Celebration

The governor very kindly gave us Friday off, in an effort to staunch the hemorrhaging of money from the state budget, so I decided to make a bit of a celebration of it.

I started with a very elegant breakfast Friday morning (real tea and a tea cup!)

Then, after spinning wildly around the kitchen, the boys and I made peppermint bark.

I had been promising to make it since Christmas, and it turned out to be an incredibly expensive and time-consuming way to use up a few leftover candy canes and peppermint sticks (five bars of white chocolate!!), but the boys had fun, until they ran out of enthusiasm after the second layer...

M, after getting home from school declared it the best candy he's ever eaten, so that's saying something at least.

It's amazing how much longer a four-day weekend feels now that I don't get one every week. I stuck with my mindfulness plan from last weekend--not worrying about the list and what needs to happen next, just focusing on what I'm doing NOW. It's really amazing how good I feel when I do that, and how much I manage to get done. And I kept on taking care of myself as well--I did yoga on three of the days, got outside every day (sledding, walking, snowshoeing and even a late afternoon ski on the new snow yesterday afternoon) and got a few hours to myself when the boys went to a birthday party.

While they were gone, I made this pillow (inspired somewhat by this tree made by Heather at Shivaya Naturals) for a housewarming gift for friends (they moved in October!!). It's a family tree, with a leaf for each member, including a baby due in May. M thought it looked not at all like a tree, but a blob of chocolate, but C approved, so I'm hoping it doesn't look too stupid. Then I lay down on the couch to read, fell asleep for awhile, woke up with the book in my hands and my arms asleep, finished the book and lay there for some time doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING before finally getting up, putting a log in the fire and starting dinner, before three raucous boys came home from a World War II party (not kidding) and stormed the house. It had been truly lovely while it lasted and I spent the evening feeling somewhat punch-drunk and slightly dazed.

Earlier in the day I made two mouse pads (get it? They're cat and mouse pads! Ha!) one to replace our "GoArmy.com" one that M picked up at the armed forced recruitment center (no kidding...and no I was NOT the one to take him there!!) and one for my sister.

I didn't accomplish everything I wanted to, but we did embark on an epic cleaning of the boys' room, for which I nearly ran out of enthusiasm, but revived my energies at bedtime (resulting in three boys going to bed late after a long weekend...sigh...