Taking Things for Granted

The past couple of days I have been reminded of how blessed I am to be in the stage of my life that I am.

My children are grown, they are supporting themselves and for the most part are happy with their lives. My husband is a SAHH (aka: early retirement) and has been for almost 6 years.

We are empty nesters. We are no longer first and foremost Dad and Mom. We no longer wake up with a child standing on the side of the bed in the middle of the night wanting to crawl in bed with us (with the exception of our granddaughter, Kaitlyn, who usually finds her way to our room when she spends the night, and boy do we enjoy that snuggly, toasty warm body especially when she puts her feet in gpa's back and her head in mine...yes, she usually wins and gets the bed to herself after about an hour ;-) ). We no longer have to consider the basic food groups when we prepare a meal (not even when the grandkids are visiting, which is our role in life now, to feed them what they want- I think that is why God made Grandparents, to let grandkidlets have their way once in a while!).

We can get up early and stay up late, or sleep in late (anything after 6 a.m. is considered slacking around here) and go to bed early. We like to play Skipo while eating our lunch. We spend hours on the deck or in the yard saying nothing or talking until it suddenly dawns on us the sun has gone down and the neighbors are probably enjoying our intimate conversation as much as we are. We can jump in the car and take off for an overnight trip with only a small bag for the two of.

We are enjoying time alone...but the truth be told...our time alone is full of memories of our children and our grandchildren...full of "remember when..." AND... Our time alone if full of beautiful dreams and wonderful plans for our future.

We are so thankful for this stage of life. Date night every night, dinner for 2 on the deck, complete with candles (if the wind has not picked up) and wine (well ok, wine coolers for me, and if it has been a really warm day Ed will break out a beer). We are excited about the memories we are adding to the precious memories we already have that will take us into the next stage of life.

We don't take this time for granted, time is too precious to be taken for granted.