Yesterday, our Moms & Babes group went to a local farm for some strawberry pickin’. This was the first time I had ever done something like this (or have memory of). I am sure it’s one of the many things I experienced as a kid, but don’t remember. These BLOGS must drive my mom crazy, sometimes. Mom have I ever picked strawberries? Haha. Anyways, it was a fun experience, for the most part.
Sometimes (ok, a lot of the times) I have to remind myself that, it’s about the experience.
My daughter Brooklyn is pretty competitive–she thought the goal was to grab as many berries as you can! She was grabbing rotten ones, green ones and some that were plain ole’ weeds. I kept reminding her about the kind of strawberries we were wanting to pick. Kennedi, on the other hand, wanted to pick the best looking ones. Jetty, well, he decided eating them was a lot more fun than picking them.
About ten minutes into the experience, he took a nose dive into the dirt. I rinsed him off with a bottle of water and kept it moving.
The whole experience took about 20 minutes–it’s incredible how quickly you can fill up those buckets. Five of those minutes, was me, taking this strawberry picking thing way too seriously.
Thank goodness I had a BLOG moment. “Sarah, it’s not that serious!!”.. I told myself. So what if at the end of this, you don’t have any eatable berries? You came for the moments, not the berries. If that were the case, we could have gone to the local market and picked up a few baskets. We could have avoided the whole, let’s get super dirty and have bugs fly all around us for 20 minutes, outside, in the heat kind of experience!!
After we sifted through our buckets, (me secretly throwing out all the bad berries behind the girls’ back) we made our way to the market to check out. My kiddos and I picked a whopping 3 pounds of strawberries!
The kids had fun and so did I! So glad I focused on the experience!! Something I continue to remind myself to do daily.
Do you ever find yourself getting all worked up about something for no reason? Do you have moments when you forget what’s important? I know I do. It’s something I feel I have made great strides in, but know I still have to be reminded.. to CHILLAX! (Yes, I said CHILLAX). Today was one of those days.
Every week, I highlight a TRUTH about you, your life, or about a situation you may be facing, and then I DARE you to believe it.
TRUTH: It’s about the experience.
DARE: The next event, outing or task, resist the urge to control the situation or make it perfect, but instead–ENJOY IT!
Since this was a day of firsts, I decided I’d make some strawberry jam. Yes you read that right! Like I mentioned, we had a ton of berries. Some of my mommy friends talked about how their mom makes jam and it inspired me to give it a try. Of course, I roped BJ into this jam making session.
Can I just say, home made jam is, well– THE JAM. So yummy!! I thought I’d share the recipe! Trust me, it’s super simple and really good.
Here’s the recipe and some pics I took.
