The Return

After being out of the country for ten days I am feeling overwhelmed by all that did not come to a standstill while we were gone. It has been repeated often—the time you need a vacation is when you’ve just returned from one. What you need is a week of no outside responsibilities, just being at home to attend to the accumulation and the most important thing—paying attention to neglected children (two sisters manned the homefront while we were gone). We walked in the door with suitcases, bags and coats and were greeted by a clean house and two happy sons. Clark showed his excitement by giving numerous hugs and lots of “I love you” and following us closely from room to room. I did manage one hug from Phil and could tell by his “Hello Sweetness”, delivered with a sweet smile, that he was also glad to have us home. As we walked upstairs and to our bedroom to start the process of unpacking and putting away I could see vacuum marks in the carpet. Our bed was made (which I would expect) but when we pulled back the rumpled duvet and top sheet we saw a fitted sheet that barely clung to the corners because under it was our blanket. So the line up went like this—mattress, blanket, fitted sheet, top sheet, duvet. We laughed as we scratched our heads. Here is what happened. After the bed had been stripped, sheets and pillowcases washed, Phil was put in charge of making our bed. He is diligent in making his own bed daily, changing his sheets every Monday and putting them back on when they have been cleaned BUT he has a twin bed and is not used to making a queen-size bed all by himself. We were clearly touched by his effort and praised him for his work (after we altered the layers and smoothed out the wrinkles when he was not looking). It was great to get away for a while but even greater to get home.
This is actually a picture of Clark's work at an earlier date. In the excitement of being home and remaking the bed that Phil made we failed to take a picture.