Have you ever wanted to be completely and lackadaisically lazy for a couple days? If so, here's how you do it.
Remove your watch so you're not aware of the time. Take naps whenever you feel like it. Eat whenever you want. Eat whatever you want.
Read. Play on the computer. Watch movies. Lie on the couch and ponder the sounds of silence. Refrain from cooking and cleaning. Have no responsibilities. At all. Whatsoever.
Stay up as late as you want. Get up as late as you want. Stay in your pajamas. Eat chocolate. A lot.
If you're wondering how I know the drill so well it's because THAT is how I spent Mother's Day weekend!
It all started a couple weeks ago when I started pondering. And you all know how much I love to ponder. As I pondered, I came up with a plan! A plot! A purposeful proposal produced only by properly posited pondering!
I mentioned to Steve that one of the best Mother's Day gifts I could think of was a couple days of "me time." I reminded him that his mom had not had all three of her sons home on Mother's Day for a long time. Then I suggested that since Nathan was already in Florida, if he and Sarah drove to his parent's house for the weekend, I would have an empty house to myself. In one fell swoop, he would have the chance to make his mom AND his wife extremely happy.
Well, what man could turn down a plan to make the two most important women in his life happy? Not Steve! And so solitude was my Mother's Day gift. From 2:30 pm Friday to 7 pm Sunday, I was a lazily happy woman. Not to mention a happily lazy woman.
Of course, before my weekend started, I had to go to the grocery story and make my selection of vacation foods. I ended up with a special kind of popcorn I like and six bottles of soft drink. To me, drinking a soft drink from a bottle (instead of a can) is one of the ultimate luxuries of life which I don't indulge in very often.
Then I went over to the chocolate aisle and perused the stuff there for a while. However, the more I thought about it, the more I realized that I'd already spent enough money on "extras." I reluctantly turned away from the featured delicacies, figuring I could just root around and find some old Easter chocolate at home.
But that was not to be. I was spared from the dreaded stale Easter chocolate by miraculous provision! How? Well, here's the story within a story.
A few weeks ago I mentioned in a post that I had found a Golden Graham bar at a convenience store and fell in love with it; I am a huge fan of anything graham cracker-related. However, I have looked at half a dozen stores since that time and haven't ever seen the bar again. (And the original store I found the bar at was two hours away.) Even as recently as this past Wednesday, when Sarah and I stopped for gas coming home from Duke, I ran inside the store to see if they carried the bar. And they didn't.
Well, would you believe that when Sarah and I got home that afternoon, there was a delivery on our front porch? Inside the box were TWENTY-FOUR Golden Graham bars! My friend
Sue G. (you'll recognize her name from her many wonderful guest book entries here) had read my earlier post about loving the bars but not being able to find them. She went to the trouble of tracking them down on the web and shipping a whole CASE to me!
Talk about perfect timing. My "me weekend" was now complete. DVD's and books from the library, soft drinks in bottles, special popcorn and twenty-four Golden Graham bars! In the email I sent to Sue to thank her for the bars I said, "Sue, I just wanted you to know that the Golden Graham bars are mysteriously disappearing one by one by one. Hmmmm. I don't know where they have gone but I'm thinking that if I look at my hips in a week or two, I'll find them!"
And I probably will.
But this weekend was not the time to worry about future hip dimensions. I had the absolute loveliest vacation and when it was time to welcome Steve, Sarah and Snowy back home, I felt refreshed and rejuvenated and more than ready to see my dear, wonderful family again.
My Mother's Day to remember was made even better by cards from Nathan, Steve and Sarah and a phone call from Nathan on Sunday morning. It occured to me as I talked to him that that was his first ever Mother's Day away from me. I realized that in the years to come, he could very well spend more Mother's Days away from me than with me, depending on where in the country (or the world) he ends up. And so, of course, I got a little teary eyed about receiving my first ever Mother's Day call from a Smith kid. (We moms can get teary eyed over just about anything, can't we?)
When he called I kiddingly said, "Okay Nathan, who reminded you to call?" He sputtered indignantly and said, "I reminded myself!" :-)
And speaking of kid quotes, in Sarah's hand made Mother's Day card she said, "You're probably one of the greatest gifts in my life. You're a friend, you're a counselor, you're a human spell check."
Believe me, I laughed and laughed when I saw the "human spell check" line. And yes, I DID feel complimented!
So on this day after Mother's Day, I am warmed by the memories of my son remembering to call, my daughter giving me such a quirky, loving compliment, and my husband giving me a card, a kiss and best of all, a lackadaisically lazy weekend.
I'll close with some pictures of my two most favorite children. (Double click on photos to enlarge.)
Photos taken by Pam from
Pamela Photography (Pam is an associate of Amy who took our other family pictures.)