A Day Off

Days off are a lot like fried okra. It looks good, and smells good; but you’re not quite sure what to do with it once you get it in your mouth!

That’s how it is for us anyway. This past Monday was one such day for Cheryl and me.

I swear we are terrible at doing nothing. Sitting still is a learned art that we fail miserably at I’m afraid. Right now, my staff and our closest friends are under the assumption that our family was dormant on Monday.

Some would imagine that we were in a cryogenic state; and that we were completely thawed by Tuesday morning. Bless their naive little hearts!

Last week was marathon “esk” and I am still amazed that we survived it all. I will spare you the details, as I am concerned that you would need a nap after reading about all of our activities; so I will focus on Saturday.

We held a benefit BBQ to assist a member of our church. The cooking began early on Friday, and did not finish until Saturday morning. We served an estimated 500 BBQ plates, cleaned up the event, sent all volunteers home, cooked dinner for the children, watched a movie…and crashed.

Sunday we had a special service at the church complete with a full house of attendees; and followed by a long period of fellowship. We ate Mexican food afterwards, and got home late.

Monday was to be the “Day of Rest.” You know, it even sounds funny coming out of my mouth. Cheryl and I wake up on Monday to the sound of crazed girls up stairs.

They were screaming and laughing, and stuff; totally ignoring the fact that I had announced late Sunday night, that I was intending on sleeping in on Monday. Man, I even threatened bodily harm if I was woken up early.

But, to no avail! It was morning…and they were in full effect, (well, Lindsey was at least.)

I turned over to Cheryl, and she had this funny look in her eyes that seemed to suggest that she was in strange territory. She seemed to be in a land that she knew not of. And it was starting to make her anxious. I would never admit this to her face…but I was uneasy as well!

What do we do today? This was the question that continued to resonate inside my head, and the answer kept returning to me…we do nothing!

Well, what does that mean? Is this “ nothing” on the calendar, did we send out a notification to everyone on our teams, have we reserved the facility, did we post it on Facebook, and do we have child care lined up??? (Yeah…it’s that bad around here!)
Well, apparently nothing meant nothing; and we all had to just wing it to the best of our ability.

The children kept looking at us funny, as though we had strange looks on our faces that seemed to hint of a brewing restlessness; and Cheryl kept asking to go to Aldi’s, for some grocery shopping. In all my manly authority I refused to allow her to go…(yeah big me!)

Soooo, after a few hours of doing nothing, I decided that I needed to smoke something. The grills were still at my house, as was a pile of firewood; heck all I was missing was four whole chickens. I sent Mike to the store after them chickens, and fired up the smoker!
Cheryl decided to do some land clearing with a pair of pruning scissors; and after cleaning up the lot next to us so we could see the road as we pulled out of the driveway; she went out back and cleared the path between our house and our neighbors.

Evidently it had become difficult for Damon and Jazzie to get to our house for dinner time!

Now, I know what you are thinking, and you’re wrong. Mainly because we never left the house, we did not answer the phone, we were still in our bed clothes, for the most part; and we did not work…you know…officially or whatever. So it was, in fact, a day off!
Jason, Father of Six