It is March Break and it is not a Calgary weekend. I am all caught up on web work for the non-profits I volunteer with. There have been no Valhalla Fine Arts meetings, no clinics to work, no choir performances out of town, and even orchestra is cancelled for the school break. The past two days have been Nothing Days.
Nothing other than supervising the music practicing of various offspring on various instruments, organizing and administering school work for three kids, laundry, meal prep, yard work, housework, tidying, reading aloud, doing weekly homeschooling reports, going for a run, helping the younger girls with their various sewing and baking projects, practicing my viola, tending the chickens, wrecking the play structure and so on. Half my violin students are away for the break so my teaching load is down. I've even actually been reading a book, just for my own enjoyment, rather than relying on the audiobooks I can listen to while driving all over western Canada.
It's just about right. Without all the extra out-of-home responsibilities I feel like I have time to be an attentive parent and look after myself and the house. Imagine if this was what my life was like on an ongoing basis! I would be running marathons and my house would be spotless. I would be erudite and fit and relaxed. Probably infuriatingly so. Maybe it's better this way.
Still, I like the flow of these "nothing days." These are days that actually give us an occasional opportunity to think "hmm, what could we do now?" Fallow time is precious.
Sunday, March 07, 2010
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Oh, that sounds divine! I wonder if I could contrive a schedule like that...only I couldn't call it 'Nothing Days'. My poor husband would have fits.
ReplyDelete~Bonni
Yep, I agree...I was going nuts with five "away from home days" and was looking forward to two weeks without the kids, thinking I'd get a lot of important "me" stuff done. Actually I did nothing (other than feel guilty), possibly as a reaction to an overstuffed life. Now that all three kids are here (actually interacting nicely most of the time) and most activities are "off" for spring break, and one kid's dance teacher has disappeared for an indeterminate amount of time (scratching one of those "away" days) and I've rearranged events so I can eliminate another "away" day, things are feeling much more balanced. Maybe I could keep it this way, ya think? (Bwahahahahahahahaha...)
ReplyDeleteDeborah
" I would be erudite and fit and relaxed. Probably infuriatingly so. Maybe it's better this way."
ReplyDeleteCorrect! All that fallow time isn't so precious when it becomes your every day experience LOL Trust me--I am dealing with it now :-) How I would love to be so busy that down time could be appreciated... all in due time though.
Enjoy the slower pace, the book, the kids and the house... you'll be back to busy, busy, busy in no time :-)
And btw, I thought of you this weekend: we headed out to the California Poppy Reserve in the Antelope Valley. The woman who started the who thing actually started with saving the Joshua Tree :-)