Yesterday, when I was asked by a coworker how my weekend was, I found myself excitedly describing it and its events as “really, really awesome!”
“It was a great weekend!” I exclaimed.
Sure, Friday night’s spaghetti by the fire while watching The West Wing with the Hughsband was really relaxing, especially after trudging through snow and slush for two days. Saturday got off to a slow start as I battled my malfunctioning computer to finish designing some bridal shower invitations, but it turned around when Mom and I headed to Jessie’s dress fitting (and veil buying) appointment followed by the obligatory stop at Chik-fil-a.
But it was Sunday that made the weekend.
Sunday started slow, relaxed, and late just like Sundays should. I made coffee, Hugh made eggs, and we caught up on some DVR over a leisurely breakfast. Since Hugh had not been home on the weekends for a while now, I had gotten used to this leisurely Sunday breakfast dragging into a leisurely Sunday afternoon, and before I knew it I’d made very little progress on my to-do list.
But that’s where Hugh makes up for what I lack — he makes lists and conquers them while I tend to keep a mental tally which is easily ignored. So, we made a list.
It was a daunting list, especially the top priority task — cleaning the desk. Our office area desk in our bedroom has probably not been clean or organized since we moved in well over a year ago. It had quickly become a place to just throw things that had no other home — stacks of both useless and necessary mail, a couple lap tops, a camera lens or two, and a multitude of writing utensils. It was a daunting, ugly, disorganized mess.
Hugh had begun the clean-up Saturday while I was out doing matron-of-honor things, but I enthusiastically joined the effort Sunday, organizing all my design and craft supplies, leftover wedding supplies, and really leftover wedding everything. Once that was done, I was on a roll and we didn’t stop organizing and cleaning (though we’d planned to run a bunch of pretty boring necessary errands right after breakfast) until it was done and we were sitting at the desk reading amazon reviews with no clutter and no distractions around 4 hours later.
By the time we left to [successfully] return things to Bed Bath & Beyond, [successfully] return things at Old Navy, browse the craft store for some upcoming needs, and hit the grocery store for Sunday night’s dinner, the “office” side of our bedroom looked like this:
By 6 p.m. Hugh had another fire going in the fireplace and The West Wing queued up on Netflix while I put Sunday dinner on plates.
Before lugging our dinner operation into the living room, we paused in the middle of the kitchen to discuss how awesome we are.
We had tackled a task we’d been putting off forever. We had run a bunch of boring errands really efficiently. And we had done it all without letting it take over our weekend.
Hugh put out his fist and as I triumphantly bumped it with mine I exclaimed teamwork! and Hugh responded
“Marriage!!”
Yes, it sounds like a boring weekend. And I’m sure my re-telling of it to coworkers over lunch and to whomever else here in this post is just as boring as the chores we got done.
But the point is — it was never not fun.
We listened to music, we encouraged each other, we tag-teamed chores seamlessly, at the end of the day we felt really productive and it never felt like work.
And for that, I think, marriage deserves a fist bump.
