It’s been a bit of a tough week already, and it’s only Tuesday. We wanted to have a quiet, early family dinner last night so I pulled out my crockpot. I’m not much of a cook, but I can usually create something edible in that thing.
By the time the boys got home from school, the house was filled with the aroma of roast, potatoes, carrots and onions.
Even though they’d never choose those foods, they were excited by the smell wafting through the house, combined with the gorgeous sunshine outside. We opted to open the doors and move a table outside to work on homework. That plan backfired a little bit because before I could say “pencil”, I’d lost one to the trampoline and the other to the top of a tree.
But since when is it 75° and sunny in February in Dallas?
Of course, since I bought a few extra sleds at Christmas just so we’d be prepared for our one big snow. But that’s another story. So I let them wander off while I finished the trimmings for dinner. Then I had the thought, “What if we just pulled out a couple more chairs and ate dinner out there?”
I mentioned it to the boys and we were off the to races.
We were digging in china, looting for candles, and picking out napkin rings. We pulled down stemware and put on some music. The boys calligraphed their own little place cards. They even went out to scour the neighborhood for some sort of living wildflowers. They returned with these two purple pansies! (My apologies to the neighbor who had their landscape looted by two little boys with a pair of scissors! That was not my plan.) Once the table was set, Noah pulled out his recorder to serenade his Dad, as Oakley led him through the back gate.
Our very normal family dinner quickly turned into a fancy surprise affair.
What would have been another hum drum evening, transformed into lingering on the porch with a late night talent show. We ate until our tummies were stuffed. We laughed and told stories. We cleaned up and threw the football.
It completely changed the mood of our evening.
Their bedtime routine was a little more peaceful. Sleep came a bit easier. I woke up, earlier and more refreshed.
I wonder what would happen if we did simple things like that more often.
What if when we were having a tough week, instead of focusing on whatever was going wrong, we made a little tweak to our daily grind? What if the next time you’re feeling exhausted and just ready to push through the evening routine, you opened up the windows and doors first? What if you took a different route to school or work? Changed the radio station?
What if you changed one small thing about your routine today?
It could open up a whole new world you didn’t think was possible.
At the very least, it might distract you from your habitual thinking.
Give it a try!
I want to hear how it goes.
to more love,
Crystal
