Welcome to my weekly Slow Day post, inspired by Monica from The Homespun Heart. My Word for 2018 is Slow and, in the spirit of that word, I’m taking one day each week (Wednesday) off — I’ll be unplugged and offline and plan to move at a slower pace, take time to do things that refresh me, and just really focus on being present and savoring the moment.
Each week, I’ll be sharing a photographic peek into my Slow Day. Enjoy a little peek into our lives!
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I started the morning out like I usually do — with running, prayer, Bible reading, and a shower. I dropped Kathrynne off at school and then headed to Frothy Monkey to enjoy a cup of tea and do the reading/studying for our summer Discipleship Group study. (Our small group is going through this book together.)
A friend texted and asked me what my plans were for my day off. I texted her back to say that I was planning to do some cooking and cleaning, hang out with Jesse and the kids, have a chiropractic appointment, and get together with my Discipleship Small Group.
Well, God had other plans in store for my day… 🙂
When I got home, Kaitlynn and I spent some time together since it was her first day of Summer vacation!
And of course we had to take some pictures of Quill! 😉
I also worked on cleaning up our messy kitchen.
While I was in the middle of cleaning up the kitchen, the doorbell rang and our chair for the library was delivered.
Somehow, the legs for it weren’t delivered, so they put in an order to have them overnighted to us and went ahead and set up the chair without them.
I’m SO happy we chose this chair for our library. It’s perfect for cozy-ing up with a great book! Now we just need to get a rug and floor lamp (and some more books!) and our library is done. We just love this room so much!
Kaitlynn sat at the table (with her freshly-washed hair up in a towel!!) and played with Quill while I finished cleaning up the kitchen.
(She took these pictures and edited them on my phone — something she loves to do!)
My phone started blowing up with a bunch of texts and I found out that some of the women couldn’t come to the Discipleship Group get-together that evening. In fact, we were down to three ladies (including myself). I got this crazy idea… there is a mom and her 4 girls who recently moved to our area and started coming to our church that is a relative of one of the women in our small group.
We’d talked about having a get-together as a group with our families and this mom and her girls. Well, why not invite the two women who can come tonight and their families over for dinner and invite this mom and her girls, too?
It was one of those ideas that I often get, but I usually talk myself out of because it feels so spontaneous and crazy. But I decided to not talk myself out of moving forward with it… and I checked to see if we had food on hand that we could use to make dinner for three families plus our family.
I had bought 7 pounds of meat the day before and was already planning to make a bunch of meatballs for the freezer. We had marked down potatoes I could make mashed potatoes with. We had a bunch of corn on the cob I had gotten marked down. We had frozen broccoli I could use to make Roasted Broccoli.
So, as I shared here, I decided to just text the three families and offer what we had on hand and invite them to come for dinner.
And guess what? They were all so excited about it!
So, the rest of my morning was spent prepping food.
Kaitlynn came and helped me and she made two Spaghetti Casseroles for the freezer for later.
And then I watched some YouTube shows with the kids and relaxed while Kaitlynn gave me a pedicure — complete with foot massage! (Have I mentioned how amazing it is to have older kids??)
You can’t see it very clearly here, but she did this fun design on them. Because Kaitlynn never does anything in a boring way! 😉
Kathrynne and I headed to our chiropractic appointments — which is always super relaxing!
And then I came home and finished dinner prep and we all worked on cleaning the house and getting things ready for our guests — including getting this burned spot off the stovetop!
I stuck the broccoli in the oven… and then our doorbell rang and the three families arrived. I didn’t get any pictures of the evening, but I wrote a little more about it here.
I love how intentionally taking time to be offline gives me the ability to have more space in my life for spontaneity and relationships!
Rebecca says
Love the cards and the stand that say “keep loving one another” – where could I find that? Thanks!!
Crystal Paine says
It’s called The Hope Deck and I found it on Amazon here: https://amzn.to/2L2CyxZ
Christine says
Seems more like a fast day 🙂
Crystal Paine says
Ha! It actually wasn’t… compared to my usual pace! I should document a usual day and then you’d have something to compare these Slow Days to to see how much quieter they are compared to how this INTJ Enneagram 8 usually runs!
Stacey says
Do you have recipe for your meatballs? I never thought to use oats.
Melinda says
Hey Crystal, A great place to look for rugs is Old Time Pottery. Lots of options and super low prices.
Crystal Paine says
Thanks so much for the tip!
Karen says
Love the updates on Quill and your gorgeous library, Crystal! As a longtime reader, it’s so fun to watch you and your family grow.
Crystal Paine says
Aw, thank you so much!
Cindy says
Can you tell us where we can read more about how Quill became part of your family and how it’s been going?
Crystal Paine says
I shared a little here: https://moneysavingmom.com/2017/09/big-week-house-last-week.html
Jill says
Cute chair. Mind sharing where you found it?
Crystal Paine says
We got it from Rooms to Go! 🙂
Kim says
Could you post the link to the chair and ottoman please? Thank you.
Jen says
I was wondering how Quill is doing! Such cute pics!
Heather says
I’ve been working on being open to being more hospitable myself and not talking myself out of hosting either. We watched our friends kids while they packed up their old home to prep for a move one Saturday recently and I was prepping tacos for dinner I texted her and said “crazy idea, let me keep the girls til 5 and come for tacos tonight. Don’t change…I won’t either except to slap on extra stroke of deoterant!” I held my breath and sent it. I made a quick dessert with items on hand and the night was a fun, genuine evening after a long day for both families. We laughed and had wonderful fellowship. Even one year ago I there would be no way is do that. Your recommendation of the book Just Open the Door has given me confidence to host without panic setting in. Thank you!
Crystal Paine says
Oh yay! This made me SO happy!! Thank you for sharing!