Annie Rim Five Minute Friday, Uncategorized

Toasting the Everyday

This week, I celebrated my birthday – I am now in my mid-thirties. (I guess. When is that “cutoff”?) It’s funny how birthdays can take on a theme. For Bea’s first birthday, somehow she ended up with almost all giraffe-themed gifts from growth charts to tricycles.

Rim-1762.jpgThis year, my theme was champagne. I got some new flutes and a half a case of “everyday” champagne. Years ago, I had read something about celebrating the everyday moments by toasting with champagne. I loved that idea and we’ve been on the lookout for a good but less expensive champagne to keep in our house for those everyday moments.

While I love Veuve Clicquot and Dom Perignon, I love the idea of celebrating even more. So, we found a tasty sparkling wine and have stocked up.

Frank asked me my goals for this year and – in the midst of babyhood and preschoolhood and early motherhood – I find them to be a bit less specific and more nebulous. My goals are so intertwined with my family’s goals and at this stage, it’s hard to create a SMART goal around a 3-year-old.

So, a goal this year is to be present. To celebrate more. To recognize the amazing milestones and achievements that happen so often and yet so often go unnoticed.

Do you have a favorite Champagne? How do you take time to celebrate the everyday moments?

Linked with Kate Motaung’s Five Minute Friday, a time to write without editing. Today’s prompt is Present.

Annie Rim Five Minute Friday

Taking Time to Party

Yesterday at our first MOPS meeting, our “creative director,” Carolyn had us make a party kit. In a ziplock, we put everything we need to have an instant celebration – streamers, a card, balloons… The idea is to take time to celebrate small, everyday moments. A goal achieved, a good day, a string of bad days that need a good day, or simply that it’s Friday.

IMG_8656I love this idea and even just having the bag on our kitchen counter has been a tangible reminder to celebrate the small moments. We’re in the midst of the tax extension deadlines. While not as crazy as tax season itself, Frank is working late and our family dynamic has changed.

Remembering those small moments is what makes crazy time special. We won’t be able to have a full family day together or even daily family meals perhaps, but we can make the time we’re together a celebration.

We just finished up potty training and celebrations were part of our daily routine for a couple weeks. Chocolate chips were handed out and lots of hoorays! and I’m so proud of you! were shared. Now that Bea is into the routine on her own, we’ve stopped celebrating her achievement, but maybe I need to find a new one. It was a reminder to say hooray! to the mundane, the things I take for granted.

How do you celebrate the everyday moments?

Linked with Kate Motaung’s Five Minute Friday, a time to write without editing.

Annie Rim Five Minute Friday, One Word, Parenting, Uncategorized

Because

Because it had been sitting in our fridge for a few weeks, waiting for a special moment. Because September flew by in an unexpected flurry, and special moments seemed hard to find. Because Thursday night is just as special as Saturday night.

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Opening the Champagne after bedtime, talking and laughing, not reading or watching Netflix, not discussing big decisions but just chatting about life. Champagne on a Thursday night was what we needed to remember ourselves. Before marriage and kids, people told us to keep our relationship at the center, and some days and weeks seem harder to remember that advice than others.

So, maybe we need more Thursday night Champagne nights to remember what we love and how we started as newlyweds: Celebrating for no reason, chatting and laughing into the night (or, now 9:30…) and remembering why we choose to do life together.

How do you celebrate in the midst of the mundane?

Linking with Kate Motaung’s Five Minute Friday, a time to write without editing.