family

Simply profound life lesson from 45 years of marriage

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I asked my parents-in-law, who celebrated their 45th wedding anniversary a few days ago, about their top lessons over the years. Their answers went beyond marriage lessons to life lessons. 

My mother-in-law said:

  1.  Practise patience; it pays off.
  2. Sometimes things don’t work out right when you want them to, but they eventually will. 
  3. Respect is key to sustain relationships, especially in marriage.
  4. Do good unto others and forget about it. Don’t expect them to return the favor. 

My father-in-law said:

  1.  Faith is essential; it carried him through many hard days. When you feel like there is no way out, God always forges a path. He’s the one to give to our problems. 
  2. Marital problems are private and should not leave the house. 
  3. Since their engagement, he and my mother-in-law agreed to share people’s joys and sorrows by attending weddings and funerals. As importantly, they made sure to visit the sick, and people around them sincerely appreciated these meaningful habits.

Happy anniversary dear ones. We are blessed to have you. May you enjoy a long healthy life and keep spoiling our kids. 

Simply profound life lesson from 45 years of marriage

Best Gift

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Finally, I got to feel that summer break has officially started as we enjoyed the first full weekend without any due homework or assessments to prepare for. I feel like the Universe created new hours, wrapped them up, and offered them in a shiny box for me. I am grateful for the gift of time.

I slept more, played with my kids more, and happily got overdue chores done. Please note the word “happily”.

Maybe not all summer weekends will feel as blissful. I am just taking the time, here is that word again, to honor the freedom to create our own schedules for the coming weeks.

Let’s make the best of this gift.

Best Gift

Decluttering Help

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The books that really helped me change my relationship to stuff and homemaking are the ones by the author Dana K. White.

Dana’s approach is what resonated with me the most during my big decluttering project that took place in the 7-week lockdown this time last year.

Today, I started listening to her amazing podcast as I went about my spring-cleaning because I felt so much overwhelm as I looked at the clutter that accumulated over time at my kids’ rooms and remembered how much better I felt listening to her guidance.

Lucky for me, Dana happened to make a recent episode summarizing her unique decluttering approach. For example, she emphasizes the point of never creating piles of stuff when you declutter, because if you ever get distracted or interrupted for any reason you would have made the place look worse than when you started. We also first tackle trash to feel visible progress, like throwing away broken stuff, empty packages, old paperwork and so on, and that instantly reduces the amount of stuff we have in the room and improves how it looks.

Dana knows what she is talking about ; I highly recommend you read her 2 books: How to Manage Your Home Without Losing Your Mind and Decluttering At The Speed of Life. They were dear companions to me last year and I will go back to them as I clear up more space in my house this season.

Decluttering Help

Weekend Plans

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I imagined this Saturday going a whole different way but a spontaneous family outing idea changed that.

You see, spontaneity is something that still doesn’t come naturally to me. I love to know how my days would look like, especially weekends.

Here in Jordan, we still have complete lock-downs on Fridays (the first day of the weekend) and the weather was too cold last weekend, so saying no to this outing would have meant skipping 2 weekends in a row.

Moreover, creating family memories with my 2 kids is very important to me in my big picture goals. Being lighthearted, easy-going and fun is something I’d also like them to remember about me, therefore I said yes and went along for the ride.

Past me would have stayed home because that was the plan. If I was physically tired I still would have stayed home. In the future I still want to plan weekends ahead of time. Luckily, today I had the energy to both remember my goals and act on them when the chance presented itself.

I am glad I did.

Weekend Plans