A Cocoon Day

Our weekends tend to be quite busy, between errands, swim lessons, catching up with friends and what not. I often find that the first day of each week, in contrast to the busy weekends, needs to be slow paced and quiet. We call them Cocoon Days.

Yesterday was just such a day for us; the three day Memorial Day weekend was filled with adventures, fun and busyness, and I could see that all three of the Little Ones were needing some time to just play at their own pace, read books, lay around for spells of time doing nothing. Perfect!

I often find myself getting a little caught up in the 'busyness' mindset; so much to see, so much to do, and the slippery slope of over-scheduling both myself the the kiddos. But, I am reminded time and again, by my own Little Ones, just how much they need the time to to do their own thing.

A few years ago, I had something on the schedule everyday for The Little Guy and I; our days were full, and honestly, both he and I were feeling the stress of it. The constant rushing and the anxiety over being late were big issues for both of us. 

Even though on an intellectual level I realized how stressful all this rushing was for us, I had not quite anticipated just how freeing it would be to move towards more days that are made up of free time, rather than appointments, play dates and places to be.

So for now our weekly schedule hangs on just one or two events, with plenty of time left over for long conversations, building projects, walks and bicycle rides in our neighborhood, cooking and baking, reading, pottering around, craft projects, playing in the yard, getting muddy, having fun, and all the other 1001 things a child will find to do when given the time and space to do it!


What does your weekly schedule look like? How do you balance appointments versus home time? Feel free to share; I'd love to hear from you!

A Simpler Schedule

The past couple of months here in the  Simply 'Burbs home, have seen some pretty significant changes. I talked a little about this in my last post (check that post out here).

So! -what did we do when we realized that life was getting too busy?

Well, this makes things sound very simplistic, but we just stopped.

And that is the very simplistic answer, but really that is about it.

I stopped scheduling so much during our week days, cut chores to the minimum, consolidated errands, and all round did less.

So, how does that look in our day to day lives?

~ We typically only have outside (drive somewhere in the car) trips for the Little Ones once or twice each week, rather than most days as we used to do.

~ We make every effort to consolidate all our errands on Saturdays, although we do often run these as family trips (time running errands together, is still time spent together!)

~ Sundays are kept as unscheduled as possible; they are family days. The last couple of week's Sundays have been spent listening to music, gardening in our yard, pottering around the house, reading ... we even (gasp) watched a movie together as a family a couple of weeks ago (something we so rarely do, it justifies mentioning!)

~ Although we still make most of our food from scratch, I'm keeping meals and snacks much simpler. Most meals are prepared with less than 15 minutes of hand's on time.

~ Rather than try to keep the house looking 'guest ready' all the time, we do a five o'clock sweep of the main living area. A five minute timer and some upbeat music, and off we go! Amazing what you can do in just five minutes. I aim to do a whole house sweep each week.

~ This last one is definitely a work in progress, but My Good Man and I are trying very hard to get more sleep, and be in bed by 10:30. This is probably the hardest aspect for me; it is just so hard to limit that little bit of down time that we have looked forward to all day.

Yard work with the Little Ones.

And the result of all this 'stopping'? We have more space and time in our days to just be;more reading, more crafting, more ... just hanging out. Stress levels have gone down for all of us, we're spending more time snuggling, playing and laughing, and less time driving around, rushing and clock watching.

Now, don't get me wrong, this isn't the ultimate cure all. And obviously, there is more to it than I could possibly cover in a single blog post. We still have full lives; with three young children, two working parents, and a home to maintain, life is never going to be dull, or empty. Some days are better, and simpler, than others.

But we're getting there!

Isn't the first step accepting there is a problem? We had a problem ... we're working our way towards a solution.


How is your schedule looking these days? Too busy? Too much rushing? Striving for balance? Feel free to share in the comments; I'd love to hear from you!