I mean, who doesn’t love the “smallest things” quote from Pooh?
I thought about the smallest things all weekend.
Smallest Things
Ugh. We’ve already been living back in Minnesota over three months, and I’m saying “ugh” in the best way possible. I just love it. My words won’t ever do justice for how much I’ve been loving life back here.
The smallest things have made it all possible, and there were so many small things this past weekend that really added up to something grand.
Easter egg hunts, baking with Samarah, coffee from our local shop, more egg hunts with Ryan’s parents and our nephew, and a night out with my best friends and their husbands on Saturday.
Sleeping in (because the kid’s got a sleepover with grandma and grandpa Hoffman), church (finally! more on that soon), dressing the kids in the most adorable Easter outfits, Easter at my mom and dad’s with yet another egg hunt outside, all the eats, laughing, puppets with grandma Nancy, the return of Auntie Lan from Vietnam, and a final picture of the weekend of Samarah and my dad.
We didn’t plan on some grand weekend, but the smallest things became grand.
And I think that’s the point of this whole love affair with moving back from California to Minnesota.
95% of these small things I never felt in California. And the one I did (church) has been probably the only thing truly missing from my heart. Until yesterday.
A life filled without realizing the smallest things is hard to ever find truly grand.
In California, I lived for the big events – the trips, celebrations, and of course, those flights back to Minnesota.
While big events are exciting, nothing can really compare to the smallest things.
They have taken up my entire heart.
And I want them to forever.
pssst….that priceless, final picture of the weekend of Samarah and my dad? I snapped three. Here is one. Be still, my heart.
After reviewing the following 8 notes I jotted down on May 28, 2017 (shortly after we knew we were moving back to Minnesota), I created 9 ways to embrace winter (because it’s so d#$%^ cold right now and I thought we could all use this).
The Sunday Reflections post today is a short, sweet, and simple one. Smiles….the theme.
Why? Because the truth is that I hardly felt like writing this morning. I didn’t go to bed until about 3 am (yes, second night in a row – who am I), and I’m still on a high from the weekend.
Friday night we saw Pink at the Armory, and last night we saw JLo. Her concert was crazy awesome, but the highlight for me? I was in the box right next to Mark Cuban (look right behind me).
The place was so loud, and he left shortly before the end, but I was dying to tell him that when he invested in Delighted By Dessert Hummus on Shark Tank that night, those were my images on set. 🙂
And ironically, a friend sent me an image of her with a jar of A Loving Spoon nut butter from 3 years ago last night, too.
I thought about how, back then, I wanted to be on Shark Tank and it was Mark Cuban I wanted to partner with.
Anyways, on the whole, the weekend was surreal. I feel beyond grateful for the wildly unreal experiences. (You can see it all still on my Instagram Stories.)
Smiles
A reader sent me this short message awhile back,
Morning! Love reading all your posts! You’ve accomplished so much Sarah and I think you’re an incredible person and mom! Prayers for your dad love seeing the smiles on your kid’s faces!
There are no Earth-shattering words included there, but I’m sharing it because of her last 8 words, “love seeing the smiles on your kid’s faces!”
We have all been smiling a lot (well, except maybe not Maya so much – ever – ha).
Everything has been bringing the smiles on. Family, friends, events…..life.
Minnesota is full of smiles, even on hard days, because we have everything in the world here.
Xox, SKH
If you don’t have time to read these posts daily, but don’t want to miss them, be sure to follow via Bloglovin’ and/or join my personal e-newsletter HERE. I am doing my best to send a once per week email recap of prior week’s posts.
These posts will all live under “Wellness+Lifestyle” and also tagged with “101 Days of Blogging.” The 101-day series runs from Monday, January 8, 2018, through Wednesday, April 18, 2018.
If there is a topic surrounding change that you would love for me to include in this series, please just CONTACT ME.
Last night was incredible! Let me tell you why, and then you’ll understand how this relates to forgot about Rae (not Dre 🙂 )
Pink at Armory for Super Bowl Weekend
Even with the flu, Pink put on this insanely awesome concert last night at the Armory in Minneapolis.
I am a country girl to the core, but there are several artists outside the genre (like several, several!) that I love and can be found listening to at any given moment. You would be very surprised to know that I totally dig Godsmack and Ludacris, but you likely wouldn’t be surprised to know how much I love Pink. In other words, I’m totally this girl.
When I found out Pink was going to be performing at the Super Bowl, I wanted to go so badly.
And then my BFF sent me a text, “Pink and JLo. We are going.” Pink on Friday night, and JLo on Saturday night.
My response, “I don’t know if I can hang like that.”
Her three words, “Oh shut up.”
Guys – I’m in bed like an old woman between 8-9 pm nightly. Remember?!
But there we were last night, at the Pink concert, and she didn’t go on stage until 11 pm.
And guess what?
Incredible!
She put on, hands down, one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. Her dancers are extraordinary – every single song was full of energy and excitement.
I had tears in my eyes when she sang, “Who Knew.”
Different circumstances, but it was sinking in,
If someone said three years from now
You’d be long gone
I’d stand up and punch them out
‘Cause they’re all wrong
I know better
‘Cause you said forever
And ever
Who knew
And for her encore, she came back on stage to perform “So What,” while flying through the air, hooked up to cable bungee cords.
I mean, it was a concert and experience (we sat up in VIP – a whole other story) I’ll never forget.
And so I (and we) totally forgot about Rae.
Confused yet?
Forgot about Rae
Ryan is coming up for Super Bowl stuff today, and BaNgoai is watching the babies tonight. Two nights ago, Ryan was all, “Oh shoot. What are we going to do with Reagan?”
You do remember who Reagan is, yes? She’s our Great Dane.
And this made it the second weekend in a row that I forgot about Rae, totally unintentionally.
Last weekend when Ryan wasn’t here, I quickly set her up to go to the kennel so she’d be well taken care of while the kids and I were digging being back with the tribe.
This weekend, we decided that Ryan will just keep Reagan with him for the night. He’s such a rockstar husband!
Anyways, we keep forgetting about Rae because we never had to worry about this while we lived in California. Everything we did in California, all night and weekend getaways were planned far in advance, which also meant that Reagan’s plans were set far in advance.
But now that we are back in Minnesota, we are constantly on the go, doing things, seeing people. And many of them are on a whim, last-minute plans.
As I stared into the massive crowd last night, surrounded by people I love hanging out with, all I could think was, THANK YOU, GOD! Thank you for finally allowing my life to include this “problem” of forgetting about Rae.
I am finally seeing how much happier life is when a LIFE exists beyond work and workouts and homebody-ing (that’s not a word, okay?).
This part of the change, like the Pink experience last night, just incredible. No other words.
Xox, SKH
If you don’t have time to read these posts daily, but don’t want to miss them, be sure to follow via Bloglovin’ and/or join my personal e-newsletter HERE. I am doing my best to send a once per week email recap of prior week’s posts.
These posts will all live under “Wellness+Lifestyle” and also tagged with “101 Days of Blogging.” The 101-day series runs from Monday, January 8, 2018, through Wednesday, April 18, 2018.
If there is a topic surrounding change that you would love for me to include in this series, please just CONTACT ME.