Our "little holiday"

The girls and I went on a little holiday this weekend. I won a hotel stay through an event at work and I couldn't get a Saturday night so I took a Friday instead and M took the train to join us after work.

So I set off alone with the girls and drove almost across the country to our hotel. They were absolute angels and such a pleasure to be with. We picnicked in the grounds, then went for a swim, ran around the gardens some more and went out to dinner together before I put them to bed, all of us in the same room. Every night at home, I go in to their room to look at them before I go to bed. I smell their lovely smell and wish I could just roll out a mattress on their floor and spend the night there. That's what I got to do last night (but with a real bed!). Today, we had breakfast together, another swim and then packed up and drove home. A little holiday.

I need to work more on appreciating the here and now with them. Too often, I wish away the time or wish I was doing something else. They are the most precious things to me and yet I don't always feel grateful for the time with them. I must read more stories with them, laugh with them more, shout less and generally enjoy the present more. Not because I have to but because I want to. These thoughts have been on my mind a bit recently and someone at work told me about The Happiness Project this week. It sounds pretty good and I'll have to look into that some more. It's probably why SouleMama is so popular: whatever our lifestyle differences, her writing is all about appreciating the here and now. We saw a terrible accident on the motorway on the way home - they had landed a helicopter on the road to transport the casualties - I was (and still am) so affected by it. People's lives have just been changed forever. I am so happy with my lot, I just need to stop, remember that, and savour it.