For the first time in two years, I've been able to take weekends (mostly) off.
I can't tell you how amazing it is to sleep until 7:00 am, eat some breakfast, read the paper, read to the kids, work on the house, take the kids out for ice cream, run errands, hit up some estate sales, visit with friends, walk the dog, cook some dinner, watch a movie, knit, read, knit, read, repeat. Amazing. Hasn't happened in two years.
The two years of working seven days a week, 80-100 hours a week, were a mixed blessing. I was fortunate in that I was working 80-100 hours a week at two jobs I enjoyed -- teaching and yarnista-ing. I can see now that the time was necessary to get me to a place where I can go out on a beautiful Sunday afternoon and enjoy this:
The meandering St. Louis (pronounced in these parts like Saint Loo-iss) River. A sunny day. Three healthy children scampering with a chocolate-colored puppy, a husband who's always up for exploring.
After our adventuring, rain clouds started to roll in, dropping blobs of water on our windshield here, parting to reveal rays of sunlight there.
And then, the most perfect rainbow ever made. We could see it clearly from end to end, arching its way across the rural highway and the Mississippi River.
As if to demonstrate its own extravagance, nature sent a family of ducks waddling across the highway, forcing us to slow down to look at the babies following their mother blithely across a roadway where people travel more than 60 miles an hour.
"Not enough for you?" nature asked. "How about a second rainbow?"
This one more subtle than the first, mimicking the perfect arc across the terrain.
I've changed some of the photo's settings here so you can see it better:
And therein lies the bad: two years of missed rainbows and duck relatives.
How lovely to now work in a yarn studio with windows on which to see the world, surrounded by the colors of nature's extravagance, and to be able to once again enjoy the weekends.