Traveling and Visiting

This is the Grasse River that flows past the farm that my husbands family owns. This is the river that we went for row boat rides on while on vacation.  My husbands family compared to mine is very large and so we spent every day of our vacation seeing new aunts and uncles and cousins.  It was all very exciting and busy - the visiting - but relaxing as well.  The busy of seeing friends and relatives is so much different than the busy of getting to work and getting to karate and getting dinner made and keeping track of little ones and cleaning and laundry and and and....  

We camped in my in laws back yard in our new tent.  It was great for the boys and comfy enough for us.  The great part was that we could run into poppa and grandmas house for food, coffee, showers and other facilities.  Roughing it - the easy way.

We did lots of things that we don't take the time to do or have the toys to do it on at home - like four wheeling, tractor riding, kubota digging (and kubota grass raking - boys can be so creative in their use of toys).  

It was all --- fun.  

Even though some things were work (like cleaning out the pond) they were still fun.  And work like making dinners and treats for the 4th of July family picnic - were fun when done with grandma in grandma's kitchen that smelled WONDERFUL the entire weekend - savory and sweet constantly wafting out the kitchen windows and tempting our olefactories on the back porch.

The thing I noticed the most during our vacation was the way that chores were incorporated into the day - even with family around - and completed with breaks for rest and fun.  I'm an all or none type of girl - either I'm cooking and cleaning from sun up to bedtime, constantly moving from one chore to the next and quickly wearing myself out .... or I'm a nothing girl who will "get to it later, or tomorrow, or never" justifying that it's really not that dirty, or that big of a pile, etc.  When I'm a nothing girl, everything, gets bigger and more time consuming as it mounts quickly in waiting.  

My mom in law grew up on a farm - with chores that had to be done - and as she's said before "if you didn't do your work, then someone else had to do it" that's a good mantra.  What my mom in law does is nibble away little by little at things and 5 minutes here and 5 minutes there gets things done - like laundry washed then on the line - break to read the paper - bake some cookies - break to sit on the porch, etc.  I'm inspired.  I'm planning on how to incorporate.  I'm ready for the little chunks of keeping up with life mixed with the little chunks of enjoying life.  I'll let you know how it balances out.