Life Without Children

 My kids are all gone to camp this week. They left on Saturday with my Sister and Brother-in-law and won't get back until late Friday evening. Life is very different without children but for this week we will try to enjoy the benefits of it. Here are some of the things I am enjoying this week...

• Quiet time. It is easier to spend more time in prayer and meditating on scriptures when there are so many people around.
• Getting to read the Bible or write letters while I eat my lunch. I don't think that is polite when I have others eating with me but when I am by myself I enjoy eating a slow lunch while multi-tasking.
• Being able to clean an area and have it stay that way for the most part.
• Not needing to worry much about food. I don't eat that much and Ken doesn't mind leftovers and so the amount I need to cook and think about food goes down drastically when the kids aren't around.
• Being able to focus on projects and not get interrupted. Today I was able to just work really hard on finishing up the rock on our house. I spent hours at it - used up 250 lbs of mortar and got the job done. Then in the evenings Ken and I are making good progress on getting the siding done. Hopefully we will be able to finish that up tomorrow evening.
• Being able to spend a lot of romantic one on one time with Ken - doing things like putting up siding. :-)

So there are some benefits of there just being the two of us (and in a few years that might be what it is like most of the time) and we will enjoy this week but over all I am so glad my life is not without children!

   Here are some of the things that I miss while having our children gone.....

• Singing together.
• Hearing them practice their instruments.
• Reading together and talking about it.
• Mealtime conversations.
• Bedtime prayers and kisses.
• Their appreciation for every meal that I make. I hope they are thanking the cooks at camp as well as they thank me for every meal.
• Them taking care of the ducks and chickens.
• Working together to clean up after a meal.
• Getting share fun things with them - like seeing this snapping turtle that wandered through our property yesterday. She spend a couple of hours wandering here and there before going into the river. Also today I had this butterfly circle me and land on me several times while I was working. The kids would have loved sharing those experiences with me.