This year we were blessed with the gift of travel. It's one of my favorite things; to see the world that God created and marvel at all the wonder and beauty of it. We were able to take the kids so many places this year, and it was pretty amazing. But Sam and I had 2 get aways to ourselves in the past 11 months, and while that's more than most people have, it just felt, lately, like we haven't had time to reconnect.
I think these weekends away are the reason we go to my parents' cabin on occasion, with the kids. We realized that it's pretty much just to make ourselves stop...whatever we do. When we're home, we can't just sit. Apparently, we're not wired that way. We don't have cable, so we don't have television. On occasion we'll put up a Netflix movie, but for the most part, we work. We're a family of workaholics, it seems. I'm in the basement sewing, the boys are out cutting firewood, Sam is tinkering with or fixing all the homeowner things that need his attention... Sitting and relaxing isn't in our genes, weirdly. Being away from home forces us to stop and take a break, and it's nice.
You'd think we're realize this and just do it at home on occasion. Unfortunately, we haven't figured this out yet. So this is one of the biggest reasons Sam and I take a weekend away. It's to get away from ourselves as much as anything. We just need to be forced to stop. When we go away without the kids, it's an even more special treat, because we don't have Micah getting up at the crack of dawn and being loud, or the other kids complaining that he's loud at the crack of dawn and raining on their sleeping-in parade. You know, parent stuff that you just have to deal with on an hourly basis.
I was in Pittsburgh on business last evening, and since Sam had off work today, he went with me. We got a super cheap hotel as a last-minute booking (the day before we left) and spent the night in the city. You guys, we've never been to the lookout at the top of the Pittsburgh Inclined Plane. We remedied that last night. Pittsburgh is a beautiful city.
I slept in until 9 this morning. That's unheard of in my life. I can count on one hand (easily) how often that happens in the course of a year. It was decadent. I had Starbucks for breakfast, shopped leisurely through IKEA, had lunch with family who were also in the city for the day, and scored some epic bargains while shopping this afternoon. (Spoiler alert: If you're on my Christmas list, you'll probably get gloves that I purchased for 37 cents/pair.)
We were home within 24 hours of leaving the house the previous evening, but it felt like we were gone for days, just taking our time and doing what we wanted. There was no hurrying between jobs, no work needing to be done when we were done working, nowhere to go in the next 5 minutes, no responsibilities.... It just refreshes me, on occasion, to relax and have a day to enjoy.
Mental note: build more of those into my life in 2017. Its good for a marriage, when we're not stressed and pulled too thin with all that life has to offer. Sometimes, our elastic just gets stretched out and needs replaced. Funny how we find that when we stop looking so hard.
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