I am content

This past week we've been on Spring Break. Tomorrow the kids go back to school and Mike & I head back to work. And I am content.

It's such a peaceful feeling. I'm really grateful for the time we spent as a family, but even more grateful that I am in the calm, rested place I find myself.

We didn't have an extravagant Spring Break. We visited my father-in-law for a couple of days and visited two college campuses for Annie. We spent one night in a hotel and spent 4 days at home.

There were times that I logged onto Facebook and saw people's vacation photos from tropical locales and felt a twinge of jealousy. But I didn't go there. Instead, I chose to "sit still and allow contentment to come to me." (Thanks Elizabeth Gilbert.)

So what's made me content?

1. A deck of cards. I bought a deck of cards from the hotel gift shop and since then we've had hours of fun sitting around a table playing Crazy 8s and War. Best $2.97 I ever spent.
2. Rain. Annie & I got caught in a torrential downpour during one of her college visits. It was wet and inconvenient and memorable. Whether or not she chooses that school, we'll always be able to remember that day we got soaked in St. Louis.
3. Laundry. Ordinarily laundry would not be a source of contentment. But I spent the past 2 days doing load after load of laundry. The result? We are heading back to reality with clean clothes and matched socks and boy, does that feel good.
4. Sleep. What a difference being rested makes! While we were on a schedule during the first few days of Spring Break, the past 4 mornings I had nowhere to be, so I slept in until 9:30 or so. Love that little luxury. 
5. Cooking. I know...who am I and what have I done with Amy? Honestly, because we have been home with no place to be, I've had the time to plan a menu and cook. Nothing fancy, really, although tonight I did make some pretty yummy roast cauliflower. 
6. Love. I got to spend this week with people I love doing nothing special in particular (ok, the college visits were pretty special), but sharing space and time. Life is good.

7 + 1 = 10

Some days I collapse into bed and think, "hopefully tomorrow will be better." In a few minutes, I'll climb under the covers and think, "hopefully tomorrow will be just as good as today."

7 good things from my day:

1. I didn't have to drive the kids to school, so I enjoyed and extra 20-30 minutes lounging around.
2. I found a packet of instant oatmeal in my desk at work just as I was getting hungry for a snack.
3. I had a really easy going conference about Robbie with his teacher, the resource director and the township school representatives. He's having a great year, which made this conference far better than previous ones.
4. I had a long overdue lunch with a friend I've known for 11 years. We've been trying to get together for about two months and today we finally made it work. Plus, I was introduced to a great restaurant I'd never been to.
5. No one complained about what I served for dinner. That alone could warrant its own blog post.
6. Mike was contacted out of the blue about doing some freelance work that could bring in some nice extra money each month.
7. Mike and I ditched a meeting tonight and opted for some family togetherness instead. We had fudgesicles and watched the movie "Annie."

Seven good things in one day makes a perfect 10 in my book!

Just like old times

I was just telling Mike on Friday night that I missed the days of our younger years where we would spend summer weekend evenings getting together with family friends. The parents would all sit around the back porch or deck (depending on whose house we were at) and talk while the kids ran around the yard or hung out in the house.

We had two groups of people we would spend time with in this way. A group of families from church and a group of neighbors. On those nights, no matter what was waiting for us in the stack of bills, the piles of laundry or on the to do list, it was very easy to say "Life is good."

Then, for a variety of reasons from people moving away to kids getting older and being involved in activities that required parents to play chauffeur, these weekend gatherings seemed to happen less and less. I'm not sure I noticed right away, but eventually I realized that I missed them.

Last night I got a wonderful dose of old times when our next door neighbors (the P's) invited us to come over for dinner with them and another family who used to live on our street (the T's). The T's are moving back to town after a 3-year stint in Las Vegas. They've recently bought a house in a different neighborhood, but one close enough that we can all get together for dinner again.

Just like old times, the grownups sat in the P's screened in porch and enjoyed Mr. P's great cooking and Mrs. P's mastery of the cooler. Mike resurrected his role as "mayor," a title Mrs. P long ago bestowed on him, and played to the crowd. And Mr. and Mrs. T went through the pros and cons of having her mother move close to (in with?) them.

And if you didn't believe me about what a mess our house is, Mr. P recounted a story that their daughter Megan told him recently. She was helping Annie pick up our family room when she grabbed a blanket to fold. When she lift the crumpled blanket from the floor, a piece of cold pizza fell out of it (remnants of a "pizza picnic" in front of a movie, no doubt)! Nice...

Anyway, after dinner the kids flipped around on the swingset and played baseball and cornhole and whack-a-friend-with-a-pool-noodle, eventually winding up inside watching the Disney Channel when it was too dark to be outside anymore. It was almost 10pm when we finally wandered back home and put our sweaty, dirty-with-the-outdoors kids to bed.

It was a great night. Good food, good friends, good life.