Simply Sunday #9

Greetings on a beautiful Sunday afternoon!  Hope you are having a great one.

Here is a quick list of things I did in the last week to simplify my life, to be more present and stop to enjoy life:

Cuddled with my daughter at a community concert.  We went to a free outdoor concert this week.  My younger daughter got cold and was tired, so I invited her to sit on my lap.  We cuddled and rubbed noses and acted silly.  Then she fell asleep in my arms and I just looked at her, occasionally kissing her head.  She is so beautiful and I'm so lucky to be her mom.  She is getting to be a big girl.  She doesn't normally sit on my lap any more.  So, this was so special.  I am a Type A gal, but I tried to just savor the moment.  It was precious!

Acted as an audience.  A friend from church was going to be playing a duet at a local concert of classical music.  Out of the blue, she asked if my kids and I could be an audience for a run-through of their performance a couple days before the actual show.  I'm not sure why she asked us, but we re-arranged our schedule and dropped some nonessential things to do it.  She needed an audience and we wanted to help.  We don't know anything about classical music, but it was pretty.  It is nice to help and to try new things.

Social media posting fast.  Like many people, I have mixed feelings about technology.  I essentially lived the first half of my life without computers, the internet or cell phones.  Certainly, those things have been tremendous gifts in many ways.  But I also see what a distraction and time-suck those are.  You can lose many hours in an empty way just using those items so frequently or for such long periods of time.  I'm fairly new to social media and often find it exciting how much interesting information is out there.  Sometimes I get particularly excited by what I read and like to share it.  But I see a couple problems with that.  First, that takes up more time than I'd prefer in my own life.  Second, I may be contributing to a similar problem for others who then have to take time to process what I've shared.  To alleviate this problem, I vowed to not post anything for one week.  The last thing I posted was a simple living themed meme reminding us to value people, not things.  My account has been silent since then.  It has been rather liberating!

Play dates.  I made time in our schedule for a play date in a park with a lovely family from our church.  We spent a lot of time after services letting our kids play and the parents visit.  Such a neat family!  And in the process, we met another neat family whom our friends knew and happened to be playing in the park.  Turns out they live in our neighborhood.  Later in the same week, I hosted a slumber party for my kids' friends who have moved to the other side of town and we rarely see anymore.  I also got to visit with their mom with whom I have a lot in common.  We all had a great time.  Good to stop and smell the roses with other people.

Happy Sunday!  Make it a good one.