And yet, I got up super early to prepare for our Christmas celebration. I mean not that being home or any gift I have under the tree can compare to a trip to Germany and Amsterdam for Christmas, but... for me it will be the perfect Christmas wrap up!
I have a few errands to run and a few things to do today. My oldest grand daughter text me a request for help and of course you know that I will make sure she gets all she needs. I have a few presents still waiting to be wrapped. I guess I could have done them when I was wrapping everything else, but honestly I was tired and knew it could wait, so... it waited.
I think my on-going theme for the balance of this year is that things can wait. I am in no hurry to do anything, and honestly it feels like heaven! I'm spending more time enjoying things and less time being stressed about things I cannot control. It is amazing. I wonder where I would have been mentally earlier in the year if I had taken the opportunity to do this. I don't think I was in the right place to do this earlier. Too many moving parts, too much that couldn't be put on hold.
I am a firm believer that there is a time and place for everything. I definitely believe this is the time for this.
It's quiet, I know Hubs is up in his man cave, but he hasn't wandered to the main floor and I've been to busy to wander down the stairs yet, I will do that shortly. But not right now. Right now, I am feeling deja vu. Kind of like that weird movie Groundhog Day. I am sitting in the same spot, bathed in Christmas lights and candlelight, drinking my coffee and typing away. I don't hear the wind chimes today, it's still out, the front that was rushing through yesterday dropping our temperatures has moved on.
I spent a portion of yesterday completely phone free. I was trying to get the Fitbit app to update. I have reached the point I do not care if it ever updates! Two full days of trying has me feeling less in love and more in hate with the stupid electronic tracker. But the time spent without a phone was almost magical.
Silly, I know, but it reminded me of years gone by. Hard to believe as a teen we didn't even have a house phone much less cell phones, they were still a decade or more in the future. If we needed to talk to someone we walked to the Bundespost (to use the phone if the person we wanted to reach had one) or to their house. If they wanted to talk to me, they walked to see me. There was none of this instant contact stuff. We also didn't have email. It was slower, it was softer, life was far more balanced.
In fact stuff waited.
I got a little frazzled last night I was looking at the status of the update and checking the status of my kids' flight before I went to sleep and made the mistake of looking at my work email because those annoying little numbers were showing at the top of the screen. So I gave in and looked.
I wished I hadn't immediately. Everyone knows I am on vacation. This year, I have desperately earned it. And yet there were emails asking me to take care of things and when I didn't reply, an exasperated one saying never mind I will have someone else do it. The someone else could have done it all along. Why was it necessary to reach out to me?
The frazzled part was in the remembering that slower time and how we used to respect people's time away from work. I can't remember which country, but I read not too long ago that there is a country that has said that expecting responses to emails after hours was basically illegal. Now I don't want to make technology go away, and there are times that it is critical to be able to do the things that we do. And then there are times that it most definitely is not. I think that is where I am at. That line between the two is far too blurred.
I cherish that my daughter was able to send me a simple message that they were on their way home. I hate that mundane things have been elevated to emergency status. There are moments any more that I want to check out of the rat race. Because the truth is the rats are winning. And I am finding that the more I return to a life of less, the happier and more well balanced I am.
Yesterday I finished the scarf Hubs asked for. In case you hadn't guessed those pictures of yarn and knitting were the progress. I started it on Tuesday as we headed south. I finished it curled up in my favorite chair yesterday. Lost in thought as each stitch slid across the needles. I bounced between making lists in my head of gifts that have been languishing in my dreams for the people I love, plans for the future, and simple counting 1, 2, 3... as the hand spun alpaca slid softly across those warm wooden needles. The fact that I spun that alpaca wool making it all the more precious to me.
Yesterday, cut off from instant communication, I found time to be more present. I found myself enjoying the comfortable silence with Hubs that was uninterrupted. And I found myself thinking and dreaming more.
I was daydreaming about what 2019 could hold. And making a plan to realize those dreams. For years I have been planning a few of the things in my head. Wait maybe not planning, because when you follow a plan things happen, so maybe just dreaming about them. I am actually working on a plan now.
I'm sorting through the life I have, I'm looking at things through a clearer lens. Balance has become imperative for me. If I don't find it, I will lose me and I'm not willing to do that. I'm weighing out friendships, hobbies, belongings, what I spend my hours doing and how to do them better. I'm looking through what is important to me and what truly is not and evaluating why allow each part that is unimportant to even exist in my world.
I'm not ready to share it, it's still an embryo, but each day it is growing.
For now, it's time to finish up the chores, wrap those last few gifts, plan a nourishing dinner and simply enjoy the day. My babies are closer to home, according to the flight status they are just clearing the coast of Canada.
Soon...
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