My husband went out of town for the weekend with his sister to compete in a road rally. He invited me to come along but I knew it would be more enjoyable for all of us if I stayed home. Road rallying is hubby’s hobby, not mine. It just isn’t fun for me. He probably feels like I would be stuck at home if I didn’t go with him, but that couldn’t be further from the truth. I LOVE being “stuck” at home. As we go through the process of reclaiming our home as our own after the kids moved out, I enjoy it even more than ever before.

I had a list of things I wanted to get done. Nothing overly taxing. But there were a couple of errands and a meeting I needed to attend, so I was fine with staying home. I got a project mostly done off my list of goals for the year. I watched a couple of movies on NetFlix on Saturday night (my version of date night). I didn’t cook but decided to make myself Green Smoothies for two meals each day, and in this way, I knew I would be eating healthier and spend much less time fooling with food than normal.

I listened to some podcasts and read some more in the book I am reading. I even finished listening to an audiobook. It turns out it is much easier to listen to an audiobook or podcast when there is nobody else home to interrupt you or start talking to you and not realize you are listening to something. So, there is that.

On Friday night, I actually went to bed much earlier than I had been so I was ready to get up early and get those errands done on Saturday morning. It was kind of a nice change to be “stuck” at home alone and be completely free to order my day the way I wanted to and not have to answer to anyone for where I went or what I wanted to eat and when. I wouldn’t choose to live alone all of the time by any means and I honestly hope it never comes to that. However, I am perfectly capable of entertaining myself, getting plenty of sleep and feeding myself when I am home alone for the weekend. I’ve never lived alone in my entire life, so having the occasional weekend to try it out is kind of fun.

I would have felt much more “stuck” if I had gone along on the trip and been stuck for six-plus hours in the car each way, then hanging out in the hotel room Saturday while they did their rally and stuck in the car on Sunday because they had to check out before they left to rally again that day too.

Umm, no thanks. I think I will just stay home. No sense spending the extra money to feed another person in a restaurant all weekend. You go have fun, I’m sure I can find something to pass the time while you are away. Yeah, I’m sure, really.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Stuck
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

Remember when you were growing up and you felt you just had to have that particular something? You asked your parents for it and they wanted to know why you wanted it. Because all the other kids have them, you’d say. Then Mom would come back with “If all the other kids were jumping off a cliff, would you do that too?” Of course not, that would be stupid.

How often do we compare ourselves to all the other mothers, other people working out at the gym, other people shopping for clothing? All the other girls are thin, so I should be thin, we think. The other moms are driving minivans, so I should get a minivan. There are so many ways we compare ourselves to others, always thinking the others have it right and their life is perfect. Really? Who are we to judge the level of perfection in another person’s life. We see what they want us to see. Their reality may be completely different once they are behind closed doors.

Nevermind what the other people are doing, saying, wearing or driving. You have to do YOU. Be the best YOU that you can be and leave the others out of it. For all you know, those others are looking at you and coveting your life, your clothes, your car, your trim figure, your job, your house, your spouse. Little do they know, right?

Do you choose what to wear by what others will think of you? Do you do things or maybe not do them because of what others will think? There is only One who is qualified to judge us and He already knows what you think and why you do the things you do. It doesn’t matter what the neighbors will think, they will get over it. Be true to yourself and do what is asked of you by the One true judge. No other’s opinion matters, just His.

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Other
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

This is Monday, but I am still going to release my perfectionism and write the Five Minute Friday post. It has been harder to sit down and write these Five Minute Friday posts lately. I am not sure if the words just don’t immediately spark an idea like they sometimes do, or if I have just been challenging myself in other ways recently.

There are many things we must release in life. We release our children to go to school, knowing they will be back in just a few short hours. Eventually they graduate and we release them to adulthood and going away to college, but still, we know they will be back.

Again they graduate, but this time from college. Some come back to live at home and others don’t. When they come back to live, they are constantly thinking about moving out, getting a place of their own, adulting full-time. We as parents would rather keep them safely tucked under our wings where we can know they are safe. But alas, they fly the coop and decide to move out and sign a lease on a place committing them for the next year or more. What is a parent to do? We must release them. We must trust that we have done our jobs and taught them well. We must release them to make their own mistakes just as we did when we were young. We must release them and give them the chance to prove how well we trained them up and how much they paid attention to what we taught them.

Once the last child has moved out of the house, and it looks like it will be this way for at least a year or more, we must release their space and recreate it to suit our own needs and move on. We didn’t want them to leave, but we had to let them go.

Our last little chick left the nest at the end of February/beginning of March and we have been asking for the room to be cleaned out. We made plans for the room once it was certain the last chick was fleeing the nest. Five or six weeks later it is no more ready for our purposes so we must take matters into our own hands and help the little chick pack up the remainder of the stuff in the old nest. It is a sad time, but we have happy plans for this space and with a couple of days of very hard work, we made it happen.

Sometimes it is the chick as much as the parents who must release themselves into the big bad world. Perhaps they think if they never completely move out they will have an excuse to come back. They don’t need an excuse! We hope the kids will still call and stop by, but there are no guarantees in this life, so we, as parents, must make a new life and release the old one where we were parenting our kids full time. We didn’t push them out of the nest, we let them decide when they were ready to take that leap of faith and try flying solo.

After almost 27 years of parenting, we are really empty nesters now. We are releasing the old and making room for the new. We are reclaiming our home one room at a time. Stay tuned for before and after pics of the nest repurposing project.

Here is a little preview of what we released this weekend. You see it right?

Here is what I see when I look at the photo above, one very large dust bunny! You just have to release your inner child and go back to the days when you stared at the clouds and saw shapes in them.

(No, I didn’t arrange the dust before taking the picture but the bunny just jumped out at me once it was on my computer screen and I couldn’t help myself!)

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Release
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.

When we were kids, our parents would tell us to settle down if we were making too much noise. Then as we got older, we had to settle on a career path and make plans to go to school to study for our chosen career or find a job and get to work. Then, we had to meet our soul mate and settle down and get busy procreating. We have to settle our bills or debts.

We have to settle on a price for the house we want to buy, then settle on a mortgage company. Once the kids come along, we have to settle them into bed each night. Once there is more than one, we have to settle sibling rivalry spats almost constantly. (“I’m not touching you!” one says as they get as close as possible to the other without actually touching them.)

We have to settle for STAYcations when we haven’t saved enough to go somewhere fun. When a parent dies, you have to settle their estate.

We spend our entire life settling in one way or another, but most of the time it is something we feel we have to do rather than want to do. Most of the time, settling is like accepting the second choice.

What have you settled into, for, or on in your life? Was that a good or bad kind of settling?

This post is part of the weekly Five Minute Friday link-up!
The prompt this week is: Settle
The assignment: Write for five minutes on the word of the week. This is meant to be a free write, which means: no editing, no over-thinking, no worrying about perfect grammar or punctuation. Just write.