The hardest thing to do- Nothing

In the song Highway Cafe of the Damned, the Austin Lounge Lizards (thanks brother Eric for getting me hooked) do a pretty good job of listing vices: "sloth and avarice, fornication, television, whisky, beer and wine." Yesterday my husband and I tried to have as hedonistic a day as one can have with kids around. The impetus for this was the fatigue of several weeks of diehard activities with nary a vacation in sight. Suffice it to say that we had no whiskey or beer, felt no ill will toward anyone, and hey, we had kids around. That said it was truly a lazy, rejuvenating day and an incredible learning experience. The idea was to hang out at home but not do ANYTHING productive- nothing of any real value. We watched Star Trek the movie (as our eleven-year-old daughter has become truly obsessed with Spock), then an episode of the original series, ate whatever we wanted (read Nutella and Mac and Cheese) whenever we wanted it (read continuously), played Farkle (a dice game, rules on the internet- don't blame me when you can't stop), read and napped and sipped wine. I have done these activities before so that wasn't really what was so amazing. What turned out to be enlightening is how hard it is to actually NOT do anything productive for one day. I truly think of myself as someone who can laze around at will, so this came as a big surprise to me. Even my type -A husband seemed to take to the slothfulness better than I did. My mind kept searching all day for the thing I should be doing. Laundry, gardening, dishes, meal prep, writing, e-mails, groceries! It was like a periodic alarm was going off warning me that I was missing something. Now I'm not saying I want to live like that but our "do nothing" day did make me wonder when I had become so focused on doing. My husband who was raised Catholic pointed out that what we were engaging in wasn't so much viceful as honoring a Sabath- actually refraining from work, and catching up on rest. Since I wasn't raised religiously I'm not sure what a Sabath is suppose to impart but I think I like the idea. I see a lot of stressed out, exhaused people in this society so maybe some rest days built into the system might be a good idea. I think I would need to eat less Nutella and perhaps move a little more though. Maybe I'll give it another try next weekend!