We are in the full swing of summer. We went on vacation (more on that later). We celebrated Emily’s 14th birthday and we are getting ready to celebrate Jena’s 16th birthday. My Lord were has the time gone?!?! Time is flying by right before my eyes. And here we at the end of the first full week of July. I had grand plans for the my blog over the past several months. As you can see I have not followed through on them…but I will….eventually. Which leads me to something I hope to continue to do every month. I did it once last year…I think it might have been around November but don’t quote me on it. I could be way off. I plan to set monthly intentions. Something that I can strive to do to make my life and possibly my family’s lives better.

As in my typical fashion, I felt they had to be big and I needed several intentions for this month. Here we are finishing up the first full week in July and I haven’t posted my intentions. Heck I haven’t even thought about them. But I wanted to stay true to my word so I decided to give myself some grace. Which I have decided will be one of my intentions for the month of July. I tend to be really hard on myself. I tell myself I can do everything. And not only can I do everything I can do it all perfectly. If it isn’t perfect, then it can’t be shared with others or even followed through or sometimes even started. I tell family and friends all the time to give themselves grace but I never follow my own advice. Well I am going to give it a try.

So in giving myself grace I am only going to have two intentions this month. The second one is setting my to do list aside and saying yes to fun. I love my to do list. If I don’t have my to do list then I completely forget to do things. It saves me so much but sometimes I let the to do list come first and fun last. So I am going to work very hard to put it aside and have some fun. Friday was a good example of this. I was way behind on everything (actually I still am) from the super fun weekend we had. I still haven’t caught up on a lot of my list but Jena was working the Flamingos in the morning. So we went to the zoo and ended up spending the entire day there. My list popped in my head but then I let it go. It was more important to be present with the kids at the zoo than to worry about all the stuff I needed to do. It felt good. I actually pushed my list aside a lot this weekend. My the state of my house and my unread emails are proof. But even though I got very little done this weekend, I am ok with it. I had fun with the kids. We made memories. I spent time with family and friends.

I feel confident that I can accomplish these intentions and hopefully continue to carry them forward in the upcoming months. I hope you are giving yourself grace and setting aside your to do list. The list will be there. That chance to make lasting memories with your kids might not so say yes to the fun. The things that need to get done will eventually get done. And if they don’t it will be ok.