Being Spontaneous

I've been away for the weekend. Did you miss me? LOL. I certainly missed having my daily "say" on here. :-) I did know we were going on Friday afternoon, which is why I posted a second blog entry then - to tide you over for the weekend.

DH and I did something this weekend that we very rarely do. We were spontaneous! :-)

I think the last time we were spontaneous was Mother's Day 10 or 11 years ago when we woke up on the Sunday morning and decided to drive up to where my parents were living at the time (about an hour and a half away) and surprise my mum by rocking up to church that morning. No phone call to check if they were even home or anything. It was fun and gave her a HUGE surprise - but it was definitely an "out of character" thing for us to do.

You see DH and I are planners. That's a good thing - most of the time. We rarely, if ever, run late for things. And if we have people coming to stay, I'll have everything well organised in advance so that I'm not having to do too much while they're here (mostly because I'm worried about having an "on the spot" disaster in the kitchen lol).

The thing is, if you were to rock up on our doorstep unannounced, you'd send us into a bit of a spin. Eventually our brains would catch up with the action and we'd be fine. But we're just not all that great at "fly by the seat of your pants" type stuff.

So it was kind of an unusual thing for us to get up Saturday morning, throw a few clothes into bags and head off with the camper trailer overnight. I guess it doesn't sound like all that big a deal to some of you - but it was for us. :-) We forgot a few things but funnily enough we survived. It was a good reminder to me of how much "stuff" I *think* I need, when in reality we can actually manage quite well with very little.

I think it's a good thing to occasionally step out of our comfort zones. Shakes life up a bit. The great thing is that our move toward a simpler lifestyle is what made this spontaneity even possible. Instead of having a weekend cram packed with activities, our calendar was free and off we went for some much needed "family time".

Where we stayed was close to the beachfront and with the unseasonably warm weather the kids actually went swimming! Not sure how though - the water was FREEZING. I couldn't even keep my feet in it, it was so cold.

It was great to get away from home and just BE. We're working toward making our home a sanctuary where we can BE but we still find it nice to get away for a bit and relax. No housework that I *should* be doing or farmwork staring DH in the face. It's such a blessing to have our camper trailer and have the ability to just take off with very little notice.

Yesterday I bought myself a magazine as I tend to find I get a bit bored and agitated just sitting around. But this morning while I was watching the kids on the playground, I didn't even open it. I just sat there and did not a lot really. I looked out over the blue sea which was quite calm (where we went is in a gulf). I watched the dynamics of people as they came and went and different children as they were playing on the playground. And some of the time I just closed my eyes and completely relaxed. It was all quite unusually calm for me. Perhaps some of this stuff is finally starting to rub off on me. :-)

So we're home again. Filthy, tired and grumpy (actually we're not all that grumpy which is a nice change lol). I did some shopping while we were away so there was a bit of stuff to put away. Mostly pantry items so not too much in the way of clutter. Ooh, I did get a ball of cotton yarn so I'm going to try some more knitting!!!! (And the first cloth I knitted is going well in the bath - the kids think it's great!!! Although I think it is going to stretch a bit with use.)

I hope everyone else had a nice weekend. I'd best be off and organise tea. I bought a cooked chicken and a few salad items for an easy tea tonight. Ooh, and a punnet of strawberries for a treat. Can't wait until we have some in our garden!!! :-)