Slow Days: Following Winter's Lead

One day recently, Grace was home from school with the sniffles. I cancelled my plans of a play date with a friend and with wet weather forecast, was secretly glad of an excuse to hang out at home all day, pottering, enjoying time with my girls and resting.

We slept in and then lingered in our pyjamas longer than usual, without the call of the school bell to drag us out of the house. A few ABC2 shows were watched while I popped dinner into the slow cooker. The heater was on to keep us warm and toasty and the majority of our day was spent in our family room while the rain fell gently outside pretty much all day long.  Grace and Sophie played dolls and doctors, dressed Barbies and did endless craft.  I put on a pot of soup, made a dent in the washing pile (rotating item after item in front of the heater to dry them) and come the end of the day, even managed to flick through a few magazines.

Similarly, a few Saturdays ago it bucketed down all afternoon.  While the girls had some post-lunch quiet time in their rooms, Paul tinkered in his shed (his plans to mow the lawn hampered by the rain) and I drank cuppa after cuppa as I worked on my ideas for a new blog header, perched right by the fire, cosy and comfortable. Usually such a 'frivolous' afternoon would leave me feeling guilty about everything else I was neglecting, but on this particular wet Saturday, I did so happily.

A while back after reading a past issue of Good magazine, I jotted down a paragraph from an article written by Rebekah White.  She said,

"Turns out, winter's the perfect time to rediscover the joys of doing less.  As the days ebb, the evenings darken and the weather closes in, the body naturally gravitates towards a slower pace.  It's a welcome change from summer's high energy, activity-packed months, a time for inner restoration and, whether you are outdoors or in, for enrichment of a quieter kind."

At this time of year, I am happy to indulge my hermit-like tendencies... to take days slowly, do odd jobs here and there and to not be afraid of spending a lazy afternoon relaxing.  Listening when my body tells me it needs some chill out time rather than a day of tackling an endless to-do list is something I've learnt to embrace during the cold winter months.

How about you?  Do you too crave simple days when the temperature drops?