Wednesday 6 February 2013

A Breath of fresh Air

Today I'd like to share with you a little glimpse of what my days are like now that I've quit my job and started focusing on the things that really matter to me.  Specifically, I'd like to tell you about the walk my kids and I just took.  My oldest is in Junior Kindergarten, and goes to school every other day, so on days when I have both of them at home, like today, I really try to stretch things out and spend some really good quality time with them.
We left after lunch, we got our snowpants on and started walking.  My dog, Freddie, came with us. We walked out our front door and into a world that sparkled with new fallen snow glistening in the sunshine.  My daughter, at 3, pronounced it Christmas magic and told me that the elves had been there, glittering up the snow.  Who was I to tell her it was only ice crystals?
We walked down to the end of our street where a fallen tree lies along the edge of a field and played a game of pirate ship with my 4-year-old son as captain.  He called us Scurvy Maties and made us walk the plank, but then he changed his mind and called us back to swab the decks and foist the sails instead.
Next, we caught Freddie sniffing out some animal prints and followed them to the base of a tall Walnut tree, where we deduced they must have come from squirrels since we saw some in the branches.  My daughter made some snow angels, my son and I played tag, and then we started home.  All in all, I'd say we were gone about an hour, but the important thing is that it was a slow hour.  Looking back on the days when I was working 6 days a week and shuffling my kids around to day care, I would have given anything to have an hour go by that slow, but it was all just rush, rush, rush.  And yes, we're doing without a lot of things these days, but having those two little gaffers in my life is such a gift, it's just a rare and special privelage to have this time with them, and I wouldn't trade the memory of today for all the paychecks in the world.  To anyone that's wondering if I may by now be regretting my loss of income, I have to say, no way!  I'm thankful, I'm just so thankful to myself for taking the opportunity to enjoy my children while I've got them, and I'm thankful to my husband for supporting me in my decision.  He's given me the most amazing chance to really be the kind of mom I want to be.  No matter what happens, I'll never look back on this moment and think, "I wish I was still torquing bolts on the assembly line."
My wish for you today, dear readers, is that you have the chance to get outside and appreciate the gift we've all been given - the beautiful fresh clean air we breathe and the wonderful world that's all around us, because if we don't take the time to appreciate what we've been given once in a while, well then, my friends, we don't deserve to have it.  Take care of yourselves, and I'll see you next week.
A picture of Freddie after he's been doing some serious snow snuffling. 
 
Last week's total:                 150.57

This week's lunch savings     27.10
Feb. hair product savings       30.00
Total                                     207.67

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