Unplugged

This week has been a life-event type of week for our family.

Puberty and autism don't go well together.  There are a lot of reasons for this, but mainly it's because when a child with autism experiences puberty, they can't really express what they're feeling.  There are too many changes going on physically and emotionally.  A woman wrote another blog entry about it this week and I identified with it in every aspect.  Needless to say, stress has built up in our home over time.  You don't realize how close you are to the breaking point until you take a step back and look at the situation from a different angle.

My oldest son and daughter are partially home-schooled.  Part of the beauty of home school is that if you want to spend some quality time with your kids and just take a day off, you can do that without getting a bunch of phone calls or having to write a bunch of notes.  So, my husband took the day off work and we took our oldest son and daughter, and our baby girl, and left town for a little while.

It was just a day trip.  We stopped and got kolaches.  I'm a big believer in trying new things as long as those new things aren't illegal, and I'm embarrassed to say I never had a kolache.

I have no regrets.  That's all I'm going to say.  Oh, and that I walked it all off later.

We then paid a visit to Cameron Park Zoo in Waco.  This is what I imagine a "boutique" zoo would look like.  It's small, but really beautiful.  Because we went there on a Thursday, we had the zoo practically to ourselves.  It was a gorgeous day, we got to wander around at our leisure and enjoy each other and the animals, and we had a great time.

This is the first time in months that I have felt so calm, and at peace.  The pain in my neck, where all my stress seems to settle, did not make an appearance today.  I tried to examine the day to see what I did differently, and what I did differently was I experienced something new.  I went somewhere new.  I also did not check my email all day, did not make any phone calls, except to a family member to let her know where we were, did not work on school work, did not work on real estate, did not clean the house, did not stress about dinner, and I crashed on the couch after I picked up Logan from school and had a great half an hour where I just held him and we talked and watched tv.

It was heavenly.

And I wondered what would happen if everyone could unplug like that at least once a week?  I know it's not possible.  It's not possible to travel somewhere new once a week, but what if once a week we just stopped everything.  What if once a week the only commitment we had was to ourselves?  That sounds incredibly selfish, and maybe it is...but what if we took a time out more often and gave ourselves time to think, and relax?  Perhaps that was what Heavenly Father meant the Sabbath to be.

And yes, I do see more kolaches in my future ;)