Easy Like Sunday Morning

Yesterday was the perfect Sunday. A Sunday like the ones I've dreamed about, and missed dearly, since having kids. But let me start with a smidge of Saturday before I move onto Sunday.

After three days of training, Saturday night I was on my own at work.

(Thank God! I hate training, I feel like I'm useless, and getting in everyone's way, not to mention shadowing someone's every move just being really irritating to all parties involved. I've been waiting tables since I was 14...I think I can handle it, right? Okay, off the soapbox now.)

Saturday was busy, and I didn't get home until almost 11:30pm, a late night for me. But I made good money, and didn't screw anything up, so I was feeling pretty great. I stayed up for a little while to finish my chapter in Pride & Prejudice, and went to sleep around midnight.

And then it happened...

I woke up and it was 9:30am!

Now I know, you're going, "Ok, I don't get it. What happened?", but I guess really it was what didn't happen. My daughter slept through the night FOR THE FIRST TIME. All you moms out there are now remembering with a little smile the joy (& probably trepidation if it was you first kid) of sleeping through the night that first time. It was blissful.

But then, and this is when the really great stuff went down, my husband got up with her in the morning, and let me sleep. My husband NEVER gets up in the morning, it's just not what we do. We have our schedule, and I wake up with the kids every single day, except the last Mother's Day, when he got up with my son. Needless to say, I was feeling pretty great when I actually got out of bed, and he was playing in the living room with both the kids, and he had made a pot of coffee, another first, since he doesn't drink it.

As if that stunning beginning wasn't enough, after we all got dressed, we went for a walk around our new neighborhood. The air was FREEZING, but it was so sunny and bright it seemed like a crime not to get out and enjoy it. I didn't take the camera with me (doh!) so I can't show pictures yet, but it's already sitting on the counter, batteries charged, awaiting our next excursion.

Everything here is up or down, there are no level straight-aways. So walking a few streets over with a 1- and 2-year old is like a 5 mile hike in the mountains. But on those few streets I saw so much beauty. There was a huge pond, its murky blue-green water completely still, until an enormous flock of ducks landed with much flapping and squawking, to the utter delight of my children, and therefore to me and my husband as well. A little further along there was a little brook running next to a green lawn, the water running clear and quick over rocks and pools, making tiny waterfalls that, while I dragged my kids back from them repeatedly, I felt bad for doing because I wanted to splash in them too!

The road cut through the mountain then, and on either side of us the famous "GA red clay" rose up, showing the sparking crystilline rocks that make up the mountain itself. There are no leaves on the trees here now, but there are so many trees that I find myself repeating, almost mantra-like, "just wait, it's going to be so beautiful when everything is green with summer". I can just see what that stretch of road is going to look like, winding up and down under the canopy of trees, the light all green and alive, shining down through the leaves unto our upturned faces.

I'm seriously excited about spring, can you tell?

After our walk, the kids were worn out and were both ready for a nap (gotta love those hills!), which they never seem to take simultaneously, so we got to enjoy a few minutes of "adult time" which we ended up spending just sitting next to each other on the front porch, bundled in coats and hats, and not saying much.

It was phenomenal.

To cap off what I consider a truly terrific day, my father-in-law showed up with an obscenely large television that apparently had been sitting in his garage for a while. While I would NEVER buy one of those monstrosities myself, there is something pretty great about watching 300 on a screen so wide you can't put your arms around it.

There's nothing like going back to work after a two year break to make you appreciate how great a day off is. And as far as days off go, yesterday was one of the best!