Sunday's are good days! Breakfast with Honey, church, lunch with Honey, mandatory Sunday afternoon nap......light dinner with Honey, a little mindless TV and now headed to bed to read a while before more sleep. What's not to like?
We are not one of those families that fill every minute of the weekend with frenzied activity. We need and want time to just 'be' with one another and relax. Honey had to work some needed OT this Saturday so that makes it all the more important that we take time to veg at home in our grunges with as little activity as possible. A simple life begins and ends with those we love and nothing is better than quality time doing nothing together. At least that's how we see it here at the Hacienda.
For the most part, we all create our schedules. If there is no room for doing nothing together, maybe things need to be re-examined. Remember, living the simple life means we control our environment rather than being controlled by it. Maybe being more selective about what we do or do not allow into our lives and schedules would scale down activity to allow room for quality nothing time.
In 1998, I was one busy girl. I had a full-time job, I was the wedding coordinator at one of the largest churches in Austin, I was taking my Ministry studies, and I was training for my first mission trip to Africa. I already had dropped out of the church choir because there just were not enough hours in the week to do all the things I was trying to do. Life was closing in on me and the faster I peddled, the further behind I got! I knew I was at a crossroad in my life and decisions needed to be made. I felt in my spirit that God kept telling me to wait, not make any important decisions until after the Africa mission trip. I was too busy to make decisions anyway....LOL
In Africa, everyday life is far different than that of the average American. They do not rush around trying to keep a crazy schedule, appointments or march through their day by the dictates of the clock. In fact, it took some getting used to by those of us on the team. They were not getting in a rush no matter how much you want them to. Life moves at a leisurely pace with time made to interact with friends being a priority. Clothes were washed in a washtub of water they had to carry in buckets and jugs and heat over a fire. Meals were cooked over a small fire inside the reed fences around their mud huts covered with thatch cut by the river. Clothes worn usually did not create what we would call 'an outfit' and rarely matched anything else on their person, yet they walked hand in hand with their friends, laughing and sharing. No electrical power or running water or TV's to be had but life was lived, babies were born, old people died and were mourned.
The lesson God wanted me to get in Africa was that I needed to simplify, simplify, simplify! Lesson learned. I came home with a new appreciation for a simpler life. It changed my perspective forever. I set about eliminating all but the most basic and important activities from my routines. I made more time to be with people I loved. Then, as now, we do not have all the toys that some families think necessary. We are not chasing after the latest and greatest technological devises, we do not have fancy phones that do everything but your laundry and we are not slaves to commercials showing us things we can not live without. For the most part, we DO live without them and live well. There is still a long way to go to get to the point I seek in simplicity and minimalism in our possessions but I am looking forward to the journey.
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