Camping and Laughter are the glue to my marriage

Our epic weekend of camping is well down in the books, we have been home for a few days and I, after recuperating, am sorting out and organizing our camp kits so we can store them away.

What is a camp kit you might ask? Well, for us it is two large plastic storage totes that are like little survival kits. We have everything in them, cooking utensils, skillets, snacks, oatmeal, drink mixes, a cook book, bug spray, shower supplies, you name it and we probably have it in the kit. It is how Bug and I survive camping, it has necessities but also our creature comforts. It truly is amazing what can fit in those storage totes and what I have in them! When I open the camp kit I feel like Mary Poppins, pulling stuff out from an impossibly small container.

But alas, to be able to procure such a trick takes careful planning and packing. So it takes me a few days usually to repack and replenish my camp kits. So I have been slowly working on cleaning and restoring my kits for our next trip. Here in lies the rub, the kits are not exactly small and they are literally taking up a chunk of our foyer. Then as I slowly sift through all the items we bring back with us from camping I find things that belong in the kits and have to put them back in, consequently taking up more space.

You may be asking what items I am finding because a spatula in a sleeping bag seems odd. But it is more like my daughters hair ties that I pack in the shower bucket, the dogs water bowl that needed to be washed or the bug spray that ends up anywhere and everywhere (this time it was in my husbands back pack). As I find these items I put them on top of the kit they belong to and sit down to put them in their proper place only after everything is sorted.

After camping this weekend with friends my husband has had a rough time getting into the swing of this week and decided to try to save time in his morning routine by putting his deodorant on the table by the front door, so he wouldn’t forget to give himself a few sprays before leaving the house. He has been trying a new dry spray deodorant and has noticed the last two days that the deodorant is starting to sting him during and after application, so he has developed the opinion that dry spray deodorant is not for him. 

He addressed this concern while I was repacking the camp kits, and as he explained this to me he walked to the foyer table to retrieve his deodorant can when I heard him make a disgruntled noise. Ever wife knows that disgruntled noise their husband makes, the one where it is resignation, self depreciation and frustration all rolled into one sound. This all encompassing noise made by my husband was followed by him coming back to the living room holding his deodorant in one hand and our very powerful outdoor bug spray in the other. Now my hubby has had serious allergies and can't smell a thing lately so when he applied the deodorant he missed the fact that he sprayed himself liberally with outdoor woods bug spray! The best part is he only has himself to blame because he had been rooting through one of the camp kits a few days before and as you may recall all items I find in our camping equipment goes on top of the kit until I put everything back in at once. Well, before his invasion of the camp kits he removed all the items from the top which included the bug spray, which he failed to put back where he found it. 

There is a saying that to make a woman fall in love with a man and stay in love with him all a man has to do is make her laugh. Well all I can say is my husband has that ability in spades and I must be the most in love woman in the world based on his shenanigans. 

The world keeps turning

I remember my last day of work as if it was only a few months ago instead of nearly three years ago. I remember my last break, I remember signing out and not going back. I left the job I had been doing for the better part of a decade. I had built friendships, and connections, I belonged there…but for some crazy reason I was leaving, I was leaving my comrades in arms, people who I cried with on bad days and who I cheered with on great days.

I walked away from something that was fulfilling, at least at the time that is what I thought. I enjoyed going to work and making money, I enjoyed sitting down every day and solving problems. A person’s day could be made or broken by how well I did my job and that felt good. But, it was time for something new. I had a 4 year old at home who desperately needed me and a husband who wished I was available more. So I walked away, I walked away to help make instead of break the days of the two most important people in my world.

I decided with my husband’s encouragement to be a full time stay at home mom. This choice would give me the luxury of crafting my days with purpose and a plan. I was free to take my daughter for walks, meander through the grocery store without having to worry about the list of errands stacked behind my required weekly trip to the store so my family didn't starve. I could read books, take naps, play with my daughter, home school like I was Pinterest embodied into human form and have a perfectly clean house.

Then…. reality set in. My daughter stays up all night and sleeps all day so when she gets up its too hot to take walks, going through the grocery store at a leisurely pace only increases my grocery bill and fills our pantry with junk food. It took me 2 years for find a book that I loved and then I blew through the series in a matter of months, my daughter has found independence and wants her private time, home schooling is definitely not as pretty or easy looking as Pinterest and my house being clean consists of me at least sweeping the dog and cat hair up everyday.

When we take the plunge and enter the new world of the stay at home parent we are so confident that it will be easy and wonderful, because who doesn't know how they would spend those extra 10+ hours a day. Well as with all things, except ice cream and chocolate, it isn't as easy or as liberating as you would expect.

My weeks now fly by with my daily list usually having chores, home school, cook dinner, sweep and wash dishes on it. By the time I finish those items on my list my husband is walking through the door and I realize I never brushed my hair or changed out of my PJs.

Now please don’t misunderstand I wouldn’t change a thing about my life now. I would need to be hog tied and dragged back to working full time and even then I would run away. I love spending time with my daughter, seeing her learn and watching a spark take root and grow into a burning desire to learn more. I enjoy when my husband thanks me for a wonderful dinner and he never once has mentioned my PJ wardrobe. I feel as if I am making a bigger difference in the world by being out of it than I ever did being in it. The world keeps turning and people keep moving at the speed of information but as for me and my house, we will move at the speed of childhood, at the speed of a good cuddle and a good book, at the speed of love and togetherness.