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On the Blog: --> Give Yourself Permission to Quit Today's post was a fun walk-down-memory lane for me -- reminiscing about a long-standing tradition from my childhood that Dave and I decided not to continue for our family (at least for now). It's never easy to quit something you love or enjoy, but from my experience, the peace and freedom that result are worth it. If you're feeling stressed or overwhelmed because of a tradition or routine that just isn't working for your current season of life, give yourself permission to quit. Or... better yet, let me give you permission to quit in this week's post! A Mini Life Update: Instead of a video, I want share a written "answer" to 2 questions I've gotten over and over and over again since last summer when I took almost 10 weeks off from blogging, and then scaled back to just one post per week in September. The first question = "What are you doing now?" Many have logically assumed I must have gotten another job, started another business, or picked up more virtual assistant work. Some have worried about depression or illness -- either myself or a family member. All of these assumptions are (thankfully) incorrect. My Short Answer = Everything is fine, my life is filled with what I want it to be filled with, and I'm not doing any additional paid work. My Slightly Longer Answer = I'm helping out quite a bit at the kids' school, I'm involved in a variety of church activities, I'm reading and crafting and gardening almost every day, I'm doing some individual stuff with the kids, and I'm faithfully persisting in my "ministry of the mundane" (a.k.a. laundry piles & library books, toilets & teacher gifts, after-school snacks & bedtime stories). A few months ago, I joined 2 new women's groups, and our family has been much more intentional about inviting neighbors, school families, and church friends over for meals, play dates, or just to hang out multiple times each week. I'm not waking up quite as early, I'm not doing much online outside of email and a weekly blog post, and I'm not accepting any other business offers that come my way. The next question = "Why?" Honestly, I don't have a great answer. In many ways, it feels wasteful not to capitalize on the business I've spent the last decade building and growing. Last year was actually my most profitable year... but my desire for simplicity is still at the forefront of my decision-making. The massive changes in the online world (since I started blogging in 2010) make it extremely difficult to share my love of simplicity in a way that allows me to actually enjoy simplicity for my own family, home, and life -- at least not as a one-woman show. Hopefully that makes sense. One gift I feel I can share with others right now is the gift of slowing down (either in our home or in the online world). More than anything, I want to encourage others to slow down. To stop working more in order to buy more and do more... only to have more to maintain, which requires working more... To slow down and stop trying to fill every available space and every waking moment with more stuff and more activities (even if it's all good stuff and good activities). It's a necessary message in today's society, but... the irony of trumpeting a "slower living" message across the internet multiple times each week is not lost on me! The truth of the matter is... I simply haven't figured out how to share the message I'm passionate about without creating unnecessary busyness in my own life, and feeling hypocritical for adding more noise and clutter to the online world. My solution is to "lead by example" and remain quieter until I figure this out... and I will figure it out! For the time being, my online life is in a season of "dormancy". It's not dying, deficient, or depleted. I'm not worried or anxious or desperate to find a way. I'm content... and I fully anticipate the many ideas floating around my brain will eventually come together. At that point, I'll be ready to "sprout" again! Until then, you'll continue to "see" me in your inbox every Tuesday morning with practical encouragement and doable ideas to help you slow down, simplify, and better organize your days, your home, and your life! Your "Homework" for the week: Consider a tradition that may have run its course in your life. Could you quit (or tweak) it to simplify and slow your life a bit? Hit reply to this email to share it with me... or leave a comment on this week's post so others can read too! Have a great week, ~ Andrea |
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