Treat yourselves to a night at your local chocolate caf\u00e9. Take a cooking class together. Attend a wine tasting seminar. Eat out at a great breakfast place. If budgets are tight, take turns making dinner for each other. Those ideas may not be totally out of the box, but here\u2019s the trick: When you\u2019re eating together, don\u2019t just consume your food. Savor it. Slow down. Talk to each other about the way the salted chocolate melts in your mouth. Pay attention to the spices in your red wine. You\u2019ll probably burst into sidesplitting laughter, or make fun of the process while you\u2019re doing it, but even if you are giggling hilariously, you are actually taking the time to enjoy God\u2019s good gift of taste \u2013 and each other.<\/p>\n
Touch. <\/em><\/h3>\nMy friends and I are always on the prowl for the perfect coffee cup; the one that fits perfectly in our hands (and ideally, says something amazing like #LadyBoss). Go to your favorite home store together and browse the mugs, or walk through the textiles touching blankets and pillows. (It sounds silly, I know.) But touch the items, cradle them in your hands, and notice how things feel against your skin. Again, you\u2019ll probably giggle like school girls while you\u2019re doing this, but the point is to practice gratefulness for tangible and tactile things with your besties in tow.<\/p>\n
Smell. <\/em><\/h3>\nSometimes mini-retreats aren\u2019t about going out; they\u2019re about small gifts. One of my girlfriends is always gifting her favorite beachy candles or a new stress-relief lotion to the rest of us. She taught me to keep lemon-scented hand cream in my kitchen and\u00a0\u2014 when I am feeling anxious\u00a0\u2014 to lotion up my hands, cup my nose, and inhale the scent deeply. I\u2019m sure I look like a crazy person when my children and husband catch me in the act, but this technique really helps me relax! Gifts of lotions, essential oils or linen sprays can remind you and your friends to stop momentarily, exhale the stress of the day, and breathe in thankfulness.<\/p>\n
Sight.<\/em><\/h3>\nI often tell people that I\u2019m \u201cindoorsy.\u201d But I do love getting together with my friends and taking a walk at our local arboretum or forest preserve. I notice things I don\u2019t usually pay much attention to \u2013 the variety of trees, the colors of their leaves, the sun\u2019s rays through the branches. This is also a great time to pay attention to things about your friends you might have never noticed before \u2013 this one\u2019s great skin, that one\u2019s welcoming smile, another\u2019s inappropriate sense of humor \u2013 things you love deeply. Use this time to tell your gal-tribe about the fabulous things you see in them.<\/p>\n
Sound. <\/em><\/h3>\nI know I don\u2019t need to tell you a darn thing about this one. A little Meghan Trainor or some old school Jackson Five never hurt anybody. Get with your girls, turn up your tunes and act like tweens again. Or get those concert tickets to Rend Collective, soak up the thrum of live music and dance your faces off.<\/p>\n
You get the idea: If you can\u2019t get that beach house vacay, you can have mini-getaways that aren\u2019t expensive or even super time-consuming. The important thing to remember is that these \u201cmini-retreats\u201d aren\u2019t about self-centeredness; they are about showing kindness to your friends and to yourself. These moments have the potential to fuel each other for the ongoing work of motherhood.<\/p>\n
And most of all, they can remind you and your friends to be thankful, which is always sensible for the soul.<\/p>\n
\n![\"Aubrey](\"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/03\/AubreySampson_small-150x150.jpg\")
<\/p>\n
Aubrey Sampson is the mom of three crazy-hilarious sons, which is also to say that she spends most days in her pajamas drinking entirely too much coffee. On the days she manages to get dressed, Aubrey is an event and retreat speaker, a blogger, and the author of Overcomer: Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul (Zondervan, 2015)<\/em>. She and her husband, Kevin, just planted their first church in the Chicagoland area.\u00a0You can find and follow Aubrey at aubreysampson.com<\/a> and @aubsamp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n![\"hd_cover_fall_2016_small\"](\"https:\/\/blog.mops.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/09\/HD_Cover_Fall_2016_small.jpg\")
<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0<\/em>magazines@mops.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, I was flipping through a magazine and stumbled upon a picture of four women. These ladies were posing as best friends\u00a0\u2014 walking barefoot down a picturesque beach while holding goblets of wine, kicking up sand and laughing. Each woman had beautiful mermaid hair and was wearing a (coordinating) maxi dress. Basically, they were doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":4039,"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":[102],"tags":[674,675,32,676,677,229,433,302,130,678,679,680,681,682,683,684,685],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-besties","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-getaway","tag-giggle","tag-girlfriends","tag-kindness","tag-laughter","tag-money","tag-retreat","tag-sight","tag-smell","tag-sound","tag-taste","tag-thankful","tag-time","tag-touch"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","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\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
Sometimes mini-retreats aren\u2019t about going out; they\u2019re about small gifts. One of my girlfriends is always gifting her favorite beachy candles or a new stress-relief lotion to the rest of us. She taught me to keep lemon-scented hand cream in my kitchen and\u00a0\u2014 when I am feeling anxious\u00a0\u2014 to lotion up my hands, cup my nose, and inhale the scent deeply. I\u2019m sure I look like a crazy person when my children and husband catch me in the act, but this technique really helps me relax! Gifts of lotions, essential oils or linen sprays can remind you and your friends to stop momentarily, exhale the stress of the day, and breathe in thankfulness.<\/p>\n
Sight.<\/em><\/h3>\nI often tell people that I\u2019m \u201cindoorsy.\u201d But I do love getting together with my friends and taking a walk at our local arboretum or forest preserve. I notice things I don\u2019t usually pay much attention to \u2013 the variety of trees, the colors of their leaves, the sun\u2019s rays through the branches. This is also a great time to pay attention to things about your friends you might have never noticed before \u2013 this one\u2019s great skin, that one\u2019s welcoming smile, another\u2019s inappropriate sense of humor \u2013 things you love deeply. Use this time to tell your gal-tribe about the fabulous things you see in them.<\/p>\n
Sound. <\/em><\/h3>\nI know I don\u2019t need to tell you a darn thing about this one. A little Meghan Trainor or some old school Jackson Five never hurt anybody. Get with your girls, turn up your tunes and act like tweens again. Or get those concert tickets to Rend Collective, soak up the thrum of live music and dance your faces off.<\/p>\n
You get the idea: If you can\u2019t get that beach house vacay, you can have mini-getaways that aren\u2019t expensive or even super time-consuming. The important thing to remember is that these \u201cmini-retreats\u201d aren\u2019t about self-centeredness; they are about showing kindness to your friends and to yourself. These moments have the potential to fuel each other for the ongoing work of motherhood.<\/p>\n
And most of all, they can remind you and your friends to be thankful, which is always sensible for the soul.<\/p>\n
\n<\/p>\n
Aubrey Sampson is the mom of three crazy-hilarious sons, which is also to say that she spends most days in her pajamas drinking entirely too much coffee. On the days she manages to get dressed, Aubrey is an event and retreat speaker, a blogger, and the author of Overcomer: Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul (Zondervan, 2015)<\/em>. She and her husband, Kevin, just planted their first church in the Chicagoland area.\u00a0You can find and follow Aubrey at aubreysampson.com<\/a> and @aubsamp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n
\n<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
This article originally appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0<\/em>magazines@mops.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n
<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Recently, I was flipping through a magazine and stumbled upon a picture of four women. These ladies were posing as best friends\u00a0\u2014 walking barefoot down a picturesque beach while holding goblets of wine, kicking up sand and laughing. Each woman had beautiful mermaid hair and was wearing a (coordinating) maxi dress. Basically, they were doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":4039,"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":[102],"tags":[674,675,32,676,677,229,433,302,130,678,679,680,681,682,683,684,685],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-besties","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-getaway","tag-giggle","tag-girlfriends","tag-kindness","tag-laughter","tag-money","tag-retreat","tag-sight","tag-smell","tag-sound","tag-taste","tag-thankful","tag-time","tag-touch"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","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\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
I know I don\u2019t need to tell you a darn thing about this one. A little Meghan Trainor or some old school Jackson Five never hurt anybody. Get with your girls, turn up your tunes and act like tweens again. Or get those concert tickets to Rend Collective, soak up the thrum of live music and dance your faces off.<\/p>\n
You get the idea: If you can\u2019t get that beach house vacay, you can have mini-getaways that aren\u2019t expensive or even super time-consuming. The important thing to remember is that these \u201cmini-retreats\u201d aren\u2019t about self-centeredness; they are about showing kindness to your friends and to yourself. These moments have the potential to fuel each other for the ongoing work of motherhood.<\/p>\n
And most of all, they can remind you and your friends to be thankful, which is always sensible for the soul.<\/p>\n
\n
<\/p>\n
Aubrey Sampson is the mom of three crazy-hilarious sons, which is also to say that she spends most days in her pajamas drinking entirely too much coffee. On the days she manages to get dressed, Aubrey is an event and retreat speaker, a blogger, and the author of Overcomer: Breaking Down the Walls of Shame and Rebuilding Your Soul (Zondervan, 2015)<\/em>. She and her husband, Kevin, just planted their first church in the Chicagoland area.\u00a0You can find and follow Aubrey at aubreysampson.com<\/a> and @aubsamp.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n This article originally appeared in the Fall 2016 issue of\u00a0Hello, Dearest. If you didn\u2019t get a copy and would like your own, you can\u00a0subscribe<\/em><\/a>\u00a0to get\u00a0Hello, Dearest\u00a0in your mailbox every season. If you subscribe, forward your receipt to\u00a0<\/em>magazines@mops.org<\/em><\/a>\u00a0and we\u2019ll shoot a copy of the current issue in the mail to you for free \u2026 just because we like you.<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Recently, I was flipping through a magazine and stumbled upon a picture of four women. These ladies were posing as best friends\u00a0\u2014 walking barefoot down a picturesque beach while holding goblets of wine, kicking up sand and laughing. Each woman had beautiful mermaid hair and was wearing a (coordinating) maxi dress. Basically, they were doing […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":140,"featured_media":4039,"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":[102],"tags":[674,675,32,676,677,229,433,302,130,678,679,680,681,682,683,684,685],"class_list":["post-4038","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-relationships","tag-besties","tag-friends","tag-friendship","tag-getaway","tag-giggle","tag-girlfriends","tag-kindness","tag-laughter","tag-money","tag-retreat","tag-sight","tag-smell","tag-sound","tag-taste","tag-thankful","tag-time","tag-touch"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038","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\/140"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4038"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4038\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4038"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4038"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.themom.co\/fr\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4038"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n<\/em><\/p>\n