Monday dawned hot in our part of Mexico, but I still wanted to walk on the beach before I flew back to Philly, and keeping my feet in the water made the heat better. As for the view (see photo)? Not bad at all.
This was a chill long weekend. My husband was in Mexico on business, and I tagged along. He had to do work stuff. I did not. The kids were back at home. So I engaged in a rather rigorous schedule of leisure activities. On Saturday, my day included breakfast, a massage, lunch, a dip in the pool, a nap, a walk on the beach, dinner and dancing. On Sunday, my even more rigorous schedule included breakfast, floating in the pool, lunch, a bike ride through some mangroves, another nap, a quick beach trip (before a sudden downpour) and another dinner.
Quite a feat to get that all in, really. Consequently, I didn’t even attempt to read the book I brought. I only read mindless stuff like the hotel’s magazine. Sometimes thinking is over-rated.
What’s interesting in all this is I’ve had a story going in my mind lately that I want more “fun” in my life, defined as kid-free leisure time. It’s not a bad thing to want. I have some ideas for how I can make that happen (and how others can make it happen too!)
However, it would be silly to think that I don’t have reasonable chunks now. A whole long weekend in Mexico constitutes many hours. And regular readers will recall my kid-free trip to Napa and Sonoma a mere month ago. While 168 hours — a week — is usually the cycle in which we live our lives, looking at several weeks at a time can sometimes give a better perspective. I haven’t managed to make much progress on using those silent auction spa certificates during my normal day-to-day life. But taking a vacation a month is hardly nothing. It counts too.
What does leisure time usually look like in your life?
Right now I live for doing fun things with my daughter and making her smile and laugh. I also like going for walks with my husband. We used to swim together, but that’s pretty much impossible with our schedules these days.
Just reading my comment — it sounds so martyr-y! I do wish my husband and I had more time to do things together, but I am the one who has to plan whenever I want to do something, and sometimes just thinking about what I really want to do exhausts me.
@oldmdgirl – we joined the YMCA, which has childcare. So then my husband and I can actually work out at the same time on weekends. we haven’t done it in a while (it’s more of a winter thing — in summer we prefer exercising outside, but then there’s no childcare!) but it was good for then.
We have an au pair, so childcare really isn’t the issue. It’s a combination of a) planning in advance so that she knows she’s working, and b) finding a pool that is not gross that is open hours that are convenient. We’ve considered the local Y (mostly for the swim lessons for our daughter), but… it’s in West Philly, and… while a 42″ deep, 87 degree pool is great to learn to swim, it’s kind of gross for doing laps (and my husband scrapes himself on the bottom doing flip turns). We both joined the [university] pool last year…. and then we never went, mostly because the hours it is open are inconvenient, and because it is a pain to get there and park.
Trust me, we have looked into this extensively. I am almost 100% sure that you will not be able to suggest a solution that we have not already considered and rejected. However, we ARE an excellent resource if you want to know more about swimming in the Philadelphia area! 🙂
(Also, swimming 1x per week SUCKS. You never get fit enough to do a substantive workout, and you never get any faster. It’s very frustrating.)
Lots of crafty time in my new craft room/office. It’s all set up now and my 4.5yo has her own craft table in there, and she’s finally at the age where we can work on stuff quietly, side by side, and it’s pretty awesome.
But I am also looking forward to a kid-free long weekend trip this summer while my parents are around. It’s been 3 years (!).
i’d love to take a trip like that, but with really young kids it’s harder to leave them with someone (esp during the breastfeeding years!).
that said, once they are older i want to take one ‘girls weekend’ every year (and josh can take a ‘guys weekend, i.e. to see a sports event or whatever he wants) in exchange and do pretty much exactly what you did on your trip. well, maybe i’d add some shopping 🙂
current leisure time (not counting time spent with kids, which is really lovely at times but not leisure in my opinion): blogging time, some tv time with josh, working out, and — probably my favorite — social time w/ friends or family.
My favourite bit of leisure time is going to the gym first thing in the morning Mon-Weds. I go to a class (outsource the motivation), and think about what I will blog about whilst I’m exercising. Then I shower, dress, and enjoy my coffee and smoothie while I write the day’s blog post. This gets my day off to such a great start, I’m looking into ways that we could afford to have a babysitter do Thurs & Fri school drop-off so I could do this all week long…
@Alison – does your partner do the Mon-Tues-Wed early AM routine with the kids? I’ve been getting up early on occasion to enjoy the quiet but the idea of actually leaving the house sounds quite lovely!
Sounds like a great mini vacation, Laura!
Vacations without the kids are a goal I’m still working towards, but I have been more intentionally trying to plan so that I can utilize smaller blocks of time for leisure. I homeschool my two younger kids, but they have a class or speech or OT appointment most days for 45 min or an hour. It’s easy to fill that time with errands, but if I plan in advance it’s a nice interrupted chunk of time for reading, writing, or exercise.
We also live just a one mile walk from the beach. It’s a New England beach and not warm enough to swim in most of the year, but it’s still beautiful and restorative to spend time there. We have daily “recess” time there this time of year for a couple hours and I split my time evenly between actively playing with my kids and then letting them run around on their own while I just watch for safety as I listen to music or an audiobook or podcast.
I’m spending a week without my 2 year old (and 2 weeks without my 7 year old) in July and I’m dreading it. I prefer to have shorter time periods without my family, at most a few hours. I’m sure when the youngest gets older I’ll feel less clingy about that.
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I don’t vacation very well. I like to relax at home in my pajamas with a book for leisure. Preferably with the laundry going and the dishwasher running.
I don’t vacation well, either, in the sense of relaxing. If I’m going to pay to go somewhere new or exciting, I want to be actively exploring, doing, being. I agree, I “vacation” (in the sense of relaxing) much better at home, with the chores done.
I enjoy running, reading, playing the piano, and watching a good show on Netflix. And fortunately I get to do at least one (usually more than one) of those things every day. I feel like I should add that I like to play with my little guy, but I just can’t count that as “leisure”.
Your trip does sound fantastic. Between moving and having a 2nd kid, I have no fun, relaxing travel plans in the near future, but DH and I are already mentally planning a kid-free 10th anniversary trip to either Alaska or Hawaii for 2 summers for now. I also think it would be fun to have one “girls weekend” type trip every year.