together

Every once in awhile, a person has to step back and evaluate....whether you're evaluating the layout of a room, how you spend your time, how you parent, where your money goes, how you're investing in important relationships, etc.
This weekend Dan and I had some good talks about our time, our family, our relationship. It's hard sometimes to balance all that needs and wants to be done and still carve out time for your spouse. Sometimes, it's just not possible. But  noticed lately that I often live this parallel, tag team life with my husband, especially on the weekends. It's like this: "you watch the kids while I mow and weed-whack around the fences." Then, quickly, now, "SWITCH! You put the girls down for naps while I run to the grocery store and make a pass through the farmers' market." And oftentimes, we don't 'meet up' until the end of the day, when we're both tired and worn out from getting the 'must-do list' done. And lately, it's been driving me crazy. I feel like those tag-team WWF wrestlers, who smack hands as they swap places--one jumps out of the ring while the other squeezes between the ropes back into the mix of things.

Dan and I both love to be together. And as much as we love being together, we love being together as a family, too. So this weekend we talked about embracing the everyday-- finding ways to be together doing the everyday things that need to be done. If the garden needs to be weeded, then let's all go out there together and knock it out. If the dishes need to be washed after dinner, then let's put the girls to bed and enjoy doing it together.

Now of course, we won't be holding hands and moving through all of life's chores together. Some things still need to be done--I don't intend to walk along beside Dan while he weed-eats around the fence posts. And I still prefer zipping through the grocery store by myself vs. dragging all the children with me. But there are still many things that we do each day, each weekend, that could be done together. They might not be accomplished as quickly or efficiently, but that's not always what it's about.

So we 'kicked it off' Sunday with a project Dan has been wanting to work on--mapping out some of the trees and woody plants around the farm. We gathered our field guides (this one I highly recommend), notebook, camera and headed out. I much preferred it this way. And even though the girls started melting in the afternoon heat and humidity, and a sassy (overtired) child intentionally dumped the bucket of leaves that we had been carefully saving...it was okay. We both kind of looked at each other like, "We tried. It was worth it. Let's go swimming."

And it felt good. It's nice to come to the end of the day knowing you've spent time together with each other and as a family. There's a contentment and peace in that. A feeling like you've 'checked in' with each other and all is good and right.