I had a bunch of things I meant to try to get done today.
Bathrooms to clean. Laundry to do. Floors to sweep and wash. Dishes to put away. Painting in the living room and the kitchen.
Its after 8 pm, its dark out now. I'm tired, mentally and physically. And not a single damn one of those tasks were accomplished. Far from being wasted, however, the day was full.
I took my first dressage lesson with Bugs -- and I think I'm hooked. It was cold and windy and by the end of the lesson raining sideways on us -- and I'm still hooked. So much forward motion, so much contact, so much FUN.
And then I took my kids to an afternoon movie, and then out to the local pizza buffet, and then we played arcade games until we ran the machines flat out of tickets it seemed like. You forget as an adult how much fun it was to take your tickets up to the counter and trade them in for prizes. Remember how shiny and fantastic those plastic slinkies and parachute army guys seemed when we got them from the counter at the arcade at the skating rink? The slinkies are still there and so are the army guys, and they're every bit as wondrous to my children's young eyes as they once were to mine.
And we stood in line forever to get the tickets turned in and then to pick our prizes, and they didn't fight and they stayed calm, and when it was their turn at the counter, as they walked away with their loot they both politely thanked the gangly teenaged boy behind the counter, making this mom awfully proud.
And I'm exhausted and we all got a little overwhelmed by the noise and the birthday party crowds at the pizza joint, and maybe one of us got a little bent out of joint and had a meltdown, but all he needed was a little quiet time in his room to gather himself back up. They're playing with their doodads now, and bedtime will come soon for all of us. Tomorrow they head to their dad's and it there will be far too much time to do things like clean and paint and fold.
My house is messy, but it will keep. Days like today are precious and too quickly gone to let them pass by.
