“What If”

The last few months Tom and I have been running ourselves ragged. Seems like every weekend there is something to do and when we aren’t doing something we’ve been trying to help out our sisters who both just bought houses recently. (I will be posting about their homes in the future. Both are doing some major renovations and we are excited to see what the outcomes will be for them.) Not that I’m complaining because we love helping them (we really do!) and like to keep busy but when I looked at our calendar I quickly realized that we had no time set aside for us. No time for us to just get in the car and take a drive together or even time for just me. I have been trying to create that time this past month. I even posted about it here. Seems like we are always going and never taking a minute to stop and relax. It’s halfway through August and I realized I had 6 vacation days left and was holding on to them like it was my last can of soup in the Great Depression. I questioned myself as to why I was doing this. Why was I saving 6 days and not using any. I know I wanted to request the day after Christmas off but what did I plan to do with the other 5?? In my mind I think I was worried about the “what if’s”. What if I got sick and needed to take some time off? What if my sister goes into labor and wants me to be there with her? What if we sell our condo and need to move? I’m saving 5 days for “what if’s”!! And then as I contemplated taking this past Thursday off my boss says to me that I should take some time off and that everyone needs a break from work. I think about what he is saying and somewhat process it but still not over the “what if’s”. I say yes and that I will take the day off but still I’m very unsettled about my decision. Then I got a letter in the mail at my job. I received an award in my company last month. It’s called the Commitment to Excellence Award. My boss is the one who nominated me for this award. I had read before the things he had written about me but what I didn’t know was what I read was a summary of what he written. When I received the letter from my company enclosed was a copy of his letter to my company about me. A piece in the letter reiterated what he had been telling me and what I was having a hard time hearing. Take some time off! The line that sticks out in parenthesis in his letter reiterated everything I knew and had been told. He wrote “Needs to take more time off!” When I think back on my life I guess this is something I’ve always struggled with. Whether it was school, or work or at home I have a sense of anxiety. An anxiety that comes from being still and feeling like I haven’t accomplished anything. I don’t know how to stop working. (This is probably why I get chronic migraines because I don’t know how to stop thinking and just relax.) I try at times but I like working, I like the challenge, I like doing things, so my life has been this way for as long as I can remember. The last job I had prior to this one I took a week off once. That week was spent painting my condo and moving in. My husband knows this about me but in fact it’s kind of a trait we share. We don’t know how to not work. When’s he not in the office, he’s home tinkering on a car or creating a fix to fixing  something. This is just who we are. But we did it anyways. We took this past Thursday off. We didn’t lie in bed till noon like most couples might have. Instead we were up at 8, showered by 9 and on the road before 10. (Very late start for us but where we were going didn’t open until 10 and it was only a few miles away.) We took a day off from our 9-5 jobs (in my case 8-4) but not from my second job. Tom and I spent the day antiquing. We headed to Planfield, CT the night before and hit up Putnam, CT the next day. Putnam at one point was known as the antiquing capital of the world. Now they have two shops but those two shops took us hours to ravage through. We had a great day. We checked out from the outside world and did what I love most. Look for projects for me to work on. So even though I wasn’t working behind my desk I was working. My little squirrel (as Tom refers to my brain) was on its wheel running a marathon as I walked through the shops. Now my “what if’s” weren't about my vacation time but more about “what if” I took this piece and did this? Taking the day to not follow a clock and just do what we I love was probably the best use of my vacation day. I still felt accomplished by the end of the day and I didn’t feel like I wasted one of my “what if” days. Here are some shots we took along the way.

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Can you figure out what my next project or redo might be?