simplicity wins again.

I know it's part of who I am.

I cycle.
I imagine we all do to some degree in similar yet different ways.
The ebb and flow of life.
It is just one of those parts of the journey that gets a little steeper, a little more up hill, if you will.

Consciously I know that, ebb and flow baby, means we'll get to glide down hill again....

The deal is consciously you can know one thing but your emotions pretty  much tell your conscious off.

In the shuffle of, wake up, get everyone out the door, get to work, work, go home, make supper,run to baseball, run to softball, run in circles, do baths, put kids to bed, laundry, oh the laundry.....under the weight of what needs to be done every day, the person I think that I am, the person I want to be is being swallowed up.  I am kind of "lost" in a sink hole and the more I fight the daily grind the further I sink it seems.

I've been pondering lately our need as a society to offer kids the biggest and best of all things. Is that really what is best? I just can't think that it is. Why do we need a grand water park with water slides, gadgets and gizmos galore when I know kids can play for hours in just a pool?

One thing I've learned thus far is: Life is not made of big scale events. Sometimes our greatest skill (and greatest challenge) is finding the good to cling to when the daily grind is sucking you in. Are we setting our kids up to fail?

My kids brought me back to reality at least for one night.
For that, my inner soul, my "who I want to be" thanked them.
I was sitting inside looking up a "good" "fun" "family" hotel in KC for vacation, because let's be honest its hard not to get drawn into needing to find the "next best thing" so its the greatest thing ever....kind of thinking. When after the fourth *cough* maybe fifth time of begging me to come out and look at what they had done, I drug myself outside and well.....

Cohen dug a fire pit in the corner of our backyard lot.....

maybe not what I was thinking

Kadence picked up all the sticks she could find in our yard and maybe some neighbor's yards....

...and ta da

fire pit

and

a cool summer night.

On our way in after changing the supper plan to "ot dogs" (per Benson) and marshmallows,

Cohen said "this was the best night all summer"

and there it was....

the reminder I have so desperately needed.

It doesn't have to be complicated to be great.

I just need to remember to be present....

I could have spent most the night looking up "fun family hotels." How's that for irony?!

and sometimes that is the hardest part of all. 

simplicity wins again. 

It always does.

"Be as simple as you can be.  You'll be astonished to see how uncomplicated and happy your life will be."~Yogananda

It's probably past time to put together my annual summer bucket list.

Tell me: What's on your summer bucket list?

How do you remember to keep it simple?!

How do you remember to actually be present?