_{read time 3-4 minutes}

Happy Monday, y'all! Between finishing another book, renovating my parents' cabin, and planning our Magnolia Market trip, we've still managed to squeeze in porch dancing almost every evening. Fall is teasing us and we're here for it.

This past week in a minute:

Intentionally not filling our cups We're being really deliberate about not rushing to refill our schedule now that I'm finally coming out of the postpartum fog. It's so tempting, isn't it? That pressure to get back to "normal" life, to say yes to everything again, to fill every open slot on the calendar.

Lacey has loved playing soccer most every spring and fall since she was about six or seven. But we've taken a break for the past two seasons, and honestly? It's been wonderful. No scrambling to get to practices twice a week. No stressing about making it to Saturday morning games. No guilt when we're too tired or when life just gets in the way.

Jordan and I have been really intentional about talking through this season together. We're entering one of our busiest work and travel periods of the year, and we're trying to be protective of our family time and everyone's nervous systems. Mine included. Adding soccer back into the mix right now would mean we're running out the door multiple evenings a week, eating dinner out, and losing those slow evenings at home that have become so sacred to us.

We did decide to try tennis lessons once a week with the girls. It fits our schedule beautifully because it's mid-morning, so there's no rush hour chaos or trying to squeeze it in between dinner and bedtime. Just one calm outing per week that we can actually enjoy without the stress.

Maybe we'll pick up soccer again next season, maybe not. Lacey hasn't asked about it, which tells me she's also enjoying the slower pace. And it feels really good to look at our week and see several days where we're not rushing anywhere, where we can just be home together.

I think there's this underlying pressure, especially as moms, to keep our kids busy and involved in everything. Like if they're not doing activities, they're somehow missing out or falling behind. But what if the opposite is true? What if having margin in our days, having time to just play in the yard or read books on the porch or help with dinner, is actually giving them something more valuable than another scheduled commitment?

We're choosing rest over rush right now. And that feels like the right choice for our family in this season.

How do y’all handle it? Are you sports families? Do you have the perfect balance or does it feel like too much sometimes?

🍽️ Wisdom from my husband 🥛 

When we first got married, I had all these nice things from our wedding registry. Beautiful china, glasses, plates, etc… mostly from Anthropologie. I even had these super nice glass fluted water glasses that I was absolutely determined to collect a full set of, even though at least three out of every four arrived broken in the mail. I was so proud of my post-marriage collection of pretties.

One day, I dropped a really nice butter dish. I was distraught. Like, maybe a bit too distraught for a butter dish.

My husband looked at me calmly and said, "Things break."

That's it?!?! Wow! So insightful, Jordan.

He just shrugged.

But here's the thing... it was insightful. So often, we invite stress and worry into our lives over the most trivial things. Things that, in the grand scheme of what matters, don't really matter at all. We attach so much emotion to objects, to the perfect aesthetic, to keeping everything pristine. And I'm genuinely grateful for someone who balances me out when I start overreacting about a butter dish. He has this way of gently reminding me what actually deserves my energy and what doesn't.

Then we had an epic break one day that really put things in perspective.

We were on a trip to Colorado when we got a call from my father asking if we were home. "No...???" I said, confused. "Okay, I'll call you back!" He hung up abruptly.

We sat there on pins and needles waiting for him to call back and explain what in the world he was talking about. When he finally did, he recounted the awful situation. He'd walked into our house and it looked like a burglar had broken into our china cabinet and just dumped everything out. Nearly every single one of my finest dishes, several of my beautiful glasses. About 50% of what I'd lovingly collected from our wedding had come tumbling down in a catastrophic mess.

No, it wasn't a burglar. One of the pins from the removable shelf had shifted and fallen under the weight, creating a cascading waterfall of all my preciouses.

I remember my heart sinking. But you know what? We survived. Life went on.

Now? Around here, breakage feels like an everyday occurrence. It's practically part of our family entertainment at this point. Isla even got in on the fun the other day when she grabbed two of Ducky's glass bottles off the counter and smashed them to smithereens on the floor.

And every single time something breaks, my husband just smirks and says, "Things break." 🤷

He's right. They do. And that's okay.

 — Tabitha Paige, Author/ Illustrator, Speech Therapist & Mom

Sometimes I make books & other pretty things…