The Sabbath Experiment -- week 36

Wow. Typing "week 36" threw me. Has it really been 36 weeks since I started this experiment?

I was talking with my daughter, Bethany, yesterday and said, "Mondays used to be my favorite day of the week ... until I started the Sabbath Experiment." The idea of forced rest is so liberating!

Take yesterday, for example. After our usual ritual of Sunday School, church and lunch with the kids and grandkids, Bethany and Lincoln came by the house for awhile. She needed clothespins because her husband put up a clothesline (actually four clotheslines). Now she'll be able to hang all of Lincoln's diapers on the line, which makes me quite happy!

By the time they left, I was tired. But, I kept thinking about the load of work I was facing in the days to come. Maybe if I just tackled some of the work today, I thought, Monday wouldn't be quite so bad.

But what about the Sabbath? I countered in this dialogue with myself. You know, there is that accountability factor.

The accountability factor. That did it. After all, I'm accountable to you.

So, rather than sitting down at my computer and working, I played around in the vegetable garden on my balcony for a bit and then, because the temps had dropped quite a bit, settled in for a nice relaxing hot bath.

Here's where the fun comes in! I reached for my Earth Mama Angel Baby   Happy Mama Body Wash so I could shave my legs. Breathing in the scent of grapefruit and ginger, I smiled. After a week of discovered how bad everything seems to be for us, it was a sheer delight being able to lather up with a product that was completely safe to use. Completely! Zero toxins. None at all. If I hadn't been reclining in the tub, I would have started doing my Happy Mama Dance (I reserve that for the shower)!

I turned the bottle around and read the ingredients:

• Organic coconut oil
• Organic olive oil
• Organic aloe leaf juice
• Kosher vegetable glycerin
• Organic shea butter
• Potassium citrate
• Organic ginger oil
• Organic grapefruit peel oil
• Organic lime oil
• Organic vanilla bean extract
• Organic calendula extract

That's it. Nothing more. Isn't it a lovely list of ingredients?

So, I was a Happy Mama. Refreshed, I dried off, put on my jammies and headed downstairs to make a late dinner for my husband and me. We enjoyed our meal on the patio while watching the Hallmark movie, A Crush on You. We're such suckers for clean, romantic movies. What a joy it is to not have to suffer through a barrage of swear words and sex scenes.

At 11:00, I headed upstairs, brushed my teeth, washed my face (with a product I can't wait to review on Wednesday!) and climbed into bed, earlier than I usually do. I needed a good night's sleep before starting this week. After all, shouldn't I feel rested on the day after the Sabbath?

After my morning walk today, I headed out for a working breakfast and now I'm home trying desperately to complete all the tasks on my to-do list before heading out to lead my Writers at Work group tonight.

I hope you have a glorious week.

Hana