A Thoughtful Life is Not Rushed

“A thoughtful life in not rushed” I heard this quote once, and it has stayed with me. I think in the rush of the day-to-day tasks that everybody has, it can be a challenge to take the time to stop and enjoy some down time.

We are an extremely active family. It feels like we have been tackling project after project for months (ok, years). We tend to overschedule ourselves. It really is exhausting. That is the way we have chosen to live. Only recently have we fallen into a routine that feels “normal.” Our new normal. Gone are the 10p.m. dinners and road trips that start as soon as we are out of work for the week and end just as we are ready to fall into bed at the weekend’s close. We have balance. We have prioritized our time. And I find comfort in that.  Fridays are spent relaxing in our pjs a little longer than usual, just my Bundle and I, slowly awakening our senses to start the day. We rock together with blankets and music, cuddle together over breakfast, make an occasional reading corner, and I find myself more refreshed on these days than any other.

We find ourselves drawn to various parks (here, here, and here) on the weekends. We play and play and play. We picnic, then play some more. We laugh and run and go down slides. Then head home for a nap. All of us. It is a beautiful, beautiful thing.

Sunday mornings my little girl reads her books or watches her movie (Sunday School Songs DVD). She sings and dances to Sunday School songs as we get ready to head to church. This warms my heart.

Unlike the “bedtime routine” that every children’s advice book strongly encourages, these are casual little things that did not start out intending to be “a new routine,” but we have comfortably settled into them. Because it is fun; because it works.

I still love spontaneity and there are times that you just NEED to be spontaneous. Take a few weeks ago for example: my little girl and I were driving home to get dinner ready and it started to pour. As in, rain-so-hard-you-can’t-hear-each-other-talk pour. Since it was still raining once we got home, we pulled on our rain boots and went out to splash around. It was fun. We were wet and dinner was later than usual, but we were “puddling.”

Definition of Puddling: (verb); 1)puddle jumping or 2)spontaneous jumping in the rain and looking for puddles; this term was coined by my little girl.

Now when it rains, this is a routine. As long as there is no lightning (safety first, of course) we are going to go outside and play. I love how a spontaneous afternoon in the rain how become a new routine for us.

~Angela

Fishing

 

FISHING

My brother has been asking to take my little girl fishing since the day she was born. For real. He was so excited- still is- to be an uncle. Since fishing is something I do not enjoy nor have much knowledge about, I am more than happy to have this be a special bonding activity for my little girl and her uncle. Bundle and I went to visit him and he took her fishing for the first time. Of course, in my family, no one wants to miss out on anything and ‘the more the merrier’ has always been our motto, so my mom and cousin tagged along too. It was a family event. But then, everything we do isJ And I would not have it any other way.

We went to my brother’s 2^nd favorite fishing spot (since his favorite spot is top secret and he knew I would blog about this - then the secret would be out) and he caught a fish right away.

My little girl was excited to see the fish and touch the fish.

 

 my little girl and her uncle

my little girl and her Yaya

my little girl with my favorite cousin

just because we take a picture in this pose every time we are together. every time.

And I happend to find a heart shaped stone while we were out...so of course I had to take a picture.

~Angela

I could never be a hoarder -adventures in thrifting

I stopped by an antique store last week to see if I could find a child's chair. I was more than a little overwhelmed by all the stuff. This was worse than watching an episode of Hoarders for me and I was feeling rather claustrophobic.

This reiterated for me that too much stuff just gives me anxiety:) I prefer much simpler (and less cluttered) shopping...and way of life in general.
I left with nothing. And I am completely ok with that.
~Angela

A Big Announcement

I turned 30 this year and shortly after my 30th birthday I stumbled across my Bucket List.  I wrote this list years ago and have accomplished some of these goals already:
-Running a Marathon
-Falling in Love
-Being a Mom
-Skydiving
-Learning to cook
But there are several things I have not yet attempted and publishing a book was one of them. I figured this was the year for me to tackle this goal. If we are friends on Facebook, then your already know the news I am about to share....as of last week, my book Finding Love in Nature: Heart Stones is officially published!  I may or may not have been logging into Amazon.com to search for my book multiple times a day just to see my book there. I can hardly believe that it is actually printed. EEK!! It is real.

I found over 70 heart shaped stones on our trip to Maine last July and after putting the first few in my pocket or purse (depending on the size) I started taking photos before I took them with me. This book is a compilation of those photos. I also insisted on taking all of these stones home with me (much to my husband's dismay). We had these stones in our carry on bags, our checked luggage, my purse and my daughter's diaper bag, but I am happy to report that we got them ALL home with us. I am no stranger to the orange HEAVY tags that are usually attached to our luggage anyway:)

rock hunting in Maine

my little girl helping me hunt for heart stones

After a stress fracture forced me to lay low this winter, this really jump started the prcoess. I finally organized and edited my photos and got this project underway. I was rather frustrated to be unable to be so active, but I put my energy into this book rather than focusing on all the things I could not do with an injury. And I am glad I did.
Although this was not the book I had orignally planned on publishing (I would still like to publish a children's book that I wrote years ago), this was a great first book to help get familiar with the publishing process. And it sure beat paying $24.00 to print a very similar photo book through Snapfish (which I already did just because I wanted this in book form so badly). I used the platform Createspace which in an affiliate of Amazon. If you have ever had the inkling you would like to be published, I would highly recommend Createspace.
And although I will never get rich with my publishing and plan on keeping my day job, that was never my intention anyway. I just wanted my book in print form. And I can cross that off my Bucket List.
~Angela

Wooden Cross

I made this for my grandma. I thought she could hold onto it while she is in dialysis or watching tv or praying.

I saw this in a catalog for $19 and figured I could make it for much less (as in free!)

I used a scrap of oak that was left over from a previous project and sketched out a cross so I knew which pieces of the wood I would be sawing off.

I used a circular sander to sand out the rough cut edges.

A little danish oil to finish it off - then I gave it to my Grandma.

~Angela