I rarely have sit-around time.
I’m married, and between us we have four kids, which require a fair amount of shuttling around.
From September through much of December, we’re in the mountains hunting *every single *weekend except the holidays.
On the holidays, we host family parties for up to 40 people. That’s Thanksgiving, Christmas, and the Fourth of July, with smaller ones possible in between.
We both work at least full time. I own a business, so I often work longer hours than that.
I’m taking a night class for the business.
I have a garden and livestock. This week alone I had to go borrow a horse trailer to get a hog, and have to bring it back tonight, so I’ll see that friend twice this week. Somehow I have to fit turkey-slaughtering into a weekday evening soon. My son’s doing a poultry project for 4-H this year too.
In the winter, we trapshoot on a league, which takes up part of almost every weekend. My son’s in 4-H shooting too, so I take him to that around the trapshooting and hunting schedule.
In the spring and summer, we bass fish. Not competitively, and we don’t yet have a boat, but often enough to stay in touch with those friends that also do it. We borrow my father-in-law’s boat.
We also camp a few times a year, and when we can squeeze it in, we backpack. We did not manage to squeeze it in this year.
And I’ve got a few smaller hobbies, like canning and meat smoking, that I usually mess with after work. If I have time after chores, that is. My husband does woodwork and has a project jeep that he messes around with.
I would relish a sit-around day here or there, but I pretty much have to be at death’s door to get one. It’s a good thing we have kids old enough to contribute at least a little work, or we wouldn’t get to have the fun as a family that we do.
But II like having my options open.