Slowing Down

Weekend with the nieces. It's been a long time since they've had a sleepover at Auntie's house. Sissy and I can't seem to coordinate our calendars to find open weekends with nothing to do.

Ha.

Nothing to do.

Is there ever such a time?

Even when I find moments of nothing to do, I feel the need to fill it with something. A drawer to clean out, laundry to throw in the washer, papers to sort. Surely, there's something to do every moment. Isn't that what our society tells us? Hurry up and finish one thing to get to the next, to get to the next, to get to the next. Until our time is gone.

That doesn't sound good.

I'm trying to find my way to a different sort of thinking. 

Slowing down. Living in the moment. Enjoying small moments. Stretching time out a bit.

I'm reading a book by Ann Voskamp, One Thousand Gifts. Good stuff. Here's a tiny bit:

“Being in a hurry. Getting to the next thing without fully entering the thing in front of me. I cannot think of a single advantage I've ever gained from being in a hurry. But a thousand broken and missed things, tens of thousands, lie in the wake of all the rushing.... Through all that haste I thought I was making up time. It turns out I was throwing it away.” 

So this weekend was a chance to stop being in a hurry. To sit down and sew with my nieces. And be patient when they rushed ahead of my direction. 

To show them how to fix a mistake. And that it's okay to make mistakes.

We all do.

Wouldn't it be great if life came with a seam ripper and you could rip out the mistakes you made that jumbled things up?

And get a chance to redo them, the way you should have done them the first time around?

Owl bags. 

Sweet little ladies, full of color and personality.

Just like the sweet little ladies that created them.

These girls are so.much.fun.

They make me laugh. And think. And remember my own when they were that young.

They make me thankful for small things, like making fritters on a Saturday morning.

Enjoying a good meal surrounded by people you love, and people who love you, too.

And electricity. I'm still so thankful for electricity.