The anatomy of a week off from children

What a gift this week has been.  I dropped my kids off Sunday, and have been really enjoying the time without them.  Which is horrible.  I feel like I should be huddled in a corner, shaking with grief that they are gone.  But I'm not.  I enjoy talking with each of them on the phone...Andrew several times a day, since he can sneak away with the phone and call me up unassisted.  I definitely look more fondly at children I have encountered throughout the day.  I appreciate more the life they have given me...I am more lonely and bored than anything.  You know...since taking care of them is kind of the only thing I have going on.  ;)  And I can't exactly get together with my friends since they still have their kids with them.

Anyhoo...here's what I did with a few days to myself.

Monday I painted.  All day.  Jeff had taken apart and moved out almost all our furniture on Sunday.  Our little master bedroom just isn't big enough for the furniture we bought for our 3000 square foot house in Louisville.  We are pretty packed in there.  So our bedside tables went in Michael's room, our headboard/footboard/boxsprings went in Andrew's room, and the 2 dressers went in the middle.  Then Monday I painted.  And painted.  And listened to a book on tape.  And painted some more.  Dear Lord.  Painting is boring.  But I finished edging 2 coats and rolling 2 coats.  It looks good.  But my shoulders were NOT happy with me.  Thanks for that, Dad.

Tuesday was my 35th birthday.  I had vowed to do nothing productive.  Shadow and I went for a long walk in a state park in the morning.  I read a book until lunch time.  I went out to lunch and had my favorite sandwich (asparagus, brie, tomato, garlic mayo on a grilled panini).  Then I went shopping at the mall...I walked the whole mall and went into stores I haven't been in...ever since moving here.  I realized that our mall sucks...it's really small and full of crappy teeny-bopper stores and it has 2 Hallmarks.  Really?  I came back home rather quickly and read the rest of the day away.  I'm reading Middlesex.  It's very good.  Jeff came home and we went out to a fancy dinner...a Cajun restaurant in an old Methodist church on the Delware river.  Very cool...very yummy.  Went to bed WAY to full.

Wednesday was chore day.  Weeding much of the morning, laundry, cleaning up the house, shopping and preparing food for book club I hosted last night.  Read some more.  Had my first yearbook meeting.  Had a great time with friends.

Today (Thursday), Jeff took the day off.  He has worked several 14 hour days due to problems at the plant, so he is owed some comp time.  If he ever wakes up (we are supposed to leave in 40 minutes!), we are going to take our bikes to the canal path and ride along the river to our favorite French bakery for breakfast and then back.  That should take about 2-3 hours.  Then we have to pack...because we are leaving for Las Vegas this afternoon.  Woo-hoo!

I definitely miss my kids.  Not in an aching way...this time off has been lovely and precious and just wonderful.  But I have no purpose without them.  I don't know how women used to just be stay at home wives.  They must have had very clean houses.  ;)