“Expectations…”

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Shared by Breanne Smedley

“Expectations…”

This Saturday was the first one in a long time that we had absolutely no plans.

No volleyball. No football. No traveling. No meetings. No parties. No all-day meal-prepping.

When I saw this in my calendar last week, I got wide-eyed. I texted Brett.

“Let’s plan a GREAT Saturday!”

“What exactly does that entail?” He wrote back.

I had a lot of racing through my mind, I wanted it to be awesome.

But we also have to do some Christmas shopping and get some stuff done…I’m thinking something along the lines of:

A morning workout

Clean the house (early, so it doesn’t interfere with the day!)

Check out the Holiday Bazaar at Hockinson for local and sustainable holiday gifts (the requirement for the Smedley family gift exchange this year!)

Pop over to Hood River, maybe have lunch?

We have Columbia Employee store passes, we should come back and do a little shopping

It’s Christmas, we should do something festive! We could go to Zoo Lights!

Writing this all out, I’m not sure that I realized there are only 24 hours in a day.

Or that we have an 8 month old child.

Needless to say, the morning did not start with a workout, or with cleaning the house.

We all hung out in our pajamas for a bit, ate breakfast together, and made it out of the house at about 10am.

Tried the Bazaar. Too busy.

Freezing rain in Hood River, let’s try the Columbia Store.

Lines were wrapping around the building to get in, and even longer to check out. Turns out we don’t need anything that bad to wait in line for hours to get it.

If we weren’t willing to do that, we definitely weren’t going to attempt the chaos of Zoo Lights on a Saturday evening.

So, what now? I guess we’ll go home….

How boring! I had it all planned out!

So, instead of having a grand day were we “did all the things” and forced ourselves into the Christmas spirit by standing in lines, we went home.

We laid in the living room together and watched as Charlee climbed over us, played with her blocks, and tried to chase the cat.

Wondering how we got so lucky to have such a fun, joyful little girl.

We made a yummy dinner, baked cookies, and watched a Christmas movie. Like really watched…without a phone or laptop in front of us.

We enjoyed being together, without the pressure of doing anything.

It didn’t feel right at first. We didn’t accomplish anything that we had planned.

Wrong!

I had forgotten that relationships are actually the foundation of accomplishment!

Relationships between husband and wife, parent, and child. Child and cat ;).

These are the moments where our bonds are strengthened, where memories are created. I wouldn’t trade our Saturday for anything.

Turns out, it’s okay to not live up to “expectations” every once in a while…

#InspirationallyImpactful

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