I thought for sure, after having to spend all that time in lockdown here at home, I would never look forward to an “at home” day again. But, I was wrong. Yes, I was supposed to make Sourdough English Muffins yesterday. Did that happen? Ummmm, no. I could tell you it’s because I haven’t found a recipe I like yet, but the real reason was, I enjoyed watching a movie with Mr. FixIt yesterday afternoon…something I so rarely do. It was a suspense thriller with Tom Hanks. Who doesn’t love Tom Hanks? So I “forced myself” to sit through it, then I took a nap. It felt like sheer decadence and I felt like a million bucks when I got up.

Work will always be there. There are things you really can’t put off, like mowing, or else you might as well contract with someone to come bale the hay. The grass grows like crazy this time of year. We had 1.75” of rain Wednesday during the night. Nope, can’t put off mowing. But, you can put off doing the dishes five times a day or cooking complicated meals. You can take naps or sit on the deck with a cold beverage and watch the cat chasing butterflies. Or, you can just sit still and “be” while the birds sing and the bees buzz.

This is a heavenly time of year and it’s what I crave throughout the winter months. I remember one summer I spent the entire four months inside working on projects. When fall came and I finally sat down on the front porch with a coffee, an overwhelming sadness came over me. I realized it would soon be too cold to enjoy that and I had wasted my precious, finite summer. I’ve never made that mistake again. If I can be outside, then I’m outside!

I did do one project yesterday. We have this drainage problem in the back stairwell outside. We keep a couple of sump pumps going in the bottom to get the extra water out that gathers there when we have heavy rains like we did Wednesday night. We pump the water out into the yard where it does two things, it runs down into the garden and makes it too wet…and it further saturates the ground in the yard. That water has to go someplace, so my analytic mind presumed it was percolating back down through the soil and we were pumping the same water out over and over.

I decided to think like a Roman…the ones who built the aqueducts to deliver water throughout the city. I lengthened the hoses by attaching a second hose to each one, and ran them to the other side of the yard. There was already a slight ditch along the sidewalk to all for the grass trimmer. I laid the hosed so they would drain down that ditch. That worked great till it got about 6 feet from the gate. There is a low place in the lawn there and I knew it would soon fill with water and run back across the sidewalk into the part of the yard I needed to dry out.

I had a eureka moment when I took a sod cutter and extended that ditch down past the gate and allowed the water to drain in an entirely different area far from the house. It will water a maple tree and the honeysuckles over there. Voila! I corrected the problem and quit recycling the same water over and over. I know it isn’t a permanent fix, but it works till we find a more permanent solution!

So…a movie, a nap, a couple little projects, and time with my sweetheart all while staying home on the Ponderosa. That is a perfect day, if you ask me!

Self-care isn’t self-ish.

❤️

“Be joyful in hope, patient in affliction, faithful in prayer.”

Romans 12:12 NIV

#Hope #Patience, #Affliction