{"id":1098,"date":"2013-09-01T19:37:57","date_gmt":"2013-09-02T00:37:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lovingonme.com\/?p=1098"},"modified":"2017-05-19T09:31:26","modified_gmt":"2017-05-19T14:31:26","slug":"dont-leave-the-summer-fun-behind","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/2013\/09\/01\/dont-leave-the-summer-fun-behind\/","title":{"rendered":"Don’t Leave the Summer Fun Behind!"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Katrina<\/a>Hard to believe our summer fun is coming to an end! Seems like just yesterday the kids were getting out of school, the pool opened up, and for the first time in months families seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief.<\/p>\n

Now nearly every store you go into is in disarray. Shelves are being stocked with school supplies, Halloween candy, and fall fashions that are too hot to even pay attention to when it\u2019s still 100 degrees outside. Does anyone else feel like life is rushing by?<\/p>\n

I don\u2019t know about you, but I\u2019m not ready to let go of summer fun! In fact, I\u2019ve decided I\u2019m going to put it on the to-do list for all year-long and convince as many friends as possible to join me. Because when you really think about it, why should fun and laughter ever not be a part of life?<\/p>\n

I was reminded of this yesterday when I chatted with a young lady I hadn\u2019t seen in a while. I asked her, are you taking some time to enjoy life? I\u2019m trying. What do you mean you\u2019re trying? Well I\u2019m working a lot of hours, get home late, and really just want to go to bed.<\/p>\n

Her response kind of made me sad, mostly because she\u2019s in her 20\u2019s and now that I\u2019m in my mid 40\u2019s I know the truth. Where she\u2019s racing off to isn’t going anywhere, and if she slows down just a little bit she’ll enjoy so much more of the ride.<\/p>\n

Whatever happened to work hard, play hard? Seems like more and more people are embracing the philosophy that you should work hard and work hard, saving the fun for when you reach certain goals or worse, retire. But can that possibly be balanced and healthy living?<\/p>\n

When I think back to my parents era they seemed to do things different. Yes, they worked hard \u2013 Dad as an engineer and Mom at home. But on the weekends they had fun. Playing cards with their friends, dinner at a neighbor\u2019s house and other social activities were a regular part of our schedule. With their friends they created a village, and the only \u201coccasion\u201d the village needed was being together to have a good time.<\/p>\n

Don\u2019t you miss those days? Man, I sure do. Life may not have been simpler, but it \u00a0was definitely sweeter when fun and laughter were on the agenda.<\/p>\n

So how can we get some of that back in the midst of our busy lives? The kids are in school, work has ramped up, and it seems we always have more to do than we have time. Surely we cannot pack more into our days.<\/p>\n

You\u2019re right, we can\u2019t add more to our schedule \u2013 at least the one we have now. I’ve slowly come to realize that it’s not more time we need. It’s different choices.<\/p>\n

Here are two I’ve made to make sure fun stays on the schedule.<\/p>\n

Number One: Embrace the power of \u201cno\u201d.<\/b> Don\u2019t you think it\u2019s ironic that the first word many of us speak is the first word we\u2019re taught is a bad word to use? Think about it. As parents, when our angel-face toddler tells us no the first thing we teach them is you don\u2019t tell Mommy no.\u00a0 But then we expect our children to be empowered to use it with strangers, and others violating their space.<\/p>\n

As adults, the badness of \u201cno\u201d is further reinforced as our friends and family use peer pressure to make us feel guilty about saying no when they want us to do something. It\u2019s a ridiculous cycle that we struggle to break all of our lives \u2013 saying yes when we clearly want to say no.<\/p>\n

Let\u2019s all do ourselves a favor \u2013 say yes only when we really mean it. Otherwise say no with love and leave the guilt behind.<\/p>\n

Number Two: Take all the vacation days.<\/b> I know this sounds strange given that I have my own business. But, I have made the executive decision that Katrina McGhee Enterprises has a liberal vacation policy. Why? Because at my last job I carried over vacation days for 6 years and I was cuckoo for doing so.<\/p>\n

I was so misguided that I even questioned people who took all their days \u2013 wondering if their dedication to the mission was the same as mine. It\u2019s embarrassing to say it, but I was not a good leader in that area. Unfortunately, I was modeling what I saw around me. All except for one brave soul.<\/p>\n

Our CFO took every single vacation day every year. It drove me crazy! I was working 10-12 hour days and he was having drinks on the Lido deck of a cruise ship every quarter. Didn\u2019t he know executives didn\u2019t do that?<\/p>\n

Apparently not. You see, at a decade older than me he had learned the importance of both work and play. He didn\u2019t worry about anyone else judging him. He did what was best for him and his family. And guess what? Business went on just fine until he got back.<\/p>\n

I encourage you to join me in following his example. Take your vacation days. People that are impressed by your \u201cdedication\u201d in carrying over your vacation days are focused on the wrong thing, and there are some areas of our life we have to learn to be brave enough to take a stand against the status quo. Remember – To perform at our best, we have to make time for rest.<\/b><\/p>\n

Enjoy the last of the season, and drop us a line letting us know how you’re adding fun to your busy schedule.<\/p>\n

Loving on Me as I Love You. \u2764<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Hard to believe our summer fun is coming to an end! Seems like just yesterday the kids were getting out of school, the pool opened up, and for the first time in months families seemed to exhale a collective sigh of relief. Now nearly every store you go into is in disarray. Shelves are being […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":11491,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"sharing_disabled":false,"switch_like_status":false,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":""},"categories":[204997546,114917237],"tags":[922,923132,204997786,122792808,204780],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/09\/9413587296_5ae17fdfe9.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4eAxC-hI","jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1098"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":8944,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1098\/revisions\/8944"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/11491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1098"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1098"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/lovingonme.com\/2017\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1098"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}