Some Scenes from the Weekend...

Audrey has this habit of snuggling up next to me each night before she goes to sleep and asking me to tell her all of our plans for the next several days. In detail. The kid loves herself a plan...she's organized like that. Clearly the apple does not fall far from the tree.

When I was growing up, we had very few "plans" per say. This was due to a number of factors, but was likely largely due to the fact that my father spent most of his evenings performing in clubs and at concerts, so the last thing he or my mom wanted to do when he wasn't working was "go out". Suffice to say, we were at home a lot, and (not to go all Freud on you) I think this contributes to my drive to go, go, go.

That said, as you might have gleaned of late, all the "going" is burning us out, so I've really been making a conscious effort to clear the calendar as much as possible. And while I've been pretty psyched about this chunk of newly freed-up time, Audrey was, well... skeptical when during our nightly rehashing of upcoming plans, we got to Friday and I said (wait for it) "no plans" oh and there's "no plans" on Saturday either. She was quiet . I waited for her protest, her complaints of potential boredom, but after a long pause, she just said, "good, I like having no plans."

Here's the thing about not having plans, it leaves the hours open to possibility and spontaneity (something that's woefully lacking in our lives of late). Having an open afternoon or evening allows for a family walk where you might say, run into a friend and in a sort of Mayberry moment decide to pool the contents of your respective pantries and have an impromptu family dinner while the kiddos run around in the backyard. See if you had plans that wouldn't be possible.

So here's what we did with our freewheeling, largely unstructured weekend (in no particular order): milled around for a bit at our 1st annual neighborhood Oktoberfest and watched polka bands / made some necklaces / took the girlies to eat Mexican food at one of our favorite patios in town / cleaned out a couple of desk drawers and cabinets / helped Audrey write a little story / read...a lot.

We ended the weekend with our single premeditated plan -- dinner with three other families on Sunday evening in an idyllic backyard in Ft. Worth. The friendships within the group go back to pre-kids (and in some cases pre-weddings) times, which made for some pretty powerful moments watching all the littles happily frolicking together while the adults drank wine and partook in some reminiscing. It was the perfect ending to a nice, simple, mellow weekend...