Earlier this week, I asked on this question on Facebook.
I loved reading through the responses. The theme running through the responses seemed to fall in one of two categories: relaxation and/or passions and hobbies.
I've been wondering lately how much better of a mom I might be if I knew I could count on periodically getting away-- to slow down my mind and just chill, and also spend a bit of time doing whatever's burning on my heart-- even for just 24 hours.
For me the answer was easy. The burden of my barely-organized family photos (over 6,ooo in iPhoto from 2013) and the lack of ways to tangibly enjoy these memories weighs on me. This isn't like a world-peace-life-issue I realize but my heart longs for our kids to be able to sit and thumb through photo albums and relive memories, like I love to do myself. Not to mention that this fulfills a creative need for me, so there's that, too.
I'm a retired scrapbooker, and the first half of our marriage is neatly documented with pretty paper and embellishments. Naturally this ended around the time Gigi started crawling. I also started blogging around that time, so it's partly my fault.
Passions shift and how we spend our time changes over time. But my passion to have our photos and memories be at the center of our home hasn't. I just need to make time for this.
This weekend, my parents are out of town and we are dog-sitting for them. I'm going to take Sydney back to their house for just under 24 hours, to give myself a little mama retreat. {Major props and thanks goes out to my husband who sees how much I need this.}
I'm going to spend some time working on my goals for the year (for life and for blogging) and hone in on my One Word with some prayer and time in The Word, and I'm going to spend some hours organizing and backing up my photos. My goal with this is to have a good chunk of the last five years' photos prepped so that when I save up, I can start ordering photo books.
I know this isn't possible for everyone, but what would you do to really feed your soul if you had a 24-hour retreat? I'll share how mine goes when I return.