Heather says:
What do you get when you combine: a breezy Sunday afternoon, seven children eight and younger, a backyard, a fire-pit, marshmallows, graham crackers, and HERSHEY’s Milk Chocolate Bars?
You get an afternoon of memories I’ll hold onto for years to come.
Things have been crazy for months. I feel as though I’ve been running at full tilt and getting nowhere. Combine that feeling with the overwhelming societal pressure to turn even small milestones into spectacular events and you have a recipe for crazy. I was recently musing about this on Home-Ec101’s Facebook Fanpage:
I’ve been mulling over a post on how everything doesn’t have to be a spectacular event to be enjoyable. Thoughts?
Your responses:
- Tammy Maltese Munson sometimes its just the little things (and the simple ) : )
- Loretta Andrade absolutly, sometimes its the the simplest things that are best.
- Liz DeLoach Of course not – in fact, spectacular everything feels contrived and frankly exhausting after a while. Low key is great.
- Jennifer Schreiber Stop mulling and write it! Life isn’t about being spectacular, its about being able to enjoy what you have at the time. 🙂 (My 2 cents!)
- Janet Edens Conover without the small, there is no spectacular
- Sandee Hill I think it sounds like something we all need to hear!
- Zoe Hayduk-Sloan If everything is spectacular all the time; spectacular becomes simply ordinary.
- Money & Faith in Motion Simple pleasures are underrated; we’re all so overwhelmed by the fast-paced, high-tech world we live in. Simple things like roasting hot dogs over a campfire, taking a walk with a friend, putting a bouquet of flowers from your garden in a Mason jar on your kitchen counter – none of these are spectacular, but they sure are good, refreshing ways to lift your spirits.
- Longaberger Lifestyle Reminds me of the Nester’s quote, “It doesn’t have to be perfect to be beautiful.”
So here I was debating over what I’m going to do with the children this summer that wouldn’t drive myself crazy, but still ensure they had fun. And then, because life is full of serendipitous surprises, I was contacted on behalf of Hershey’s to participate in their CAMP BONDFIRE* promotion and encourage you to IGNITE SUMMER MEMORIES.
Immediately there was the temptation to create THE BEST EVENT EVAR! I immediately began brainstorming ways to impress the HERSHEY’s account reps, how could I put together the best event ever by their deadline? I wandered outside and looked at the fire-pit (the bottom had rusted out and it needs to go to the dump), then I looked at my calendar (I had to work at the pub every day up to the deadline). I also realized that sleep ranks pretty high up on my list of priorities -it keeps me from ending up on the evening news in an unflattering way, at least that’s how I justify my need.
I took a deep breath and decided that A) I needed to call on the help of friends and B) this was the perfect way to illustrate the importance of simple pleasures.
[pullshow id=”cute”] I contacted and imposed on good friends -who have a functional fire-pit and cute kids, these friends contacted other mutual friends who also have cute kids. [pullthis id=”cute” display=”outside”]Side note: Kids are cute in general, I don’t rank my friends on the photogenic qualities of their children. [/pullthis] A quick check of the weather showed that the following Sunday looked okay and we were all available. I promised to bring all of the Smores fixings and my undying gratitude for the use of their yard and children.
What happened you ask?