{ Slow Saturday }

As a stay at home mom, it is not easy to get away from our jobs, considering we live at work, right?

When we first got married, when I would get frustrated with the housework or the monotony of it, I would sometimes tell Curt that I wish I had a job where I could also go away for 8 hours and then come home and switch off and relax.

Over the years, I've learned to love what I do, but truth be told, there are still days, especially on the weekends when I see everyone relaxing from work and school, that I feel like I kinda of wish I was also able to sit back and do absolutely nothing.

I was kind of in this mind frame, when our internet went out on Friday.  Yep, right out, and not just our modem or router, but the whole city.  Outage all over, hence why I couldn't get any posts up since Thursday.

But anyway, the minute the internet went out I thought I would take the time to step away from the computer, the blog, emails and couldn't do schooling either and I would just relax, watch a DVD and take it easy.

And that is when God spoke to my heart.  Instead of sitting back and relaxing, I instead went into the kitchen and gave it a good clean, unloaded and reloaded the dishwasher, started a load of laundry, folded one straight out of the dryer and started some Artisan No Knead Bread for the next day.

Guess what, I went right back to doing what I was trying to get away from, and didn't even blink an eye because it felt right.

Yesterday though, that was a different story.  I finally decided to take a full day off and do nothing.....well almost nothing.

Woke up to some yummy bread dough ready to be shaped and left to rise for another 2 hours.....got some breakfast made and took Marley out to potty.

It was a beautiful morning with the sun just starting to come up and gorgeous blue skies filled with vapor trails.

I got the bread shaped and read to rise again, and then went to my bedroom, made the bed, tidied up a a bit and then tossed laundry back and forth from washer to dryer until it was all done, folded and put away.

Washed the dishes and threw in 2 pizzas in the oven for lunch.

After the bread had it's final rising, I baked it and then sat back and admired my work.  There is nothing, and I mean nothing like fresh hot bread out of the oven, especially some crusty crunchy artisan bread.

How beautiful do those loaves look?

Once my work was all done, I decided this was it, I was going to take the day off and do nothing but lay in bed, watch my Heartland and enjoy every minute of it.

For the most part that is exactly what I did, but guess what?  The mom, wife and homemaker in me couldn't just sit still, so even though I took a down day, I got up every hour or so, did stuff around the house and cooked a delicious steak dinner.

At the end of the day, I sat back and thought about what my preconceived notions were versus actually trying it out for myself, and what I realized is that I'm ok with the way things are.  I'm ok with not having to leave my work and living right smack dab in the middle of it, and you know why?

Because I'm blessed to have been given this opportunity to take care of my family from home, and during the week when everyone else has to go to work and school, I'm at home, in my element.  If I'm sick I don't have to go out, if I didn't sleep well I can take it easier during the day and so on.

We need to appreciate our place in life and what we're doing, because the constant comparing to others is just a way to rob us of the joy we feel.

I may not get to leave my work behind and I may be on call 24/7, but that's ok, I wouldn't have it any other way and I'm so thankful for this beautiful life I live.