One Weekend CAN Make a Difference!
Isn’t it amazing how a little bit of fun and relaxation can be enough to give a person that extra boost needed to refresh the attitude and carry on with a new sense of hope? Here is my story of how one weekend CAN make a difference!
Last week was not the best for me. Work was stressful, and home was even worse. We lost a member of our family when our elderly cat Lotus passed away on Wednesday. My heart was broken, and I did not feel like doing anything. I had already planned to go camping at the end of the week, and I knew it would be good for me. It was.
As you may have read in earlier posts, we partnered with my sister to buy a used RV at the beginning of the summer. What a great decision! This was our second trip to the lake for us, although my son and family did use the camper once in July. Unlike our first excursion with the RV in June (https://cookiesandcursewords.com/let’s-go-camping ), we didn’t have a huge gathering of family this weekend. My husband and son opted to stay home (after my husband helped us set up camp, of course).
We arrived Friday afternoon, and the rain hit within an hour of hooking up. At that time my husband was still there, taking a nap in the camper bedroom. My sister and I enjoyed the relaxing sounds of the rain hitting the roof as we sat in the air conditioned comfort of the camper. It was a brief rain, only about ten minutes…but once we stepped out of the camper we were hit with a blast of heat. The rain definitely did not cool things down on this day, it felt like a muggy sauna outside. UGH! I don’t handle heat well, and I was a dripping, sweaty mess until we finally began to get a few nice breezes again.
I rode back to town with my husband to attend a football event for my teenage son (the nice thing about having a big lake right outside of town), and when I arrived back at the lake I was greeted by my old buddy, David! David has been my friend since high school. I’m 51 years old, so that is a LONG time. 🙂 He is not only a friend, he is considered a member of our family. Let me tell you something…every family should be lucky enough to have a David. He makes every person’s day a little brighter-just ask anybody that knows him.
As we sat outside in our lawn chairs visiting by the light of the citronella candle, David mentioned that he had an outdoor projection screen and all of the other “gadgets” needed to stage an outdoor movie. WOW! That was all he needed to say, and plans were made to watch a movie under the stars on Saturday night!
My sister Jan and I were the only ones that actually stayed overnight in the camper. I’m not sure about her, but I slept like a baby on Friday night. Well, I guess I slept like an adult, because babies tend to NOT sleep through the night. I definitely DID sleep through the night. 🙂 My husband stopped by very briefly on Saturday morning to set the camper awning up, as did my oldest son and grandson. David also came back out to spend the day with us. By noon, it was just my sister, David, and myself.
TIME TO RELAX!!
We sat around in our lawn chairs with our feet up, munched on Twizzlers and trail mix, and did absolutely NOTHING. David had this awesome lounge type lawn chair and he used it to lay out in the sun. Jan and I chose to stay in the shade.
After a wonderful two hours of doing NOTHING, we decided to head to the beach and take a swim. THREE OLD FARTS put on our swimsuits, sunscreen, grabbed our towels, and headed out. I even put on a pair of “over the glasses” sunglasses that looked more like welding goggles than anything else. 🙂 We stayed in the water for at least an hour. I wish I had pictures of us in our glorious bathing suit beauty, but unfortunately we all left our cell phones back at camp. We’ll just have to let you picture it in your minds….nice, eh? Be jealous.
Once back at the campsite, another hour or two was spent “vegging out” in our lawn chairs. I chose these moments to close my eyes and concentrate only on sounds that I could hear, such as boats on the water, wind rustling through trees, birds chirping, my sister belching(just kidding, not that time). 🙂 This is actually a step in a grounding technique that I use with my clients (and myself) to promote calm and ease anxiety symptoms. I plan to write a post about these useful techniques in the near future.
We had a delicious dinner of cheeseburgers, brats, sliced potatoes in butter (wrapped in foil and thrown on the grill), baked beans, fresh fruit, and even a couple of veggie burgers for my sister’s husband that stopped by to eat with us. My son, his girlfriend, and her little cousin also stopped by for a brief visit. After dinner I made waffle cone s’mores- easy instructions for these were put on the blog a few days ago… https://cookiesandcursewords.com/waffle-cone-s’mores
While I made these s’mores, our outdoor movie theater was being set up!
This was the COOLEST THING EVER!! Inspector Gadget (my new name for David) had everything needed to make this experience top notch! He had set up a canopy earlier in the day for extra shade, but it made a perfect setting for our movie viewing pleasure. The 100 inch indoor/outdoor screen (along with his projector and sound bar) was a fantastic way to view The Greatest Showman under the stars. We jokingly said that we should have charged admission and invited our camping neighbors to join in on the fun!
Sunday morning we packed up and headed home, but a weekend of pure relaxation with no cares or worries was exactly what I needed. So many people are dealing with stress of one kind or another and I sincerely hope that all of you are able to take a break and get away from it all for a few days, or even a few hours. A mental health day does a world of good and is an absolute necessity, in my opinion. 🙂
I am including a few affiliate links of some of the products that David used for our outdoor movie adventure. Just to remind you, if you click on a link , I may earn a small commission at no extra charge to you.
