I am someone who generally thrives on routine. Being an extrovert I sometimes find this a bit odd, but routine makes me comfortable. Other than vacation, summer weekends are usually spent hanging around at parks and museums with the kids and filling up the kiddy pool.
This summer we decided to throw routine to the wind and say yes to every adventure that presented itself. We went camping several times. We went out of town for family gatherings. We went to friends’ houses and never turned down a single invitation to do something fun. We were off somewhere almost every single weekend this summer.
This meant not having time to get weekend routine things done like mowing the lawn and weeding the garden. It meant having to scramble to prepare for our vacation to the east coast since we had been away the weekend before we left. It meant having overgrown grass and getting eaten alive by mosquitos trying to mow it on a weekday evening. It meant having the scraggliest mangiest garden beds on the street.
Normally these things would drive me crazy. But when I saw the benefits of just saying yes I realized it was worth it. We all had an amazing summer. The kids loved every minute of it and spent lots of time outdoors swimming, running, biking, and of course eating marshmallows over the campfire. Being outdoors was so rejuvenating for all of us, and just having unstructured fun as a family was priceless.
Don’t get me wrong, there was some stress involved in there since packing up a family with two small children requires lots of time and organization, especially for things like camping. Being a solopreneur I also had a lot of work to be crammed into the weeks before leaving on vacation. But the carrot at the end of the stick brought a smile to everyone’s face at the end.
So if you drive by my house and see the lily stems that still haven’t been cut back and the ugly prickly weeds in the garden bed, just smile and know that they are there for a very good reason. And if you decided to say yes all summer too then honk when you drive by, chill about the weeds, and have another s’more. You won’t regret it.
Now if you’ll pardon me I’m going kayaking. The weeds can wait.