Our power is out, so we packed up the food (lawd, it was a lot of food), the kids, and the clothes and trotted over to my sister-in-law’s house this morning. Hurricane Sandy packed a punch up and down the Eastern Seaboard, so I hope you and your loved ones are safe.
With no power for the last 15 hours, our family of four was actually forced to talk to each other for more than two seconds. Not race by each other for the closest TV, PS3, Galaxy, Kindle Fire, Dell Desktop and every other piece of tech equipment that one household could have. Some days, the only time I hear my 15-year-old son’s voice is when he says “What’s for dinner?” Or when we have the do-your-homework-fool discussion. Yes, that’s how it goes down in my house.
I’m just as bad. Always running around cooking, cleaning, renovating (a never-ending story), flying… I was supposed to be in Chi-town this weekend, working like crazy, running nonprofit boards, and the list goes on. Oddly, I like doing a lot. It makes me feel needed, but it also makes me realize that mama needs to slow down, at least sometimes.
Yes, it takes a hurricane to slow me down. I wonder what it takes to make you other workaholics slow down. Nonetheless, we took our moment and had a good time.
We decided to play cards, board games, and 20 questions. The latter was the most fun because we learned about each other’s favorite foods, cool places we’d each like to visit and why each of us does some of the weird, quirky things we do.
I quickly realized that our tight-knit posse needs to take more “us time” together. We all have to make love deposits to one another and stop letting stresses, like work, school, bills, money, and getting to the next become all consuming. Balance in one’s life can be a powerful attribute if you allow it to take it’s rightful place.
Be safe everyone!