time off

as much as I love to log miles, and to be busily productive, I also like to have time off.
time off from work, from family responsibilities, and ~ yes ~ even from riding my bike and spinning and exercising and yoga.
because this time off allows me to get caught up on those things that I never seem to have enough time (or motivation) to do.
this weekend I had time, and it was glorious. not only did I put away most of the Christmas decorations around my house (I'm now down to just the tree), I also rearranged my laundry room, put together a storage shelf-unit-thingee, scrubbed a few floors, threw away oodles of things that needed to be discarded, ate lots of chocolates and caramels, thoroughly cleaned a few spots in my house that needed it, and, completed a few little projects that have been patiently, so patiently, waiting for me.
I'm not a pack-rat, but I do have this tendency to hang onto things just in case . . . and then I have another collection of things I hang onto because one day I'll fix them . . .
this weekend both confronted me.
some of the just in case items ended up in the trash can.
and some of the one day I'll fix them items actually got fixed.

and the task that pleased me most this weekend was gluing back together a broken mug that has been in the latter column for, oh, perhaps two or three years.
this is no ordinary mug.
this is a mug painted by one of my daughters, back when she was perhaps 7 years old.
she'd been to one of those "paint your own" pottery places, and came out of it with this exceptionally beautiful mug that stated I Love Mom loudly and clearly, in burgundy and purple and yellow. we used this for toothbrushes and the toothpaste tube in my bathroom until one day it got knocked over and crashed on the floor.
ow.
ow.
I am not good with glue, and I didn't want to even attempt gluing it back together . . . but I also couldn't bring myself to throw it away. so it sat in my kitchen drawer for a few years, all 7 or 8 pieces of it, pitifully resting there, waiting for me to make a decision about what I was going to do with it.
yesterday I finally decided what to do with it: throw it away. I took one piece out and tossed it in the trash can. then I picked up the next piece to do the same, and I hesitated.
could I really throw away this work of art that my daughter so lovingly created just for me?
no. I couldn't.
I picked up the piece out of the garbage can, and pulled the other pieces from the drawer. I tried to fit them together, checking to see if I had at least the major pieces, and sure enough, I did.
I took out my grocery store list and wrote ceramic glue.
and by late yesterday afternoon, I had resurrected my daughter's creation.

it's now sitting on my desk, here by me as I type. it's holding a small collection of pens, and a business card or two. she hasn't seen it yet, and I smile as I think of what she might say when she does.
most importantly, however, is the fact that this mug will now, almost certainly, forever remind me of the possibilities that arise when one takes a little bit of time off.