Stay....just a little bit longer

WOW!!! It's been a while!! Maybe I should reintroduce myself. "Hello, I am the Hestermomma." Authorities in Blogland suggest you never break this long from writing. You'll lose your readership. People won't stay loyal to your blog. It is frustrating for the reader to continually see the same entry unchanged on the page. This hiatus I have inadvertently taken certainly wasn't intentional. Life at the Hesterhome has been extremely busy. Case in point... Tonight, we are having our first night together as a family since January 30th. Those are standards we are not comfortable with...but it has been just one of those seasons. As much as I don't like it, there wasn't a whole lot I could do about it.

And here is another thing which we are working on that we don't like. It is the fact that Gregg and I are creatures of habit and we are probably the most predictable people on the face of the earth. If it weren't for the promptings of well meaning family members, we would have probably never gone to half the places we have been to, both as a couple and as a family. Honestly, I think this frustrates me more than it does Gregg. Maybe it is because he gets to travel for his job while I hold down the fort. Maybe that is why he loves to be a predictable homebody. Of course, as always, I digress. We are trying to plan something special for our...ahem...should I really say it...40th birthdays. We are 5 days apart to the year, and this one will be especially tough as my husband will be married to a 40 year old while still basking proudly in his 30's. Totally unjust!!

We have been mulling this idea of going away for our birthdays for quite a while. We will talk a little bit about it...then life will get in the way, and it will be tabled for days...mostly weeks, until we revisit the subject again. Now that the birthdays are nearing and you only turn 40 once (thank goodness!), we are feeling some self-imposed pressure to "land somewhere" with our ideas. There are so many things that must occur before you can go anywhere. First and foremost, you have to find a safe place for your precious ones to stay while you are away. You don't want to impose on someone, but without local family, you are forced to succumb to the generosity of sweet friends. So, we've got that covered. Then there is that little annoying detail of money. This we don't have covered...at least not covered in abundance. We have a small budget to work within, and I am grateful for that. Next you have to find somewhere that you would both enjoy discovering together. This is challenging for us. While we are alike in so many ways, we differ greatly on our definitions of relaxation. As my husband put it so eloquently on Facebook the other day, "She is 'Dah-ling, I love you but give me Park Avenue,' and I am 'farm livin'is the life for me.'" Nailing down something we would both enjoy experiencing together is not as easy as I would hope.

So, yesterday, I approached him with the idea of a "Stay-cation," and the moment the words came out, I regretted saying them. I saw his demeanor change...a sparkle present in his eye...a small smile formed out of the corner of his mouth. Oh no!!! He likes the idea!!! I can already tell!! He likes it a lot!! He started talking about all the benefits to the idea of a "stay-cation"....some I cannot get into here. From a budget perspective, he loved it!! He talked about how much more we could do and see if we just used the Hesterhome as the Hesterhotel instead. And then my heart sank. I wanted to tell him how lame we are as a couple. How unadventurous we have become, ummm, always been. But as I have thought about the idea more and more...even gone on ExperienceColumbus.com, I am getting kind of excited about the idea. It kind of sounds like fun.

I haven't told him yet that I am on board with this idea. I am sure he is thinking "If you didn't like the idea in the first place, why did you even suggest it?" Such a woman thing to do, isn't it? Suggest something, but not really mean it. Or is it simply a "woman approaching 40" thing to do??!!! If so, it might be a rough decade around here. "Oh where, oh where have my 20s and 30s gone? Oh where, oh where can they be???" (Sung to the tune of "Oh where has my little dog gone?")