A stay-at-home weekend

It's still too hot to do anything and we decided, yesterday and again today, to stay home. This is unusual for us. Our lifestyle for several years was to get out every weekend day to do some hiking or exploring. Our four years in the north Bay area was spent in a house too close to neighbors to be comfortable spending much time in, so we compensated by roaming the countryside, taking pictures, getting some exercise and fresh air - being tourists.

I have 6 photo albums full of remembrances of those adventures. We hiked in Pt Reyes, visited lighthouses, took ferry rides, wandered city streets, found charming little restaurants, walked through Golden Gate Park, hiked on Angel Island, shopped in the squares in Healdsburg and Sonoma, rode the skylift to the winery in Napa Valley, drove up and down the beautiful Sonoma Coast. Wow. What an adventure that was. We could put 400 miles on the car in a weekend. Goodness knows how many miles we put on our feet! The photo albums document all those wonderful times and places - and suggest that we were pretty busy during those years!

So now we are spending the whole weekend in the house - venturing out only for the mail and paper (and, of course, to water the pumpkins!) And I have to say, we are just as content, albeit not as fit. We have time to do the little things that need and want doing, and time to spend fussing with the cats, checking the weather radar (that would be Mark, to whom I have to say: it is never going to rain again - accept that and move on.) We are reading a lot. Some of us are even watching little bits of old western movies on TV (ahem.) We have time to offer little observations to each other and to engage in big conversations. Afternoon naps have featured prominently. (Good grief – sounds like we are just getting old!)

What do I know? Lifestyle can change with the setting and situation - but we always have control over making it work for us, regardless of our situation. Flexibility, adaptability and optimism are important ingredients to our happiness. Pleasure can come from the small things as well as the big. And looking back can be as entertaining, sometimes, as looking ahead.

I think I’ll spend some time looking through photo albums on this stay-at-home weekend day.