Holy Freaking Cow!

Last Friday my hubby called me on my cell phone as I was running errands. He'd had some business plans that weekend that had been postponed and therefore had arranged for his church stuff to be taken care of. He asked what I thought of him taking the kids camping.

"You mean, you taking the kids camping or us taking the kids camping?"

"Just me, unless you wanted to come, but I thought you had a bunch of stuff to do."

Did I ever!

By the time he got home an hour later the kids were packed, the truck was loaded and I was already waving goodbye. At 5:00 they rolled out of the driveway. I came back inside and threw my head back, laughing maniacally over my good fortune.

I am a person that very much appreciates personal time. Perhaps because I grew up with nine children, and have never in my life actually lived alone, I enjoy being by myself--and it rarely happens which makes it even more a treat. I've never had a whole weekend to myself, however. But boy did I have a great time.

The day previous, I had bought an online scrapbook. I spent hours that night figuring it out, plotting out what I wanted to do with it. Not one person asked me to get them a cup, or a meal, or take them to their freinds house. The phone didn't even ring. As soon as the day cooled off, I went out and built the new goat pen I've been planning to do and hadn't gotten to because I needed a couple solid hours--and how does one get that with four kids and summer vacation? When I came back inside, I went back to the scrapbook--scanned some photos, but on a movie (music & lyrics BTW) and stayed up until two.

The next morning I woke up at six thirty and laid in bed for half an hour for no reason at all. Then I went out and started digging post holes in preperation to installing the top flight netting on my chicken coop--another chore I'd been putting off. In addition to that project, I wrote ten pages, scanned more photos, spent more time on the digital scrapbook, caught up on my laundry, cleaned the basement, finally finished my planter boxes, pulled some weeds, moped my kitchen, planned my lesson for Sunday, caught up on e-mail, ate whatever I wanted (not a bite of mac & cheese). I stayed up until two again, and slept in until nine.

Sunday was awesome. The house was clean all day. I spent more time on my lesson, wrote a few more pages of my book and basked in all I had accomplished. When my family got home that night, I was one refreshed woman!

In addition to all the tasks I accomplished, I was reminded of some other things. As wonderful as it was to finish these bigger projects, there was no one to share them with. My hubby was out of cell phone range, and no one else really cared if I finally got the top flight netting out of the living room and stretched across the chicken run. I was working on this scrapbook, looking at my family, remembering moments we'd shared and I missed them terribly. It's not often I have the chance to miss them, and it certainly did make my heart go fonder.

But all in all, it was amazing. I was so excited to see them Sunday night, and we all had a lot to talk about. As for my husband, his sweetie-pie points are through the roof--so I hope he doesn't ask me what I think about him getting a new car or attachment for the tractor. I'm not sure I could possibly say no.