You would think after all the staying home we had to do during COVID shutdowns and beyond, I would want to be anywhere else, but my favorite place to be on a Saturday is still at home with no plans. Perhaps I crave this because of the season of life we’re in with kids coming and going and doing at all hours of the day, each day of the week; this naturally makes me long for quite Saturdays where no one has to be anywhere at a certain time and instead we can just be. 

Or, maybe I’m just an introvert.

But seriously, I love me a good Saturday that involves the wide open possibility of just about anything that might also turn into a whole lot of nothing. Give me no reason to put on mascara or bra unless I want to, the option for a walk or jog, and my best zero-gravity lawn chair (or couch) where I can park my butt and read a book while I drink various fake-coffee and non-soda or non-alcoholic beverages, and I’ll be just fine for the entire day. (40, I tell ya – it’s a wild time!)

As it is, our Saturdays are mostly scheduled out by whatever current sport season we happen to be experiencing. Spring means baseball and occasionally soccer or flag football (but I detest the weather for spring Y sports, so often we rebel and just skip signing up for those, at least for the youngest kids). Summer also means travel ball in June and then all the going and doing that comes with July and early August, trying to squeeze in family fun and trips before the next school year begins. Fall means soccer and flag football (and now swim team, too!). And then in Winter we actually do slow the heck down and, so far anyway, avoid organized sports so we can have more time to cozy up after we all navigate our long weeks of school and teaching. 

Special events pop up on a Saturday here and there such as birthdays or book club gatherings or volunteer opportunities at our church. Once in a blue moon, we’ll go out for a meal, but all of that has been extra slow to return for us post-COVID, so really, I get my way a lot and we just stay home. That looks like a lot of home-cooked suppers, watching something together as a full family on Disney+, and then, after the kids are in bed, maybe doing some yoga or taking an Epsom salt bath before crawling into bed to read some more before finally shutting off the light for the night.

See? Introvert to the max!

And then sometimes an open weekend leads to the height of productivity when we actually have a moment to catch our breath and tackle something that’s been sitting around the house, waiting for us to deal with it. In 2022 that’s looked like a giant cleaning out of our basement store room (finally!), selling baby and toddler/kid clothes, building me a cloffice, and on Labor Day Weekend, fixing our busted-from-hail-damage fence and doing a massive cleaning of our garage that was probably a solid year overdue. Part of said cleanup resulted in saying goodbye to our first-ever baby stroller that every single one of our babes used (well and lot; the thing was shot!), well beyond their baby years, too. But the kids took it all in stride and were such good helpers getting all the junk, dust, and debris out of there. We also learned that Lincoln is a big fan of power tools (and likes them so much that he was willing to give up the extra screen time that his sibs got while we were working in the yard), and that Raegan doesn’t like it when her mama makes up her own rules for crossing streets during a mid-afternoon walk downtown to run errands and grab a quick dish of sherbet. 

I had no idea we were going to take on such tasks on this particular weekend, but that’s the beauty of an unscheduled Saturday (and a Sunday that feels like a Saturday) when you can just get after it. Although I did not make much (read: any) progress in my book, it was fabulous to get some big projects done while dreaming up plans for what might be next all in the midst of low-key, just roll with it Family Time. 

I think that’s exactly what makes the magic of a good Saturday.