The book I am currently listening to and the mama I spoke about last week (with her perspective on regulating screen time) flow right along with this new-to-me concept… filling our time with living instead of the expectations of society and the drudgery of what we think is all day-to-day life amounts to.
Confused? Well, first take a peek at the article Screen Time Helped My Toddler. If you are short on time, the section I’m referring to is at the bottom, under the headline “regulation of screen time in the future”.
Now, come along with me on a journey of filling our time with living – instead of the standard alternative (doing what is expected instead of what you want).
How Does Filling Our Time with Living Look?
For us, my husband has a traditional job with traditional hours… which he loves – and I work here, at All Behind A Smile. This creates an interesting lack of flexibility on his part, because his is client work. He needs to be fully present during those work hours.
Since I am very flexible with my hours, we use his availability as a gauge… but our plan is essentially to live (within Christian boundaries) as we would prefer to live if we didn’t have to worry about finances.
This does NOT mean racking up lots of debt, credit card or otherwise.
This means setting aside some money each week to do something together or as a family – and that something could be free, as long as it is something out of the ordinary or special or otherwise different than our norm. This will (hopefully) become our new normal. We don’t want to wait to enjoy each other (and our family) until we are too old to appreciate the experiences – so we are filling our time with living now.
Put it Into Practice (Examples)
Most of the time we are either at home, church, or getting groceries. We don’t go many other places or do much else outside the home. So our plan (thus far) is to do an activity together each week, or if that is too much, every other week.
We made a list of what we would do each and every day if money and time were no object, and then compared notes. I found that outdoorsy things were big on my list – playing soccer with the kids, badminton games, gardening, hiking, kayaking… even learning woodworking so I can try my hand at flipping furniture.
He also had many outdoorsy things on his list, so as we compared notes, we noticed what we both had interest in. These will be our activities each week or weekend. Financially strapped weeks might be a soccer game in the backyard with the kids. Weekends with a little more wiggle could see us renting kayaks and going out on a lake as a family.
It doesn’t have to mean spending an arm and a leg – just enjoying life and filling our weeks with living (and memories) while we can. Do you make memories with your family now, or are you waiting for that once in a lifetime trip or experience? Let me know in the comments below.
Christian, wife, “hybrid” mama, I run the site All Behind A Smile to help others like me.
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