My homestead guilty pleasure is also my Mom guilty pleasure: a DAY OFF!

All photos are mine. Grab some coffee or milk or sweet tea, and a pretty cupcake, to enjoy with this post, shall we?

"It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a quiet person in possession of a good moment of silence, must be in want of incessant conversation." (.5 SBD to whoever gets that reference first without googling it--honor system applies!)

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"Stay at Home Moms don't get vacations"

I was rather scarce lately because the Husband went out of town on a golfing trip with a friend for nearly six days. I obviously wasn't going to advertise to the Internet that I was holding down the fort alone (praise God for watchdogs and the Second Amendment), and I obviously was a very busy woman while he was gone, so Steemit fell by the wayside a bit.

Dinner and a movie = popcorn and Moana. The kids were clingy and seemed to need to just be up against me that evening.

Circling back to my opening quote, it is A Thing, I swear it is! that if there's just one person in the household who actually likes to be alone sometimes, and wants to be alone and quiet sometimes, every single other member of that household is inexorably attracted to their presence, and persistently desires their interaction, like demented moths to a light.

I should feel flattered by my popularity, and revel in being the nurturing, empowered woman around whom the household revolves, I know, I know. Normally I do! But after six days, my brain felt overloaded from the unrelenting onslaught of nonstop stimulation. The only time I got any peace to "just be," and actually think, was late at night, and you can only indulge in so many late nights before that takes a toll, too.

It definitely wasn't all bad, or bad at all really, just tiring. The upshot is that by some odd twist, having one less adult in the house makes life easier in a way, sort of in the "while the cat's away the mice will play" way. The kids don't care if I make pancakes three nights in a row, haha.

Hanging out on the porch, after having eaten a lazy picnic-style dinner on the porch. See how I'm being watched?

The danged dogs drove me exponentially crazier than the kids ever did. Big Guy was freaked out that the Husband, the Love of His Life, had gone away, and made sure I knew it. He'd be lying near me and it would suddenly occur to him "OMG I have to tell her the Husband is gone!!" and begin his "HUH-HUH-HUH-HUH" heavy steam engine style panting, and if he could do it in my face while begging to be petted, all the better. So then of course the other two would be all "Oh! We're supposed to be panicking about something?! OMG OMG OMG ARE WE GETTING PETTED NOW?!?!" and leap up to create a wholesale panting and prancing tizzy. This happened many times a day, whenever they weren't staring at me, or milling around my feet and tripping me. (Generally, abruptly bellowing "DOGS!!!" serves to scatter them, but I try to use that sparingly, so as not to wear out its effectiveness.)

These little pterodactyls have discovered the joy of kicking shavings into their water, when they aren't knocking it over.

The kids were quite good overall. They helped me out a lot, which felt like a wonderful luxury compared to past stints alone, in which I had to do absolutely everything for helpless infants. We had to have a recalibration talk at only one point, regarding paying attention to me. Unfortunately they have learned, whether at school or by figuring it out themselves, how to be obnoxious for the sake of it, so my usual long patience was sorely tested when they would get all wound up and then start competing to see who could be more aggravating--and apparently, who could first make Mommy lose her cool over something dumb.

Cracked fingertips and an Etsy custom order added the biggest layer of stress...but more about that on Monday!

At any rate, I took a mini vacation from the bigger house chores, and the kids and I overall had a nice time puttering around together. The Husband got home on Monday. By today, I was more than ready for a rare, and therefore hugely enjoyed, Mom's Day OUT!

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Make your own vacation, where you are

First, have another cupcake, appropriately named Sunshine Lemon, for making it this far.

Why OUT? Well, if I didn't leave the house, I would get sucked in to doing chores instead of actually taking a day off. The Husband originally said he wanted my help planting potatoes tonight--then changed his tune and insisted I not hurry home.

@borrowedearth started a "guilty pleasures, homestead style" topic (her post is here) and I have to say my biggest guilty pleasure is dual: Mom's Day OUT from both the family and homestead obligations. I feel a little guilty for wanting to abscond from my daily duties and the life I love, but at the same time, it feels so good to flit away for a short time and come back with my mind refreshed, ready to settle into the routine again. Some people just need to do that periodically, for their own mental health!

Today, therefore, the Husband and the kids planted the potatoes without me :)

I also like to go somewhere else, somewhere different, for a day out, for the "change of scene" effect @bboyady wrote about in a post about regaining perspective when you're feeling stressed:

The most best suggestion for you is go out and travel. Dont limit yourself at your own places. When you are going out to travel, you really will find out your life not too sucks at all and outside world still a lot of things for you to explore. Just go, whether near or far, as long as you going out, I surely you will know what I am saying, your perspective will surely be different and you will be more relax than before.

Well, when you can't travel far, traveling somewhere different close at hand will do just as nicely, to have the same effect. Today, I drove an hour away to the quilt shop--I haven't been there since January or February. It's the greatest color therapy, craft therapy, and oh glorious quietness therapy. Spending a couple hours just soaking in beautiful colors and patterns in silence...it resettled my mind into a much happier place!

Appliqué on a wall hanging quilt....now that is impressive work, rather beyond my level.

Of course, I was tempted beyond resistance, and had to wanted to buy unnecessary fabric to expand my stash fuel my obsession. I may have done so ;)))

I enjoyed a very, VERY leisurely lunch at a local pizzeria while out and about. I reveled in being responsible for only Me, Myself, and I, and taking as long as I liked to eat. In fact, I dragged it out, just because I could.

Pizza and sweet tea. I'm really living it up!

On the way home, I got off the exit for the town near ours, and went to a cute little bakery I've always wanted to check out, just so I could eat a cupcake!

How to choose???

I also stopped at the Mennonite-owned general store for a pint of strawberries, which was supposed to be for my morning smoothies. Instead, I indulged in the most guilty pleasure ever of eating them while driving, and pitching the tops out the window along our #countryroads. Living on the edge, I tell ya!

I may have gone a bit overboard. The Husband polished off the rest!

It felt so good to have had a nice chunk of "Me Time" off today to be a bit selfish. I came home at dinnertime with extra cupcakes for the Husband and kiddos, and then went forth to the garden and learned to use the weedeater for the first time in my life. I might post about it, because I haven't seen the Husband laugh like that in years....