"Mom, What do you do if you work too hard?"

After 7 hours of shoveling, hoeing, bending over to cut grass and yank weeds, and hauling the resulting rubbish from the garden area to the ever growing mound of greenery at the side of the yard, I sat down with my family for dinner. I had brought in the shovels, the hoe, and the two hammers I'd used to pull nails from boards, then pound them into the earth to keep the beds in place. I could barely manage to pick my legs up high enough to make it up the 2 steps into the house.

I sat down at the table and stopped to inspect the 5 blisters on my one hand (good thing I was wearing gloves!), before dishing up my plate, and taking a very large drink of water. My 9 year old daughter who was sitting next to me took a bite of her food, chewed it up and swallowed before asking me, "Mom, what do you do if you work too hard?" I finished my bite of food, and took another drink of water before answering, "I may need your help climbing out of bed in the morning."

I'm so proud of my family. The kids were outside helping in the garden within 30 minutes of me. They worked, without complaint for several hours before asking to visit the neighbor kids. After giving them lunch we sent them on their way. They were gone about an hour and a half. When the returned they jumped right in and started helping in the garden again. They did take a couple rest and play breaks, but were such a big help.

Daniel was a huge help as well. We couldn't have accomplished even half of what we did without his help. My whole family "dug in", which helped turn a hard work day into a fun family event day. I was amazed when we finally all burned out, deciding to call it a day, and I looked at my watch. We started early, shortly after 10 AM. My watch now said 5:30.

Where did the day go?