Tuesday, August 27, 2013

Where did summer go

So to make up for two posts in two weeks, I went over a month before another one! Clearly, consistency is not something I should put down as a top skill. As the title implies, I'm looking at the calendar and wondering where the H E double hockey sticks summer went?!? I feel like I blinked and it became fall. I usually feel this way, but this year it went by extra quick. A short (short) recap of our summer:

  • My husband and I ventured away without The Babe, leaving her in the very capable hands of her grandparents. We went stand-up paddle boarding, wine tasting, walking, and day drank. It was awesome. It was nice to reconnect as adults and as a couple and spend time with friends just lounging. I even managed to read a whole book, much to my husband's chagrin. We came home recharged and relaxed.
  • I took a midweek vacation day to walk onto the ferry and headed to Victoria for a 8 hours of eating and pampering with my sister-in-law. We ate some comfort food, went shopping, hit up a spa, and laughed. Add in some amazing weather for both my crossings, and it definitely was a slice of heaven for a short time.
  • Other than the two days we took for our getaway and my one day trip, we have had no other time off work. So it's been a summer full of work and evening family time when we can manage.
  • We have been tearing apart our backyard, and my husband has been tirelessly building us a new fence, garden boxes and clearing out old landscaping. We were rewarded with our first crop of fruit and vegetables and the crop just keeps on giving. It's been a learning experience for both of us - more watering, more weeding, more picking, and perhaps less beets next year. The highlight has been watching The Babe eat ripe, and unripe, strawberries right off the vine. I know now we made the right decision to not plant rhubarb due to the toxicity of its leaves. Now, what to do about the mildew on the zucchini leaves?
  • Due to the yardwork, we haven't been able to enjoy our pool as much this year. Next year I'm aiming for some serious lounging furniture and perhaps tidying up the pool shed to create a little changeroom.
Finally I have been reading Don't Sweat The Small Stuff by Richard Carlson as my bedtime reading. Talk about a mind shift! Though it's hard to break behaviours which have been ingrained for years, I am making an effort to retain and practice what the books instructs. It's so simple and so applicable to life and everything in there exemplifies the kind of life I want and the type of family values I have. It's so easy to get caught up, become self-centred, need to be right, but when you put in perspective isn't thinking of what you have instead of what you want less tiring than the alternative? Doesn't focusing on consuming less versus more just make sense? 

I'm so tired of "stuff", so tired of sorting through the mess (physically and emotionally), and my life has had an exceptional amount of mess for the last five years - some self-inflicted and some out of our control. I'm trying to sort through the mess, focus more on the experience and less on the goods. It's a process, an unlearning of sorts, and I'm sure I'm driving my husband crazy with my bold statements on values and my obsession with throwing out everything we're not using right this second. We're getting there, not quickly by any means, but we're getting there. Emotionally and physically. 

So, with that in mind, anyone want a Wii with no controllers, but with Mario Kart and Dance Dance Revolution? Make me an offer. I'll use the money to take The Babe to the aquarium ;)



~ H