Slowing down

It's almost midnight and I should be in bed.

But about an hour ago, I realized that I still had a few assignments due by midnight for my online class. Ahhh! So I jumped out of my comfortable bed and rushed to the computer. The assignments weren't anything big. I had a portfolio I had to organize, polish and make sure it looked good, and that took the most time. Then I had to finish up a short "self-reflection" paper on how I've improved over this semester. Piece of cake.

And just like that, summer vacation has begun.

I've actually considered myself done with school since Monday afternoon when I handed in a final paper. And since Monday, I've just kind of been taking things slow. I've been slowly trying to get my house back in shape. You should have seen the pile of dirty dishes from over the weekend while I was stressing about finals. It had grown to epic proportions. I had a roommate once who didn't know how to use the dishwasher (true story, after months, she finally came and asked me to show her how to do the dishes!) but she liked to cook so the dishes were always this ginormous, almost comical pile of stinky filth in the sink. Yeah, my dirty dishes looked about as bad as that! 

But I am getting there. I cleaned most of my room today. I have a bad habit of putting things on the floor on my side of the bed. There were empty water glasses, books, clothes, chapstick, lotions, shoes, you name it, it was there. Now I can walk without fear of tripping!

I also got the guest bedroom cleaned up for my brother-in-law, who is moving in with us for a month tomorrow. And my laundry that's been piling and piling up these last 2 weeks is finally being washed. Bryant's been a good sport and has been helping out a ton. I feel bad because they have been so busy at his work, and he's been working about 10 hour days, then he comes home exhausted, but still helps me out and plays with Savannah, and 90% of the time, I put him in charge of dinner, getting her jammies on, bedtime books and bedtime cuddles. Then, because I toss and turn and wake up about a million times during the night, so does he, so he's on just as little sleep as I am! He's such a champ!

I've also been just taking my days slow. Because I don't have class to motivate me to get up and going, Savannah and I spend most of the mornings snuggled in my bed watching cartoons. I know I sound lazy, but it's so nice, so I don't mind if anyone thinks that.

Now that I'm not scrambling to get assignments done and turned in nearly every night, I feel like I can slow down my evenings with Bryant too. We get to sit on the couch and catch up on our shows, we lay in bed listening to audio books before we drift off to sleep, we get more family time with Savannah before her bedtime. It's perfect. Tonight, the 3 of us sat on the porch for a while, snuggled up together in a blanket covering our bare feet, and talked with Savannah about trees and bark and dirt and flowers and the mountains. I want every night this summer to be like tonight.

A few days ago, my sister graciously offered to babysit for us and we went out to dinner. We go out to eat a lot, but we always have Savannah with us. It was nice going out just the 2 of us. I didn't have to order what I thought Savannah would eat, I was able to order what I wanted to eat. And I left my phone at home, and Bryant didn't touch his the whole time. No toddler climbing all over me, no checking sports scores or e-mails or text messages on our phones, no trying to keep the mess to a minimum (have you ever watched a toddler eat rice? It's ridiculous...) 

We just slowed down.

And we talked.

We didn't talk about money, or work, or school, or bills, or what is stressing us out or making us worried. We talked about books, about our kids, about our goals, about religion, about history, about how much we love each other. About how we want to be together forever and ever. 

We didn't even mind when our food took a half hour to show up, or the fact that we were freezing because we were next to the door. In fact, we were having such a good time, we sat and talked for 20 more minutes after we finished our food and paid the check. We held hands on the drive home. We sat in the car in the driveway for 10 minutes talking about books again. We put Savannah to bed and cuddled on the couch and watched the history channel for a bit. We just slowed down and remembered how nice it is to have "us time" once in a while. It's so important to a relationship. It really is.