wednesday well-being: family time

 family time outing

recently i've been on a kick for "family time" and "family meetings." it began last august when we flew home to oklahoma to surprise my parents in celebration of their 50th anniversary. there is always so much we want to see and do during our brief visits to the plains that i spontaneously called a family meeting so we could all get on the same page to plan our must-sees and must-dos accordingly.

somehow this stuck. and now i call a family meeting often. poor, poor le beau. when i'm in the bath and want him to come chat with me while sitting nearby. when we need to coordinate travel schedules. when we need to iron out household details. or i'll declare family time when we are in the same place on the weekend and need to align schedules to ensure togetherness.

last weekend included family time with le pug and le chat noir in tow. every so often i'd call out, "1 hour until family time," "now 30 minutes until family time," and got the pets harnessed and leashed up for an outdoors adventure.

i'd become envious after running into a friend at teaism the day before proudly toting her kitty in a bag. so i decided to try the same. the above pic shows me after our walking-cat-on-pink-leash adventure. he skulked, stayed close to the ground, and seemed too out of sorts to enjoy the adventure. needless to say he was toted in a pink bag the rest of the journey. we'll try again soon.

either way we had an enjoyable adventure together. as a tiny family unit. we hit the dog park. stopped by a doggie bakery. and then headed out to a nearby restaurant for a date brunch before i was off to the studio to teach three hours of teacher training.

long gone are the days of families sitting down to dine together as a norm. truth be told, i'm typically teaching or taking a class during dinner time and it's been this way for 15 years. so if i want to have time together with the family before 10pm, it typically needs to be scheduled.

it's like a puzzle i'm consciously trying to fit together so that we can be connected sans work. that's the tricky part {and also perk} of working together. for years i've had weekly date nights as a goal for us but with a constantly shifting schedule, it's been hard to maintain. thus, family time it is.

it's sporadic, but equally enjoyable.

do you have something similar to family time? an occasional gathering to simply be together.

no family nearby? try regular girlfriend time. sure schedules can be hard to match, but the together time reaps big rewards.

we are interconnected. we need one another to feel complete. we thrive on connections. studies show this and i feel it. make a family/girlfriend time date within the next week. with or without a kitten and pink bag in tow. bisous. x