New beginnings are exciting…
- A new year
- A new home
- A new routine
There’s a thrill in planning new ventures… and it’s nice to look forward to positive changes that shuffle up our monotonous lives.
But after a while, that becomes our new normal… a new monotony. We’re just doing the same things over and over again… day in and day out!
It’s been a few months since we moved to a different part of town and the kids started the new school year in a new school.
We enjoyed the new beginnings… but now that we’ve settled in, the daily grind sometimes wears us out.
It’s easy to fall back into the boring rhythms of a regular week – with nothing interesting to show at the end of it.
I must mention… there were seasons in the past when I prayed for this monotonous life our family is living now.
- The kids are older and parenting is not as exhausting as it used to be.
- We’re not battling long seasons of sickness.
- Our family is together and not oceans apart.
Still, our days are packed tight with work, errands, chores, homework, commitments…
My days often become a blur… doing one thing after another, being everything to everyone, rushing to complete a never-ending to-do list…
That’s why I intentionally set an interesting goal for 2019 – to document and celebrate the ordinary everyday.
There are dozens of small moments I might miss in my week if I don’t capture it…
I usually remember to jot those down in my journal.. but this year, I decided to take it a step further and take weekly snapshots of our everyday life.
These are the ordinary moments – nothing extraordinary… but moments that will help me look back and cherish these years with my family.
I started posting a picture a week on Instagram, and I’ve successfully completed 7+ months of it!
It hasn’t been easy, though…
In the rush of everyday life, I often miss appreciating the beauty and joy hidden in the ordinary moments of everyday life.
I’ve had to pray and ask God to open my eyes to the wonders He’s placed around me.
The practice of looking for beauty around me and celebrating the everyday moments with my family has been quite therapeutic.
I now pause to notice the dirt street we traverse every day… and the flowers at the end of the road.
I linger a few moments longer on the balcony… and take in the beauty of the clouds, the trees, the chirping of the birds.
I say ‘yes’ when the boys want to help me in the kitchen… and make tea for them more often.
Our family is far from perfect… we have our fair share of ups and downs.
But I’m choosing to focus on the things I want to remember – 5, 10, 20 years from now…
My pictures are definitely not Instagram worthy (the filters help, of course)…
But I’m enjoying documenting our weeks and celebrating our imperfect, ordinary life… adding a bit of sparkle to otherwise monotonous days.
Image Credit: Ryan Parker
❤️