Since my word this year is deliberate, I thought it would be a good idea to develop concrete ways to pout (was this a typo or a Freudian slip?!? Should be PUT, obvi) this word into action. I’m going to set some fluid intentions for each month so that I can remember to stay focused on larger goals. I think I am also going to steal a great idea from Happier and check in on my 23 list on the 23rd of each month. Slow and steady, friends.
- Enjoy calm weekends. My friend Tessa had a great post on Instagram about kiddie activities and making sure that we are showing up for them lovingly. Basically, her point was that we are spending our time, money, and energy on these activities, and if we can’t do it gracefully, then we need to reevaluate our commitments. I thought about this a lot on Saturday when we had to rush around quite a bit to get out the door for hockey and some of us (DOROTHY) were grumpy about it. But! The thing was, Coop had three hockey games over the weekend, and Dorothy and I could only go to ONE. Minnie managed 2. Ben went to all three, and Harry and Jack showed up for one as well. I thought it was actually really important for us to go since none of us would be able to go to his swim meet (Jack was out of town at a dive met. Harry was reffing 2 hockey games in a row. Minnie needed to take a nap, and Dorothy and I volunteered to hang out at home with her and also to go to Costco). Anyway, I know we have a bunch to do on the weekends— activities, sure, but also household maintenance tasks, etc— but we can still be calm and deliberate and dare I say intentional about the way we spend our time. So, that’s my goal for January. I want to pack a lot in to our weekends, but I want them to be relaxing, too. It’s all about choosing how to spend our time, you know?
- Figure out the best way to hit all my fitness goals. I have a bunch of little exercise things I want to do this year (dance parties, weight lifting, yoga, etc), and while all of these are small, they take quite a bit of time if I need to do them all on the same day. So. I want to spend this month experimenting with rhythms.
- Gather the material I need to apply for a new title series at work. The details are too mundane to share, but this is kind of a pain and the exact kind of task I hate doing and always put off. Blergh.
- Optimize my time during Minnie’s new shorter nap (boo hiss). I think sitting down at night and being deliberate about my micro goals every day will go a long way here.
- Make truly perfect chocolate chip cookies. Like, you guys. I want Plato’s cookie every single time.
Scenes from a fun weekend (but like super busy— also, why is my instinct to say fun but busy. It can be both fun and busy.):
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| I did not wear hard pants all weekend. 10/10. |
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| Hockey momming |
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| Dorothy was SO GRUMPY, but she cheered up in the sun |
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| Love furniture season at Costco |
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| Like, for realz. |
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| Self explanatory |
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| I started taking coffee on my outside23in23 walk— but just on the weekend |
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| Back in the pool!! |
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| Cooper: January 7, 2022 |
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| Cooper: January 7, 2014 |
These sound like great goals! And I love your word of the year. I am going to really enjoy reading about how you inject relaxing in among all the busyness, because then I will copy exactly what you did! My ideal weekend is some outdoor time mixed in with LOTS of time to sit on the couch and read, but I also like to do things, and wish we did more things. So it would be interesting to find the right balance.
ReplyDeleteI love sitting on the couch and reading, but for some reason, I feel like I have to do every other possible thing that might be on my to-do list before I can— a toxic trait I am working on changing.
DeleteThis. is. me. I actually talked with a therapist about this last year. I have such a hard time...relaxing and truly embracing leisure activities. I never had this issue when I was a teen/university student. I studied hard, but when it was "down" time, I was all in. Hand me the popcorn and the movie and I will not think twice about my final exam coming up.
DeleteBut now my to-do list is just always hanging out in the recesses of my mind.
I feel like I'm slowly making progress on this; I am NEVER going to be on top of everything and I have to learn to live with the discomfort of having tasks undone. This is life! But what a hard, hard lesson for me to learn and put into practice because I just want to check everything off my list and then have fun (but, of course, my list will go in for infinity + infinity because I am a mother and there is literally never a moment when I couldn't be doing something for work/kids/home/friends/husband etc).
We have far less going on since we have a fraction of the number of kids you have, but when I get grumpy about weekends (mostly due to my son asking what we are doing next after a slew of fun things - like life is supposed to be constantly fun and super entertaining!) I remind myself how miserable I would be if we were at home. The less we are inside our house, the happier everyone is. This is the opposite of how I was pre-kids. Pre-kids, I would not like to be out and about as much as we are. But I was definitely gritting my teeth a bit at gymnastics on Saturday morning because sometimes taking our toddler to gymnastics is like taking a cat to gymnastics.
ReplyDeleteNo hard pants - hahaha. Love it <3
ReplyDeleteDeliberate is a great word. I know you juggle so many things, so to be deliberate and intentional with your time is surely crucial.
ReplyDelete