You Gotta Add Laughter

After a little over year of our empty nest, I have come to realize that there are positives as well as negatives to having the house back.

Here are the top 10:

1.  The fact that there are fewer people here to cook for is a positive.  On the other hand, I cannot for the life of me learn how to cook for only two people!  Which automatically leads to another negative, we end up eating all that 'extra' food.  

2.  With fewer interruptions, I have more patience time to experiment with new recipes or with some that I have wanted to try but didn't have the patience time before the nest became empty.  The negative being that, when I do try these recipes, there's no one to eat it and, you guessed it, we end up eating all the 'extra' food.

3.  It's is nice and quiet around here now so I can watch a movie or just a sitcom without interruption.  The down side?  It's too dang quiet around here and I end up watching the stupid television instead of motivating and getting things done around here, which leads me to number 4--.

4.  I have tons of 'free' time to get things done around here. The negative?  I have learned that I prefer to use all this 'free' time to develop or refine hobbies and I GET NOTHING DONE AROUND HERE!

5.  There is LESS cleaning up to be done.  I'm kidding...there IS a man living here.

6.  All the sweets brought into the house are not gone in one 24 hour period.  Because it takes me two days instead of one AND there is NO ONE to blame for eating the missing sweets--if HE didn't do it, we both know who did and, if we didn't know, my hips would tell on me.

7.  I have discovered the wonderful world of blogging and met some of the nicest women.  Bad news is- I spend too much time on the computer reading their blogs or writing mine that I GET NOTHING DONE AROUND HERE.

8.  When the weekend rolls around, we have no obligations to attend the events that once took up every weekend which means time to get some major projects started/completed.  Down side?  Hubs is not good at starting OR completing projects so NOTHING IS GETTING DONE AROUND HERE.

9.   We were finally able to purge the attic!  Unfortunately, between me not being able to part with the 'memories' and all 4 daughters not wanting to give up certain childhood memories, THE ATTIC IS STILL FULL!

10.   The two of us have all the time to ourselves.  The negative:  Hubs is underfoot EVERY SINGLE MINUTE THAT HE IS NOT AT WORK!  God help me when retirement comes around!

If we have learned NOTHING else during our 27 years together, Hubs and I have learned this:  Try your BEST to see the humor in as many situations as possible.  Laughter has been an integral part of our family.  It has made life easier in some situations; it has lightened up sad days and softened hard ones; it has helped us make those teaching moments to our daughters understandable and lasting; it has helped us look at life in a more positive manner; it has kept us from self-importance... When we all look back over the last quarter of a century we tend to see good times that we shared and the fun all topped off with plenty of laughter! 

Christmas 1997