Things That Are Saving My Life Right Now

 I've listened to Emily P. Freeman's Podcast rendition of this idea from Barbara Brown Taylor. The idea is to name the things that are currently life giving. To take notice of the things that you love. It can be however many things you want. Your list can have a product, a food, a routine. Literally anything!

So often we get bogged down in all that isn't and we get stuck in the things that drain us. But taking time to sit and actually document things that are "saving my life right now" is already proving to be a great practice.

So what IS saving my life right now?

1 - Family Charging Station - We have seen these around for years and Josh in particular has always wanted one so I found this one on sale and snagged it up for his birthday and We.Love.It. I love having a central location for all of our tech stuff without the mess of cords and multiple chargers all over the floor taking turns charging. And I must say, I (almost) always know where my phone is now because I find that I keep it on the dock even if it isn't charging. This has helped my screen time decrease which is an added win! And my favorite thing is looking over and seeing it filled up during Sabbath while we put all of our devices away for 24 hours together.

2 - My garden. It isn't super luscious...yet (I've got hope though) and it isn't the most beautiful thing to drive by (it's in the front yard). But it is one of my happy places. I love walking around and watering every area. I love going out and seeing the process, even if it is ever so slow (or minimal). I love the bright pop of color from the flowers and all the green from last year's lettuce that finally decided to bring us its presence. My favorite thing is the little solar fairy lights that Laithy told me would look great out there. And you know what? They do. It's my little fairy garden and it makes me smile every time I see it out my window.

3 - My dry erase calendar I bought at FIVE BELOW. I keep it in the kitchen for my meal matrix (thank you The Lazy Genius). It allows me to look at a whole month for meal planning. There are a few days of the week that are repeat meals every week, like FFY (fend for yourself) Sunday, Taco Tuesday, Pizza Friday and Dad's Yum Saturday (Josh typically cooks on Saturday nights).  Simply filling in those days helps me feel lighter and less overwhelmed about what I'm going to feed this family all day every day. Usually sometime on Thursday I think through the next week and fill in the missing blocks as I begin getting my weekly grocery list together. And one more added bonus...my kids can look at the calendar to see what's for dinner and only ask me about 3 times versus the average 17,000 times what the dinner plan is. Ya'll, this has and is saving my life. 

4 - MudWater - Ok, this stuff does NOT taste great by itself. And I don't like to add sweetener to my coffee, tea and drinks so I usually put a scoop of this in my protein shake in the mornings and it does my body SO good. I can actually feel the grounding and an overall calming inside. My anxiety thanks me when I remember to drink it.

5 - Front porch swing - We lost our carport during our renovation and traded it in for an extra bedroom which we are SO thankful for. But we are outside people and we miss the hours of carport time we've lost sitting and reading or watching thunderstorms or rain fall in the carport. We do have our back porch which is super nice but it isn't covered so rain storm watching out there is out of the question. And the sun takes over right after lunch time and can get pretty sizzle-y. So we have been utilizing our front porch swing so much more lately. After the morning sun moves to the back we can shift out to the front porch and swing to our hearts content. In fact, I'm out there writing this right now.

6 - Thursday Night Date Nights - This is one of the things I most look forward to in the week. After our kids got older and they began staying up later than we did, the "we'll catch up after the kids go to bed" era disappeared for me and Josh. And I'm not quite sure how it morphed into this built-in at-home date night on Thursday nights, but it has stuck and I'm so glad. It's late, since sometimes we don't get home until well after 9pm on Thursday nights because of rehearsal nights at our church, but it doesn't matter because this night brings in our Sabbath so we get to sleep in and it is fabulous.

7 - Blogging again - I don't have much to say about this one except that it brings life to be able to type out my thoughts again. *happy sigh*

8 - Soccer games - It is nearing the end of the soccer seasons which is life-giving because that clears up the calendar, but that's not why I put it on the list. I have thoroughly enjoyed grabbing my camping chair, pulling it up to the field to just sit with my feet in the grass and watch the boys. An hour and a half where I HAVE to sit still outside (sometimes watching the sunset) and not do anything? I'm here for it!

That's it. Those are the things that are saving my life right now.

I invite you to make your own list and then thank God for the glimpses of good that are all around us! 

What is saving YOUR life right now?