On Just Being

Sometimes it all gets to be too much.
Like when you spend hours preparing your garden, pulling quack grass until you can no longer feel your hands, rota-tilling fresh fertilizer until your arms are shaky from the vibrations, making perfect little rows to plant in, weeding every single night to make sure there is lots of room for the perfect little veggies to grow... only to have nothing grow except for one little row of green beans - that's it... with no explanation as to why? It grew every other year...

Or when you spend weeks getting the outside of the house ready to put the siding on, only to find the day that you are going to start, that there is nothing to nail the entire first row of siding to... so you have to peel away the hours of work you have already done to fit a tiny piece of wood in so you have something to attach it to. But besides that you find that the house is really not square and/or straight, so your perfectly placed siding is going to look crooked, no matter what you do. And just to add insult to injury you first need to purchase hundreds of dollars worth of tools to get started because this isn't just average siding - no its made with some kind of cement particle board that takes a certain blade to cut, and needs certain nails to fit in the air nailer (or else you can hammer them all in by hand, but seriously, what year is this? 1999?).

Oh, and don't forget when you finally get around to washing your kitchen floor for the first time in eleven months only to have a serious avocado incident mere hours later.

It all seems so... fruitless. And reduces me to tears at the sight of cute polka dot sleeper on the 50% off rack at Fields, or by reading a story of a transgendered hen needing to be moved from her home inside city limits because she started crowing like a rooster and you aren't allowed to have roosters in city limits. I know I need a break when that happens. No body needs to be witness to a weeping at the sale rack crazy lady.

So today, we quit. We didn't think about gardening or siding or cleaning. Instead we slept late (of course this just worked out, I obviously don't get to choose how long I sleep!) we leisurely had coffee, we did a little shopping, we had lunch out with Nana and Aunty Myrna, we searched the internet for perfect flash cards and came up with two sets, so we ordered them. We read stories and we played. We just spent the day being... nothing really... just being. We burned our favorite Japanese Cherry Blossom Candle from Rim, we made a fresh pot of coffee well after noon. We definitely did NOT re-wash the sour load of clothes in the washing machine or make our beds. Nor did we care.
I know that Maizey wont remember these days when she's older, but I hope somewhere in there is at least some tiny memories of days spent one-on-one with her mama, just hanging out and loving on each other.
I will remember when it all gets to be too much, that this is exactly what I need. To just be. The only thing that could make it sweeter is if Daddy could be here for it. Maybe next time. He really does deserve a day off once in awhile too.
Now for my two favorite photos of the day... my girl has decided she likes to wear her shoes at all times - We see her picking up random shoes at the door (including mine and Brians) and trying to get them on herself. She points to them, looks at me and says 'ya' along with a nod of her head that means 'put this on me please' ... so I do.