reclaiming sundays... with beans and a side of enchilada

Our last couple of Sundays have been rainy. Not just the skies-are-gray-things-are-a-bit-wet type of rainy... but more of an I-just-might-drown-trying-to-get-from-my-house-to-my-car type of rainy.

Relentless pounding tropical downpour.

Although Oregon is thought of as a state that is constantly wet, I'm from a very dry area in central Oregon, where we typically get 6-12 inches of rain per year. I don't even remember owning a raincoat or umbrella for most of my life.

And then I moved to the tropics.

Here during the wet season we can easily get my hometown's entire annual rainfall in a single afternoon. {I am soooo not exaggerating.}

Sunday was one of those days.

But, regardless of the elements being pitted against us, we had already decided that we were going out to celebrate Ryan's birthday at a local wanna-be-Mexican restaurant (the closest the Aussies can get to Mexican at least), and so we scooped up our little and headed in search of ribs (for Ryan) and a burrito (for me).

Much to my dismay the restaurant had quit serving burritos. Yes, you read that right - a Mexican restaurant with no burritos. (Remember friends, we are talking Australian-Mexican food here.)

So instead I got the enchiladas.

To my shock and horror I was delivered a giant plate with ONE enchilada surrounded by two massive side dishes - beans on one side and lettuce on the other. My measly lone enchilada was nearly lost in that sea of lettuce and beans.

Now before you feel too sorry for me let me remind you that this occasion was not about me. (Keep in mind how hard it is for a pregnant woman to acknowledge this when it comes to anything food-related!)

Thankfully my enchilada (singular) was tasty... but far more importantly, Ryan's huge order of ribs was absolutely delish. Levi munched on bits of our meals and was happy bopping along in his highchair to the cheesy Video Hits that played in the background. But the best part of the meal was the end - just watching my boy love his daddy and my man love his son.

They are such a great pair.

Soaking wet and still hungry or not... there's no better way to spend a Sunday than with the ones I love most.

Dear friends, have you had some good family time this week? I dare you to be deliberate about making it happen.

estoy alegre,

Note: You can read my original post with more of what this is all about here. If you'd like to grab the Reclaiming Sundays button and join in with our family's quest to make some more time for rest in our busy lives, then please feel free. (And remember, your "Sundays" don't have to literally be on Sundays... any old day will do, as long as it's deliberate.) Make sure to leave me your link so I can visit!

<a href="http://www.themommyhoodmemos.com" target="_blank"><img alt="The Mommyhood Memos" src="http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m223/adrielmc/reclaimingsundaysbuttonimagesize200.jpg" /></a>
(And don't worry, the button will display on your blog as a normal button size!)

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011 

do not reproduce without written permission

reclaiming sundays... with ice cream

A family quest to rest, refresh, enjoy, live... a little bit more. That's what Reclaiming Sundays is all about.

And so, we've begun to take back our Sundays and be just a little more intentional about   s l o w i n g   d o w n  and enjoying our family and friends and life. in. general.

Scheduled rest. Scheduled fun. Scheduled time for something... or nothing... or whatever sets our hearts at peace.

It only made sense to set the bar high: sun, sand, swimming... and ice cream. Oh, Sunday afternoon ice cream, where have you been all my life?

I think I could get used to this quickly.

Dear friends, what did you do this weekend to stop and enjoy life a little bit more?

learning to rest... more,

P.S. You can read my original post with more of what this is all about here. If you'd like to grab the Reclaiming Sundays button and join in with our family's quest to make some more time for rest in our busy lives, then please feel free. Make sure you leave me your link so I can come see and be inspired by what your family is doing. (And remember, your "Sundays" don't have to literally be on Sundays... any old day will do, as long as it's deliberate.) *BIGsigh*

<a href="http://www.themommyhoodmemos.com" target="_blank"><img alt="The Mommyhood Memos" src="http://i105.photobucket.com/albums/m223/adrielmc/reclaimingsundaysbuttonimagesize200.jpg" /></a>
(And don't worry, the button will display on your blog much smaller than the image above!:)

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011
do not reproduce without written permission

reclaiming sundays

New Years resolutions. Some love ‘em. Some hate ‘em. Some are diligent to follow through. Many start with great ideas that never make it past a list scrawled out in a journal or on the fridge.

I didn’t make any resolutions this year (apart from a few blogging goals, which—let’s be honest—I’ve yet to even come close to implementing most of them).

But I did have one thing in particular on my heart and mind for this year… a change I wanted to make…

You see… life. is. busy.

We all know that.

Time is perhaps our most precious commodity. How we spend it, how we invest it, and how we squander it will define not only our present, but our future.

I’m tired of having days—even entire weeks—where I get to the end and think what in the world did I do with my time?

It’s all too easy to let life rule me and lead me, rather than me leading life the way I want it to go.

Yes, I am trying to be more organized and accomplish certain short-term goals… but what I’m really talking about here is the quality time I want to spend living life, enjoying life.

I’m pretty sure no one gets to the end of their days only to think, “I wish I had kept a better-organized pantry!”

So I’ve tried to be deliberate, to take advantage of my (mostly) fluid schedule. Instead of getting caught up in the business of taking care of a baby and taking care of a home, finances, part-time work responsibilities, ministry, etc. (these are all good things, mind you), I’ve tried to be intentional about also having fun with my son. You know, impromptu trips to the park, a quick play in a sink filled with bubbles, dumping a million blocks on the floor to see what we can create, or sitting down in the middle of the kitchen with him to bang on pots and pans to see what kind of noise we can create.

In fact, even at one point while writing this post Levi came up to me and started bouncing up and down near my feet. He had a wooden puzzle in his hand that he was obviously dying for me to get down on the floor and help him with. So I did.

It’s not about catering to our children’s every whim. It’s about paying attention to them, letting them remind us to be present, and remembering that they are individuals who are constantly learning, perceiving, and even forming judgments of their own (including sizing up what they deem as mama’s priorities).

I don’t want to be at the point of sending Levi off to school in a few years time and look back and wish I had spent the early days with him differently.

So I’m trying. Not always succeeding the way I’d like to, but trying nonetheless.

No doubt you can relate.

But this isn’t just about being a parent and having quality time with my kids.

It’s even bigger than that. It’s about having quality time with my husband, quality time with friends, quality time for myself, quality time set apart for God.

I’m aware, more and more, that we’re living on borrowed time.

I don’t want to look back on my life and think that I squandered the time I was given. But the sad truth for most of us is that a lack of being deliberate leads us into a slow and steady process of waste... wasted time.

And wasted time leads to a wasted life.

So my goal for this year is to reclaim Sundays in hopes that will help bring me more focus on spending my precious time well.

There is nothing magical about Sundays. In my opinion the day itself is not holy any more than a Tuesday or a Friday is. Every day is holy if only we’d treat it as such.

But like most families we have weekends off from work. Saturdays tend to be quickly filled up with chores, errands, and house/yard projects. And so that leaves Sundays – the only day of the week that we can really stop. Rest. Reflect. Recharge.

So this year I want to reclaim Sundays. I want to wake up Monday morning feeling like I’m starting my work week from a good place, from a better place.

It’s not a religious thing, although God himself understands the value of Sabbath rest for busy, hard-working people and has gone so far as commanding his followers to observe it (ie: rest, pray, play, refuel, reconnect).

But it’s more than “just” religion.

Rest, recreation, refreshing, recharging, relationships… these are as important as the air we breathe and the food that sustains us. All of it is absolutely crucial to living a healthy and balanced life… a good life.

So {dramatic pause} I want to make Sundays – whether it is the entire day or part of the day – a day that I know I can look forward to because it is one where we will deliberately draw aside from our “to do’s” in order to really enjoy life… do things that refresh us and recharge us, excite us and connect us. I want Sundays to be a day in our home that the entire family looks forward to because it means something fun is about to happen… even if that something fun is an intentional “nothing” from time to time. I want it to be a day that we are calculated about pausing the busyness in order to enjoy relationships, create memories, and focus on the things that help grow joy in hearts and homes.

I have decided that part of holding myself accountable to being deliberate about this goal will be me posting a photo or a thought or a recount of Sundays (or Saturdays or whatever day worked out for us to be “Sunday” for the week) on the Memos. I may not perfectly succeed, and I’m okay with that, but I am determined to try. I am determined to do better.

For my own sake. My for my husband’s sake. For our children’s sake.

Dear friends, please feel free to join me on my endeavor to reclaim Sundays. I’m doing this for myself, for my family, for my friends… But no doubt other blogging mamas out there could benefit from reclaiming Sundays too. I don’t want to just create another meme for the sake of gaining blog followers (*blech* I don’t have time for stuff like that anyway). But I suspect I’m not alone in my desire. If that’s you, if you want to try and reclaim Sundays too, link up with me next week and share about your own “Sunday” or special family time. (I'll have a grab button and linky open next week if you're interested in joining.) I challenge you to carve out time, be deliberate about living, and record the journey for your family’s sake and for your own.

reclaiming sundays,

P.S. It's Sunday here... and we went to the beach today..........Our day included fish and chips. And ice cream. But... more about that later. *happysighofcontentment*

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2011 
do not reproduce without written permission

the destination? or the journey?

Thirty-four-and-a-half. That’s the number of hours we spent waiting for planes and layin-over on our recent trip from Townsville-Sydney-San Francisco-Honolulu-Kona-Los Angeles-San Francisco-Bend-San Francisco-Sydney-Brisbane-Townsville.

I’m not ready to take that trip again anytime soon.

Thirty-four-and-a-half hours.

Oh, and that was not including our overnight layover in San Francisco due to inclement weather (which would take us to well over forty-five hours).

I’ve heard it said that it’s about the journey, not the destination… And I get that. But let me tell you, we wouldn’t go on a journey like that unless there were some really fabulous destinations on the other side.

So maybe it’s about the journey and the destination.

But when you have a travel itinerary as epic (read: long) as ours, you have to make the most of the journey… for everyone’s sake.

A few glimpses of how we spent our thirty-four-and-a-half hours:

We tried to make the most of our thirty-four-and-a-half.

There were frequent trips to Starbucks. There was Chinese take-out. There were naps on chests. There were naps on floors. There was window shopping. There were borrowed highchairs. There were meals on the floor. There were adventures in the Ergo. There was territory marked out in forgotten waiting areas. There were many repeats of the same four board books. There were handfuls of Cheerios… many handfuls. And there were even some extra moments with grandparents and friends to help us in the wait.

Some of those hours were better spent than others… but overall we did try to enjoy some “family time” together since it was [mostly] just the three of us with nowhere to go and nothing to do… except wait. And enjoy the moment.

Dear friends, do you find it easy or hard to enjoy the journey? Are you a “destination person”, a “journey person”, or a combination of the two?

arrived… home, that is,

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2010 
do not reproduce without written permission

dear God, thank you for beauty in garbage

Don't you just love seeing life through a child's perspective?


Last night at dinner I sat next to a friend who has a little boy the same age as ours. Somehow we got on the topic of how children help us to slow down... pause... see things in a new light.

A couple of days ago I was on a bush walk with Levi. We stopped to look at a tall, beautiful gum tree. I've always loved gum trees - their smooth bone-white trunks, their muted sage green colored leaves, and the fresh scent of eucalyptus.

I placed Levi's hand on a part of the trunk where the bark was stripped back saying, "smooth, smooth" and then over to an area where the bark was still in tact saying "rough, rough." 

We did the new-found "smooth, smooth, rough, rough" game a few times. Levi loved it - he laughed and laughed and looked from the tree to me and back again in delight.

I'm not sure if he was laughing at the new experience, laughing at the comparison of touch sensations, laughing at my words, or just laughing because he was enjoying himself. 

No matter the reason for his laughter, it really spurred me to think about the joy of discovery.

I can get so caught up in running here and there, doing this and that, and it's far too easy to let the detail of life pass me by. But having a small child that is learning so much every day really helps me to put things into perspective. He helps me to see things through new eyes and enjoy the small things that I might never notice without his help.

He helps me to see beauty and wonder and joy in a tree trunk... or a garbage can.

Dear friends, what has your child helped you to see lately?

trying to take notice,

adriel booker | the mommyhood memos | 2010 
do not reproduce without written permission