When given he opportunity, my kids can sleep in all day. From my high school days I can remember sleeping in until 12-12:30 on Saturday mornings after Friday night football games. Today, if I can sleep in until 8:30, I'm doing great. Between an aging bladder and a old dog dying for morning attention (well, a backyard potty break and some breakfast), it's impossible to sleep later than 9 AM.
One routine that I had developed before Christmas was uninterrupted 30 minutes of listening to the Bible from the YouVersion app on my iPhone on the way to school in the morning. Since I didn't have to go to school, I would get on the laptop or iPad and read 3 newspapers, check out Facebook for a couple of hours and then watch a documentary or movie on Netflix. This new routine really ate a lot of my time and left me drained.
Towards the end it was getting pretty pathetic as I turned to foreign films and watched a series of short movies that poked fun at life in communist Romania. I have always liked listening to foreign languages and this got me in the mood for more. I finished my movie vacation by watching a movie that was in Swedish, English and Arabic (Arn: The Knight Templar). Although I enjoyed these movies, I found myself wanting more. Chris had moved a DVD up in our queue, The Ultimate Gift, a movie that we had seen parts of at our men's retreat last May. It was good and great way to end my movie watching for now.
During vacation I thought about going out for a bike ride or a walk. But ultimately I was just too lazy. Now I could feel guilty about this but I choose not to. I didn't completely fall into my typical Christmas time blues. I did get to spend time with Wendi and the kids a lot more. We ate meals together every day. I did take Kaylene to and from her soccer practices. And I took a shower and got dressed every day - by 3:30 most days.
I also successfully resisted the temptation to work on school projects during break. I managed to turn off my district e-mail account and avoided even thinking about work for at least two weeks. Last night, the eve before going to work, I woke up once every two hours. I kept thinking it was time to get up. When my alarm did go off at 5:00, I managed to hit the snooze button for ten more minutes.
Today was a good day to ease back into the old routines. I did listen to the book of Colossians on the way in. At the end of the day I had accomplished some things and left enough to keep me busy for the rest of the week - at least my plans for the week. I know that will change as unexpected things come up.
In the end, I think that the next time I have extended time off, I will be more purposeful in what I will do with my free time. Perhaps plan a day trip with Wendi up to the mountains or to the coast. I'll even consider going for bike rides and walks. One thing that I will not do is to update this blog.
