Monday Musings

My weekend started with more mow-raking on Saturday. Mow-raking means that instead of raking all those leaves I mow them. And it means that I don't have leaves to bag or piles of leaves to blow around when I'm done. It also means that I'm leaving precious nutrients in the soil instead of sending them off to a landfill that won't appreciate them. I wrote a little bit about it yesterday and a little bit about it approximately a year ago right here. Although I enjoy mow-raking, I'm pretty stoked that I should only have to do it one more time this year. The backyard trees are actually getting pretty bare.

But the real weekend started (and ended) yesterday. Now that I don't have a job to go to anymore, the days when Mr. Right are home are the weekends that I look forward to. It's not just that I don't have a lunch to make or that I don't have to get up in the morning to see him off. It's that I like having him home. I like the change in the routine. We're all relaxed and doing our own thing but as we weave in and out of each other's day, I enjoy the meeting points. The moments when we're each on our computer or when we sit down to watch a TV show together or especially those moments when we go out. We usually try to go out at least once when he's off and yesterday was no exception.

So although it was a one-day weekend, it was a good weekend. Mr. Right worked a double on Saturday and he's working a double again today so that one day had a big order to fill.

We started by sleeping in. I got up just in time to shred so that he could watch the Bears on the living room TV. As he watched, I puttered around, watched a little of the game, wrote a little post and essentially did whatever I felt like. Later on we went out for awhile and really enjoyed ourselves.

Is that what made it such a special day or was it the knowledge that our firstborn Army son was on his way home? He's been 'over there' for almost eight months but it seems so much longer since I wrote this post. Now finally he'll be home for a little R & R. Where our boys are concerned, nothing compares with the times when they're home with their families. Last night we got to talk to him without long lag times in our conversation and our daughter-in-law sent a set of pictures like these.

Who would not love happiness like this, in a daughter-in-laws face, when she's welcoming their son home. And nothing makes a happier weekend than knowing at least for a few days, your son is home and happy and relaxed and safe.

So the weekend is over but the good feeling remains. We have a lot going on this week with our family-plus-one team for the Sisterhood's newest challenge and a holiday coming up that we need to start getting ready for.

The good feeling overrides everything though because we're all happier and all tasks are easier in the glow of knowing that, at least for awhile, everybody is exactly where they should be.