Enjoy creativity around you.<\/h3>\n
Seek out imaginative work everywhere. For some, that\u2019s an art museum, for others, watching people build sand castles is more their style. Personally, I like to sit and watch the birds three-feet outside my window on the feeder pole. Identifying a Rose-Breasted Nuthatch and watching its antics adds nothing to my list of credentials. (In fact, I\u2019d say it rather detracts from my ability to concentrate on writing!) But it is restful, and it feeds my soul and my mind in a way I\u2019m convinced makes me better when I get back to work.<\/p>\n
Involve the kids.<\/h3>\n
Do something creative and playful with them. Teach them your hobby. Don\u2019t require perfection \u2013 that destroys the purpose. Just show them the basics and then let them play without further instruction on how to do it \u201cright.\u201d You are after rest, not stress.<\/p>\n
Every Christmas, we make a gingerbread house. It started out as one of those easy kits that someone gave us. It has morphed into a giant extravaganza that takes up an entire table. We do not care that the candy is not in straight rows, the frosting is haphazard, or that more ends up on the floor and our faces than on the gingerbread house. We just go for it in the zaniest way possible \u2013 and we love our creations for the sake of the process, not the product. Hogwarts sat on our counter this year. My favorite, though, is still Minas Tirith. (We go big in gingerbread world.)<\/p>\n
Finally, don\u2019t forget to encourage your kids in play \u2013 unstructured, unorganized, unguided play, just for play\u2019s sake. Teach them to grow up valuing the free time of the soul as the necessary thing it is \u2013 a restful reconnection to our purpose for being.<\/p>\n
\n
Jill Richardson is a writer, speaker, pastor, mom of three and author of five books who blogs at jillmrichardson.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This article originally appeared in the Spring\u00a02016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest<\/em>\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0magazines@mops.org<\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" My husband gave me two coloring books for Christmas \u2013 as a child, I didn\u2019t even like coloring, I preferred puzzles and storybooks \u2013 but I have already broken into them. I\u2019m not alone, coloring books for adults were a hot item in 2015. Why? I\u2019m convinced it is a backlash against a culture that […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":166,"featured_media":2860,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"0","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_seopress_news_disabled":"","_seopress_video_disabled":"","_seopress_video":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas_manual":[],"_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable_all":"","_seopress_pro_rich_snippets_disable":[],"_seopress_pro_schemas":[],"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[28,117],"tags":[347,56,109,352,70],"class_list":["post-2859","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fun","category-wellness","tag-embrace-rest","tag-motherhood","tag-play","tag-rest","tag-self-care"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/166"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2859"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2859\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2859"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2859"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2859"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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