Catching My Breath

Yesterday dd16 and I took a rare day off of school to go Christmas shopping. This is a whole new experience for me, driving an hour to the nearest city to shop. Having lived in the Chicago suburbs all of my life until this summer, I'm used to driving ten minutes in any direction and finding plenty of busy stores, complete with the usual traffic. Now that we're living in a small town, major shopping trips are planned ahead. It's certainly a change. Before, I lived in the middle of the hectic activity. Now, I leave our peaceful little world here and drive an hour to find the activity, which isn't nearly as crazy as the hectic world we left behind in Illinois.

We got a lot done, plus had time to drop in on dd24, who happened to have the day off of work. We had a nice visit. I came home to a to-do list a mile long, but chose instead to take it easy. I didn't used to know how to do that, and I'd just keep pushing myself until I was exhausted. But I've learned over time that it's especially important at this time of year to take breaks here and there. So, instead of working on my new book last night (it's almost ready for the printer!), I watched "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" with dh and dd16 after ds14 went to bed. This movie is the real "Mr. and Mrs. Smith," the Alfred Hitchcock original, and rare in that it is a screwball comedy (the majority of his movies were thrillers, of course).

It's kind of poignant to watch Carole Lombard in this movie, as she would die in a plane crash a year later on her way home from a war bond tour. The movie has a more mature theme than many comedies of that time, but is still pretty funny. Watching this has made me want to watch my very favorite Carole Lombard movie (for the umpteenth time): "My Man Godfrey." I highly recommend it. (Watch it for free here.)

Tonight's break will probably be spent surfing this week's Carnival of Homeschooling; hope to "see" you there!