August 14, 2005 Hourly Charge

Summer is supposed to be ‘downtime’ for dog mushers – and religiously each summer I promise myself I will spend some time just doing nothing – well, nothing more then sitting in the sun, catching up on my reading, and watching the clouds roll by. But each summer, like so many of us these days, life catches up with me and before I know it leaves are falling from the trees and winter is closing in on me.

But this year I had a plan – a lounge chair. Maybe if I bought myself a real, honest to gosh lounge chair I would make the time to lounge. This, I convinced myself, was the ticket to my relaxation. So, when my birthday rolled around in June that was what I was going to tell everyone I wanted. Problem was, everyone in my family knows me well enough that a ‘lounge’ chair never even crossed their minds (although don’t get me wrong, I got wonderful and very appreciated gifts – especially the new 4 wheeler for training dogs from Mark!).

So in early July I took ‘the bull’ by the horns and bought myself a lounge chair. As I fiddled with Allen wrenches putting it together, I could just picture myself stretched out in it with lemonade on the table next to me and a book in my hand. Heaven.

I got it put together, picked a nice spot on the back lawn, took a table out, a mosquito candle and it was all set. If I had been wise, I would have plunked my butt in there right away, but I had other chores to do – and it would still be there tomorrow. Tomorrow I would lounge.

I know you all know where I’m going with this. Tomorrow stretched on and on. As the days passed I would glance at the inviting set up as I trudged by with buckets filled with dog food, dashed off to town (Athabasca) or the city (Edmonton), dragged reluctant dogs by to be bathed, or one of a bunch of other chores. Maybe tomorrow I’ll find time to spend some time lounging I’d tell myself.

Well, here we are on August 14. The hummingbirds have headed south, the blueberries are out, the mornings are cool enough that I’m actually running teams most days – all the signs are there that fall is closing in. I have spent a total of 1 hour in my chair. It was a wonderful hour, although I kept glancing at the lawn and thinking I should fire up the lawn mover, and friend, Roger stopped by, caught me sitting out there reading and teased me about my lack of activity – but I did indeed lounge.

I figure that hour of lounging, when you figure out the price of the chair and side table, cost me $150. There should be a few more weeks of mild weather left; my goal prior to winter is to get the price of lounging down to $20 per hour. I just have a few hours of chores left this morning – then I’ll get right to it – really!

Karen