intentionality

i love this word. more than i should admit haha. maybe because it’s something i strive to live by in all areas of my life.

new routines, good habits, a healthy marriage, and positive mental health all take intentionality. you won’t just wake up one day and be ripped; it takes being intentional with getting to the gym and keeping healthy habits in the kitchen. it might mean saying no to the cake at the party. it’ll be worth it in the end but in the moment, it’s dang hard & means you’re putting your goals above your desires.

one area my husband & i have been intentional with recently is our time. there are 1,440 minutes in a day, which means 10,080 minutes in a week. and for most people, over 7,000 of those minutes will be “work days,” meaning your time is even more limited. we all know that those minutes flee in what feels like a moment if we’re not intentional.

my husband and i have implemented 3 things that are game changers in not only our mental health but our marriage as well, especially since becoming parents almost 4 months ago.

family date day/sabbath– every friday, neither of us work, so we take this opportunity to have a sabbath. and most weeks, it is our favorite day. we take the day to do fun & restful things as a family. we go on walks, hang at coffee shops, do bible time together, eat yummy foods, and so on. it grows our family of three closer. life gets so busy and we’ve found this time to be extremely refreshing and much much needed.

tia & trevor time– recently, trevor and i implemented 1-2 hours each week where we each of us get time alone and the other watches our son. before becoming a mother, i didn’t really need time by myself to recuperate and recharge. motherhood doesn’t necessarily drain me but i’m “on” all the time, and having 1-2 hours once a week to myself has really made a positive difference. i typically use that time to work on a blog post or work on my book. i listen to good music and sometimes catch up on some youtube videos. typically i go to starbucks to do this, and i love this time. i love being creative and this time really allows me the space to do so.

alone time– before having our son, trevor & i had weekly date nights every thursday. we haven’t begun doing weekly date nights since hudson has been born, but we’ve started to schedule and plan out a few days here and there to get a sitter or have my parents watch hudson so we can have some alone time alone. it is needed to maintain a healthy marriage. as much as we miss hud, i want him growing up seeing his parents first off prioritize their relationships with Jesus but also their relationship with one another.

how are you intentional with the people you love and the activities you are passionate about?