last week was my kids’ spring break week off from school, and finally after many years of discussion – we finally got to try out my idea of a vacation, where we don’t vacate…we stay.
my wife has been against this idea for several very good reasons:
1. she sees the inside of the same walls every day, how would having all the kids home all day long every day be relaxing looking at those same walls?
2. i’m a pastor…work follows me around like a puppy you just gave a hot dog to.
3. it’s her one chance to actually travel
i could bore you with my side of the issue, but suffice it to say…we finally stayed!
and i was punished for it.
ok, not really punished, i actually chose to do the things that i did.
we wanted a garden where grass was, we wanted grass where rocks were and we wanted raised herb gardens where the compost pile had been. (read “we” as “she”)
give my wife her due, she was no slouch. she worked hard right beside me every day… as long as the baby was asleep…so two hours or so a day.
truck, trailer, wheelbarrow, sod-cutter, hand tamper, string line, string level, 4′ spirit level, tiller, pick-axe, shovel, spade, hoe, garden rake, circular saw, cordless drill, impact drill/driver, 4″x6″x16′ PT lumber, etc., etc. oh, and a whole lot of hard work.
by the end of the week, we had tilled up the garden area, put the sod in the back yard and are about 80% done with the rest of the projects. shuffling out on 800mg of skelaxin (sp.?) pain medication, I stood beside my wife and looked proudly upon the fruit of our labor, but the most enjoyable thing about it was that we had done it together. after the day we got married, and the deliveries of our children, i have never been more proud of my wife than during those hours when she shoveled rock beside of me. what a team!
“for this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh.” (gen. 2:24 niv)
i don’t know if we will get to stay-cate again, or not – but i know i love my wife more for our very first stay-cation.
