I’m quietly enjoying my second ever child-free week. At home.
My, the houses looks like a pig sty, with no little people to fill up the empty spaces.
I am exhausted, yet I’m not sleeping as much as I did on my very first week off, last December. I think I must have taken better care of myself this school term. Or perhaps last time I was catching up on ten years of non-stop child-wrangling. This time it’s only a term.
Last time, I watched TV nearly non-stop. This time, it doesn’t really draw me. Perhaps because I’ve set up a mum’s retreat in my room, with a couch and TV, where I get my dose of TV away from the children nearly every night. Before, I was starved for TV – is that weird?
I made some inroads into the mess today, but unfortunately the mess was seen by my property manager, after I mixed up the inspection dates. I hope I don’t receive any house-keeping reprimands in the mail.
Do you know how lovely baths are in an empty house ? Just you, the water, some bubble bath and music.
Quiet evenings are lovely, too. No kidlings demanding your attention, wanting food, arguing with you and each other, and not listening to your orders requests. It feels quite surreal and it takes me a while to relax into the silence and emptiness. I snuggle under a blanket on the couch with the TV and my knitting. The cats are near or next to me, a glass of wine in front of me. And the background is quiet…
Still, life goes on – business meetings and errands have to be attended to, animals have to be fed, clothes to be washed, hung and folded, the dishwasher doesn’t magically unload itself.
Yet, there is so much more time in each day. Time for me. Even if I spend that time doing housework, it is done in peace and quiet and I don’t stress if I leave it half done, because there is still more time to get it done, without someone destroying the half-clean I’ve achieved.
My peace and quiet are broken only by Amanda Palmer, whom I’ve only just discovered, and the children at the childcare centre across the road. Oh, and the nail guns at the building site next door.
My week is nearly done. Next week we’re heading off to a caravan park in the Grampians to enjoy some nature and a change of scenery. Wish me luck!
What about you? Do you enjoy a stay-cation?
Image from here by Katerina.
Are you going back to the same park in the grampians? Hope you and the boys love it. We’re taking the camper trailer down the cost tomorrow for three nights 🙂 I totally get how you feel with the kids away. I was thinking pretty much the same thing on my night off last night. It’s very restorative to not have demands put for a while. To just be and do in your own time frame. Enjoy the remainder of your peace Ms D.
I’ve decided to try another caravan park, will report to you on our return. We’re having three nights as well, I hope we survive without any dramas.
Time alone is BLISS. Time when the only needs that have to be met before my own are the cats. Who are much more easily satisfied than the human I share my life with.
And yes, a bath (in my case with a book) is luxury. Enjoy the rest of your week – and your time in the Grampians too.
It is, isn’t it? Even though I have most days to myself when the boys are at school, that time is taken up by work and some housework. Having time to just BE is rare.
Thank you!
Enjoy your alone time! 🙂
Thank you!