The Friday Edition No. 06: Making Room for What Matters
As October comes to a close, maybe the question isn’t what else we can fit into our days, but what we want to make room for.
Somehow, we’ve reached the last weekend of October.
I feel like I spend half of September waiting for fall to arrive, and then October passes before I’ve done half the things I imagined doing.
The porch evenings. The little projects. The recipes I wanted to make. The places I wanted to visit.
And now we’re standing at the edge of the season when everything seems to speed up.
The holidays will be here soon. Calendars will fill. There will be shopping lists, gatherings, travel plans and plenty of things that need our attention.
But before all of that begins, I’ve been thinking about something.
What if we made a little room for the things that matter to us before the calendar makes those decisions for us?
Not more obligations.
More of the life we actually want to be living.
ONE SMALL THING
Make Room for One Thing You Love
Look at the week ahead and choose one thing you’d genuinely enjoy.
Maybe it’s an hour to read.
An evening walk.
Coffee with a friend.
A little time to work on your home.
A quiet dinner without the television on.
Or simply an afternoon with nothing planned.
Then make room for it.
Put it on the calendar if you need to.
We tend to protect appointments, deadlines and responsibilities.
Maybe we should get a little better at protecting the things that make ordinary life feel good, too.
SOMETHING WE’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO
The First Really Cozy Weekend
Not the kind of weekend where you spend two days catching up on everything you didn’t finish during the week.
The other kind.
The kind where you make a pot of soup and let it simmer.
Where you put on a sweatshirt in the morning and keep it on all day.
Where you take the longer way home because the trees look beautiful.
Where someone stops by and you pull out a few snacks without worrying whether the house is perfect.
That’s the kind of weekend I find myself wanting more of lately.
Nothing extraordinary.
Just the ordinary things, enjoyed a little more.
FOR THE WEEKEND
Invite Someone Into the Life You’re Already Living
I think sometimes we wait to invite people over until everything feels ready.
The house is clean.
The project is finished.
We’ve planned the menu.
We have the right dishes, the right furniture, the right everything.
But most of the evenings I remember best weren’t perfectly planned.
They were the ones where someone stayed a little longer than expected.
Where dinner was simple.
Where everyone ended up sitting around the kitchen or outside talking long after the food was gone.
Maybe this weekend, invite someone over without making it an event.
Soup and bread.
A glass of wine.
Coffee and something sweet.
Or just a place to sit and catch up.
The people who love us probably aren’t waiting for the house to be finished.
They’re waiting to spend time with us.
THIS WEEKEND
Friday night: Make an ordinary evening feel special. Your favorite takeout, a candle and a movie you’ve been wanting to watch.
Saturday morning: Go somewhere just because you enjoy it. A farmers market, a little antique shop, a bookstore or a walk.
Saturday afternoon: Make something warm. Soup, chili, baked apples or whatever feels like fall in your kitchen.
Sunday: Look at November and choose one thing you want to make room for before the holiday season gets busy.
WORTH SAVING
This week, I’m thinking again about one of the ideas at the heart of Two Ten South:
You don’t have to finish your home before you begin enjoying the life you want to create inside it.
If you haven’t read it yet, our story Creating the Home You Want While You Wait is about decorating slowly, finding things secondhand and making peace with the spaces that aren’t quite finished.
It’s a reminder I need myself sometimes.
UNTIL NEXT FRIDAY
As we head into November, I hope we remember that a full calendar isn’t necessarily the same thing as a full life.
Sometimes what we need isn’t another plan.
It’s a little room.
Room to gather.
Room to rest.
Room to create.
Room to enjoy the home and life we’re building, even if neither one is exactly where we want it to be yet.
What would you like to make a little more room for next month?
Until next Friday,
Two Ten South
#OneSmallThing
