Reader, it’s official! As of a few days ago, we entered the glorious season of summer. Can you believe it?!

My creaky old winter bones have been warming up nicely and coming back to life!

I love the start of a new season! My mind thrives on that feeling of a new beginning, a refresh, a reason to assess and ask, “Okay, what’s in store for this next bit of time? How will I make it meaningful?”

We all know how the years just seem to fly by faster and faster. And how, if we’re not paying attention, the good ol’ days pass us by before we even knew we were in them. Just this morning, my brother sent me the cutest video of my youngest son from 8 years ago, doing his best Hulk impression. We loved his obsession with all things Hulk at that time and I’d nearly forgotten about it until that video showed up in my messages.

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Wow, 8 years ago seems like forever. The kids are so different now.

I think we don’t often set our mile markers very well. We’re figuring out this whole being alive thing until the day we die. Especially when parenting sweeps through like high tide and carries us out to sea before we feel like we had a chance to get at least something right.

And don’t get me wrong, we definitely need to give ourselves some grace as we go along. When the kids were small, I always wished they had come with an instruction manual. And since they didn’t, I’ve come a long way to being okay with not always knowing what I should do.

But looking out at the vast wild ocean of my life has got me thinking...I’m curious what my next season would feel like if I committed to creating more opportunities throughout the year to pause, reflect, set new goals, plan…

I think we all have grand expectations for ourselves at the turn of a new year, but for me, that ends up being a time of exhaustion and overwhelm. My Decembers are typically overbooked and I tend to spend my January in a bit of a holiday hangover.

Maybe it’s just me, and that’s ok, too. But I’m starting to consider that thinking seasonally can really help me feel less overwhelmed with the thought of somehow making an entire year awesome. I mean if last year taught us anything, it’s that everything can change in the blink of an eye and then the new buzz word is P*I*V*O*T.

So in an effort to improve my present, really basking in all the little moments, I’m doing a little pause this weekend to ask myself and my family what we want our summer to be. I mean, we’re already nearly a month into summer vacation and my kids have uttered that dreaded ‘bored’ word more than a few times. And that’s not what I had in mind at all for them by this point.

I want to create more space to reflect and enjoy - so simple pleasures like our family’s favorite summer dinners on the grill don’t just slip by in the rush of the evening. I want to hold tight to early sunrises and late nights on the front porch and protect my peace as things change and life moves forward.

So I’m curious, do you pause for the season changes? If you gave yourself the gift of a pause this weekend to ask what you want your next few months to look like, what do you envision? Hit reply and let us know

--Mandi

PS. Did you know that we're starting a podcast soon! Stay tuned for info and let us know what you'd like us to talk about and what your travel struggles are so we can help you out!