What love looks like

All you need. 

 I feel like the older I get, the more broad the word love becomes. It's putting the words into action. Every day. No matter how tired Luke or I are. There's no romantic fairy tale about it. It's real, and it's deeply meaningful and inspiring to me. Romance for me is Luke remembering to get my ricotta at the grocery store, because I'm on the 21 day fix, and I can make a delicious breakfast with it without breaking my rules!! or maybe 3 boxes of waffles so that I can have them each day, even though they're now the kids favorite breakfast food too, and we fly through them. It's having the driveway shoveled, the van cleared, and the kids' lunches made by the time we get up for school. 

It's about closeness and just wanting to be near one another. 

The way I see love is this. If I have made Luke & the kids feel my love, feel seen, feel heard... feel embraced... no matter if the kitchen is clean or not; if I picked up Little Caesars for dinner or not; if the laundry is complete (because with four kids that never happens) or not; then I feel that I've done what I'm meant to do. I've got to admit there are a lot of days, I don't feel that I succeed. If I'm overly hormonal; my blood sugar is low (my kids all know mom's cranky when she's hungry); or have simply not had enough creative time to myself to decompress; my best side is not always visible to my family.  But it's something I know is my utmost priority & that I always come back to when I've lost focus or re-commit to when I have a bad day.

Love, to me is about connection, and frankly, being up a lot earlier on a Saturday morning than I'd like to! But being so inspired by what's right in front of me I run downstairs to grab my camera anyway!!  

It's about holding someone up. 

I think love is about taking care of myself too. Being home with my kids every day, is exhausting, and a lot of times gives my patience muscle (if that's a thing) an extreme work out,  but I wouldn't trade it.  My kids fill me with more joy than I've ever felt and in the same moment they wear me out! There are days that if I tell them we have red, all they want is green and they make me pay for not having red all day! If I don't balance my time filling their needs with time to find fulfillment, and if I don't intentionally look for the beauty every day, I often don't see it. If I don't craft my day exactly the way I have learned that I need it, it can take me to a dark place. So I have learned that self love is equally as important as the love I give to my family. If I forget about myself I'm often to depleted to give everyone else what they need.  I find it fascinating how the depth and breadth of love changes as I change. 

What does love look like to you? 

Please comment!!

XOXO

Mandy