Wedding season is definitely in full swing (spring and summers are typically very popular for brides- my own wedding was in July!) which means that basically all my Saturdays are booked doing makeup from now until my due date for baby number 3! Whew, that makes me tired just thinking about my schedule and upcoming weekends. But don’t get me wrong, I absolutely love what I do and am very thankful for all these wedding dates. But I am human too and it’s okay to admit being overwhelmed at times right?! Insert calm beautiful scenery above and below.
Which brings me to my “slow down” title. I had a wedding booked today which was located up in the mountains about 2.5 hours away from my house. Normally I don’t like to be too far away from my family on the weekends because it’s our only time to all really be together with no other agendas like during the busy weekdays. But this drive up into the north Georgia mountains was actually a nice relaxing treat!! (All of these pictures show the serene views I got to enjoy on my road trip). Instead of focusing on the fact that I was missing my family, my parents that had come into town to visit, and that I had a birthday party to throw for my soon to be 2 year old the next day, I soaked in the quietness of my surroundings (which is typically filled with questions, singing, more questions, annoying childrens cd’s, and sometimes crying) and enjoyed it. I needed this 5 hour round trip to re-focus on myself and realize how I don’t need to feel like I need to do it all, all the time. I need to slow down and stop and smell the roses if you will. This “slow” sign I drove by just spoke to me.
Before I had headed out for this wedding job, I had looked over my handy dandy calendar on my phone while filling up my car with gas. It immediately overwhelmed me all the “things”: playdates/appointments/jobs/consults/doctor & vet appointments/volunteer groups, I have scheduled myself with. Granted a lot of these things are must do’s to keep my household and business running, but I also pondered on how many of these other “things” were really necessary and/or were they “things” that really made me happy?? I know we as women sometimes think we need to have our hands in a little bit of everything to stay in the loop, but the idea of being perfect and so involved might not always be the best way to go.
So while I curved along the winding roads of these mountains with no radio on because, A. I liked the quiet, and B. there weren’t any clear stations coming in anyway, I reminded myself of a very smart quote I had recently read and couldn’t get out of my head:
This came from a successful mom of three and editor in chief of Real Simple magazine, one of my favorite mags, Kristin van Ogtrop. Let’s face it, no one is truly perfect, and those that try too hard to be perfect, are annoying. Granted I want to strive to be the best mom/friend/wife I can be, not strive to be the best mom I want everyone else to see. In order to do this, I’m going to need to slow down and delete some of those unnecessary “things” on my electronic calendar and enjoy being me in my own situation. Just saying that out loud gives me a big sigh of relief and makes me want to drive with the windows down and radio off more often:-)
