted an iron bench for a window nook just outside of our dining room in our new house.  He was so proud to show me that he had purchased one - come out and see.  To my disappointment I saw - a swing.  Not what I wanted, but he had gone to the effort and bought it, because I had asked him to.  {Lesson learned: if you have something very specific you want, don't go sending someone else to find it for you.  Do the work to find it yourself!}  I put a couple of pretty toss pillows on it, surrounded it with a couple of large potted plants, and called it done.


That swing stayed put for several years.  It was pretty in it's little spot by the house.  It was a pain in the patoot to move, and the kids had to be told several times not to try to "swing" in it it like you do on the ones at the playground.  But we didn't sit in it much anyway.  That is, until I asked him to take it up to Highlands.  He perched it on the top of the hill, looking out towards the lake, just in front of a firepit, and we sit in it every time we visit.  
And I think, "maybe this is exactly what I wanted, after all".


Saturday, July 1, 2017

Living for the weekends

I find that anymore lately I am living for the weekends.
 

I remember doing that, years ago, but in a much, much different way.  The last time I had a Monday through Friday job was in 1992.  I was working as a customer service rep at a mortgage company.  One of the top 5 worst jobs I have ever had.  I was away from my children all week, barely making enough to justify the daycare, eating ramen noodles with frozen peas for lunch, and cooking God-knows-what in the evenings after I picked up the kids from daycare. I had exactly 5 outfits to wear, so I had to clean and press them each Sunday, along with everyone else's laundry.  I was exhausted all of the time - Spencer was 3, Chloe 1 - and all of my weekend off was spent trying to catch up - on everything - cooking, cleaning, shopping, wife-ing and mothering.  I'm 100% sure it was as hard on Hubby as it was on me.  We were in our 30's but pretty clueless about many things.  And we were dirt-ass poor with family far, far away.  We might as well have been alone on Hell's Island.


Nowadays, the weekends will find Hubby and I hopping into the truck on Sundays and heading out for a day of Mexican breakfast, followed by putseying around Highlands, enjoying a bottle of wine, some sun, and maybe a nap. Dreaming up plans for what we want to do out there in the future, and not worrying about money, kids, laundry, or anything else Monday through Friday related. 
The bad ole days are gone.  Not that God has promised sunny skies from now on...but I am relishing the weekend now, while I live it.