where wildly different is perfectly normal
That mythical day of rest
That mythical day of rest

That mythical day of rest

I’ve been trying for several months to ensure Sunday is a Day of Rest Without Guilt. The Without Guilt part is important for me. I can certainly DO NOTHING on any given day, but it’s typically soured by the guilt of not doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I just wanted ONE DAY of rest, complete rest, where I don’t have to do anything I don’t want to do. Now, you may be thinking, you’re a Stay At Home Mom, you’re home all day, you only do what you want to do when you want to do it. And I’ll be thinking you’re a ignoramus of the highest order and perhaps you’d like to come walk in my Crocs for a few weeks and see how YOU like it.

My point is, we have speed of light lives here, and I simply wanted ONE DAY to maybe ratchet it down to maybe Mach 1. I mentioned this to some friends earlier this week, that I couldn’t remember the last time I just took a complete day and did nothing. Actually, that I did remember a Wednesday when I was a freshman in college and I sat and read a book all day. Tom just looked at me in awe and said, “You got a Wednesday?” Yeah, we’re that family. And the boys aren’t even in sports to make everything even crazier.

Tom is out of town right now, something I almost never post here, for a variety of reasons. He learned Tuesday afternoon that he was leaving Wednesday morning, gone until Monday night. Ordinarily I’d be fuming to the point of self-immolation, but if he hadn’t decided to go on this particular business trip I would have drugged him and dragged him off to the airport. So I’m very glad he’s in Indianapolis, just very annoyed that it means two business trips back to back right before Thanksgiving, and I’m flying solo.

What this means is that today is anything BUT a day of rest. It snowed last night (we’re still under a Winter Storm Warning), so I have the opportunity to exercise while I shovel several inches of wet and heavy snow. A has a book report due on Wednesday (someone, please save me from 3rd grade book reports. I’d rather eat glass.), so I get to be Bad Mom as I force him shove the book down his throat rant and scream and bang my head against the wall gently encourage him…and then we get to go onto the regular writing and math homework. Oh, and the vision therapy I keep putting off. The laundry has met behind closed doors and is planning a violent coup. Cub Scout popcorn is in (oh, further fun with the clueless Den Leader…went to her house to pick it all up yesterday and she wasn’t home. I felt NO GUILT in making her deliver it to me), and I get to sort it all and prep it for delivery…all $800+ of it (BTW, that’s a LOT of popcorn). I have to have Christmas shopping done before we leave for Thanksgiving so we can take that with us. I’m playing in a winter recital next month. A very difficult piece, one I would have played in grad school. I’m gonna end up pissing down my leg in front of God and the whole world if I don’t carve some time out to actually, you know, practice it. I think I may have to take it with me when we travel to Iowa; I can’t lose an entire week when I have an entire week of someone else watching my kids. I need to clean the house ’cause, yeah, yuck. Perhaps it not such a bad thing that the snow knocked out the satellite dish and I can’t watch the Broncos game in ten minutes (hey, DirecTv, I’ve loved you since we got you, but you’re now 2 for 2. I can’t keep losing satellite every time it snows).

Does all of this need to be done today? Lemme check…pretty much. The worst of it all? The book report, because I can’t just get him going and dash off to do a few other things, I have to sit rightthere and “help” him (aka, push-prod-cajole).

I’m convinced the Day of Rest is mythical, but I also got a unicorn this week, so who knows? Perhaps it will show itself in the future too.

6 Comments

  1. I think you’re onto something here, Jen. The Day of Rest Without Guilt–it’s so important, yet the without guilt part is so hard! And then you have days such as today when you really don’t even get the rest part of it. I hope you can do all you’re doing with as much of a restful perspective as possible, then get a true day of rest in here somewhere soon!

  2. Good luck. We have a fourth grade book report due here on Friday. Hubby leaves tomorrow for a week long business trip. I had him sit down with son to work through a plan for book report. We’ll see how it works. Fortunately, Dad is going to have two major pieces done tonight before he leaves.

  3. This is why I hate weekends, almost violently. We spent years, YEARS relaxing on the weekends only to discover that when kids come along, weekend and relaxing are juxtapositions? Oxymorons? You know what I mean. Painful. Monday is now my favorite day – back to routine and a schedule, rather than cramming everything you can into the weekend, never sleeping late (like past 8 late, that is) and still not getting it all done.

    So Happy Monday to you tomorrow!

    🙂

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