Jon was laid off a few weeks back. It was no huge surprise; we knew it was coming at some point. While Jon was a little stressed about the situation, I was calm in the knowledge that my husband is smart, resourceful, good at what he does, and he can really turn on the charm when the situation calls for it. Honestly, I wasn’t too worried about him finding something else. And so it was, emails were coming in left and right offering him interviews. He schmoozed and interviewed and “lunched” and kept his options open. Eventually he decided on a good, solid, stable company with decent pay and great benefits. He told them that he’d start on the 4th, giving him a couple of weeks of “vacation time” with no more worries about where the money was going to come from. A couple of weeks to just relax. That’s when we decided that it’d be a great opportunity for a family vacation. We decided on Disneyland and left for California two days later. It’s possibly the most spontaneous thing we’ve ever done in our married lives. Generally we are more of the slow, boring “planner” types. (Except for all of those times when we didn’t plan…) So we took a nice trip and had fun together, totally recharging the family’s collective batteries.

Last week we returned from California and the kids resumed their normal routine. Jon, though, did not have to resume any sort of routine for another week. And I completely “unroutined” with him. It’s been fabulous! The kids go to bed around 8:30 each night, and Jon and I stay up until all crazy hours, cuddling and watching movies together — the bed overflowing with bags of popcorn and other movie treats. We sit up and blog next to each other, all laptops and pillows and fuzzy socks and not a care in the world. At 8AM the kids get up and I get them ready and take them to school. If it’s not a volunteer day at the school, I come back home and climb back into bed and snuggle a couple of hours more. I pick up Zoe at lunchtime and we go to lunch with Jon, or the three of us go to the Rec. Center and play basketball. We play Guitar Hero. The days are kind of lazy and nice. The house becomes kind of a wreck… but in a good way. Bedtime rolls around again, and the kids go down, and we stay up and watch Seinfeld and Good Eats and all types of movies. We have gone through A LOT of microwave popcorn. With white cheddar cheese topping. And Dove chocolate. We are now both kinda chubby. And happy.

Jon starts his new job tomorrow. He’s excited and maybe a little nervous. Tonight he is going to bed at a reasonable hour and rising with the rest of us in the morning. We cleaned the messy house and purged the bedroom of empty popcorn bags and chocolate wrappers. Tomorrow I will drop the kids at school and come back home to an empty house. I’ll make the bed instead of climbing back into it and cuddling with my hubby. I’ll return to the normal old routine.

I’m not going to lie, it’s been so nice. Just the sheer amount of time I’ve gotten to spend with my husband has been wonderful. But it had to end sometime. Time to step back into the real world. It’s not like I wanted to spend the rest of my life being nocturnal and chubby and lazy… but I’m really sad that the time is over.

3 Comments »

1. Oh, that sounds fabulous! Don’t you love times like that? I guess what makes them so great, though, is that they don’t happen all the time - it’s special. Good luck to your hubby with his new job. I’m glad you got to enjoy him before he dives in!

   Comment by Leslie — February 4, 2008 @ 8:08 am

2. I can’t wait for retirement! I love to spend time with just Tony. Maybe that will change when the kids are grown and gone but for now it’s rare. Good luck to Jon!

   Comment by Sam — February 4, 2008 @ 11:17 am

3. What’s chubby & lazy when you feel so dang happy.

   Hope the first day wasn’t too hard - they can be taxing, for all involved.

   Comment by Lisa Milton — February 4, 2008 @ 8:31 pm

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