Memorial Day

A memorial involves the preserving the memory of a person or thing.....so to commemorate this Memorial Day, I wish to remember this day of my life, and the choices we made this day.

After an extended 4 day weekend filled with fun, friends, bonfires, BBQ, Bible study and a movie night, we found ourselves entering this day tired and feeling a little behind. Yet, Jason started the day by allowing me to sleep in as he got the children ready for the day and made pancakes and eggs......his specialty. This used to be a weekend tradition, but it has since been replaced with our Saturday morning bakery visit and Sunday services, so it was fun to revisit this tradition - now with little Anna Ruth happily rolling around on the floor beside our table.

After breakfast, there were a thousand things weighing on both Jason and I after a busy weekend.....basic housekeeping, yard work, remodel progress, exercise, preparing for the week ahead, etc., etc. Yet all day, I felt a great need to just be with my family.....be with my husband....to enjoy this day that I had been given with them. The thing is, those other things are always there - pressing on the mind, day after day. I believe we could completely absorb ourselves in the details of their completion and wake up one day well into our advanced years and wonder how the time had passed without our noticing.

So today, we had our wonderful breakfast and planted our garden. We took a 2 hour late afternoon nap - yes, all of us, each in our own beds. After waking up from our nap, Jason and I talked for about a half hour before waking up the children and making a dinner of leftover pizza. We then headed outdoors for some family time working on the playhouse. The boys are so very excited about this idea, and we are making it all from scraps of wood we already have. It is also being built as a family...meaning that little hands pound nails too, a matter in which they take great pride.

Today's choices were fairly significant for us, for they involved the laying aside of those many things weighing on our minds and the pressure of a free day at home to accomplish them. It involved both Jason and I acknowledging that our weeks disappear in a flurry of activity and daily responsibilities void of time to simply relax together and talk alone. We don't have much time to reconnect, or even just cuddle and nap. We don't have much time together with our children as a family unit...all five of us.

Today was an important reminder that sometimes we simply need to make time to reconnect. After all, we didn't get married with the sole goal of accomplishing a to-do list. And yes, it may mean that the trim work in the Ordway home, among many other things, will be longer in coming.......that we may not button things up to refinance in the ideal window of time....that we may have a growing pile of unfolded laundry. And, as silly as these things may seem, they certainly do weigh on the mind.

And yet? If we only had this day together, what would I rather remember? That we folded our laundry and vacuumed the carpet? That our window was trimmed? That the corn was planted? No, I think I'll take the refueling time I had with my husband that will allow us some leeway to jump back into the fray, to keep working through the craziness of each day working side by side, if not interacting much. And, I'll definitely take the memories we made today as a family......the treasure I now have in my treasure chest.