Magic in the Mundane

Making a big deal out of the little things

I've been thinking a lot lately about how much of our life is made up of completely ordinary days. Not vacations or birthdays or Christmas morning or the things we put on the calendar six months in advance. I'm talking about Tuesdays. Driving somebody to practice. Sitting at the kitchen island while everybody comes in and out. Running to Target for toothpaste and somehow coming home two hours later with $147 worth of things you didn't know you needed.

And maybe it's because of the stage of life I'm in right now, but I swear I notice it more than I used to.

I have four kids and somehow right now I'm parenting from kindergarten all the way to college, which is honestly as chaotic as it sounds. One needs me to open his fruit snacks and another one can go multiple days without technically needing me for anything. I'm packing a kindergarten lunch in the same season that I'm learning how to let my oldest build a whole life that I'm not there to see every day. It's weird. And wonderful. And sometimes really freaking hard.

When my kids were little, people constantly told me how fast it would go. I know every mom hears that, and when you're in the thick of babies and toddlers, you really cannot understand what they're talking about. You're exhausted. Somebody needs a snack. Somebody else is crying. You haven't peed alone since 2008. You're not exactly standing there thinking, "Wow, I really need to soak this in."

But then they grow up.

Rude.

And suddenly I understand what everybody meant.

The weird part is that when I look back, some of my favorite memories aren't even the things I would've thought to call memories at the time. I remember everybody being piled into our bed. I remember dance parties in the kitchen and conversations in the car and vacations where something went completely wrong and somehow that's the part we still talk about. I remember little voices and the things they used to say wrong. I remember them sitting on the kitchen counter while I cooked dinner.

None of it seemed particularly important while it was happening. It was just our life.

And I think that's where I've landed with this whole idea of finding the magic in the mundane. It's not about pretending every day is magical, because some days absolutely are not. Some days everybody is getting on my nerves and I'm getting on theirs. Sometimes the laundry is everywhere, I've answered 900 questions, nobody knows what's for dinner—including me—and the last thing I need is somebody on the internet telling me to "soak it all in."

No thank you. 😂

For me, it's more about realizing that I don't want to wait for the big stuff to enjoy my life.

I love a trip. You will never have to convince me to book the trip. I love birthdays and holidays and surprises, and if there is an opportunity to make something unnecessarily extra, I'm probably going to take it. That's just who I am. But I also really love making a random day feel like something.

I'll buy the cake when it's nobody's birthday. I'll make the stupid sign. I'll turn dinner into a whole thing for no reason. I'll drive 30 minutes because somebody saw an ice cream place on TikTok and wants to try it. I'll decorate something that absolutely did not need decorating. I'll find an excuse to celebrate something that probably doesn't qualify as an actual occasion.

And I used to wonder if I was doing too much.

Okay, sometimes I am doing too much. 😂

But I don't think making a big deal out of the little things is a bad way to live.

Because I'm starting to realize that those little things are the things my kids remember too. It's not necessarily how much something cost or whether I executed it perfectly. Half the time the thing I spent three days planning isn't even the thing they talk about later. It's some ridiculous thing that happened on the way there or the night we stayed up too late or the tradition I started without realizing I was starting a tradition.

That's the stuff.

And now that I have a child in college, I think I feel the weight of that more than I ever have before. There are things we did hundreds of times as a family that we just...don't do anymore. Not because anything bad happened. Life just changed. She grew up. Everybody is growing up.

I couldn't tell you the last time all four of my kids were little enough that everybody needed me to tuck them into bed. I don't remember the last time I picked up my oldest and carried her. I don't know which family dinner was the last one before schedules got so crazy that having everybody at the table became something we had to actually plan.

That's the sneaky thing about lasts. Most of the time nobody tells you it's the last one.

So I'm trying to get better at noticing the right now.

Not obsessing over it. Not trying to preserve every second or turn my kids' childhoods into some perfectly curated experience. That sounds exhausting for everybody involved. I just want to be awake enough to my own life that I don't miss all of it while I'm waiting for the next big thing.

I think that's also what I want this space to be about.

If you've followed me for any amount of time, you already know you're going to get a little bit of everything around here. I might show you a DIY one day, something I bought the next, take you on a trip with us, talk about raising teenagers, show you what we're making for dinner and then tell you something completely unhinged that happened in our house. I've tried before to figure out which one of those things I'm "supposed" to be.

Turns out, I don't really want to pick.

Because that's what my actual life looks like.

And underneath all of those things, I think there's really one idea that connects them: I want to have a really good time living the life I already have.

Not someday when the house is finished. Not when there's more money or more time. Not when everybody's schedule settles down, because apparently that's never happening. Not when I finally become the organized person I keep buying planners for.

Now.

I want to travel with my kids while they'll still go with us. I want to make our house feel like home. I want to celebrate stupid little things. I want to try the DIY even if there's a decent chance I mess it up. I want to wear the outfit, take the picture, invite people over when my house isn't perfect and say yes to things that will probably make us laugh later.

And I want to share some of that here because maybe you need the reminder too.

You don't have to completely change your life to love your life more. Sometimes you just have to notice what's already happening in it.

Make the regular dinner feel special. Take the picture even if nobody looks perfect. Stop for the ice cream. Celebrate the B on the test that your kid worked really hard for. Sit in the car for five more minutes when your teenager is actually talking to you. Use the good dishes on a Tuesday. Book the trip if you can. Make a big deal out of something small just because you feel like it.

Because I'm pretty convinced that years from now, when we think about the best parts of our lives, a whole lot of them are going to be things we didn't realize were a big deal at all.

They were just regular days.

And maybe that's where the magic was the whole time.