Hello scrappy friends!!
I am so excited to share with you today some secrets I’ve learned over my years as a military spouse and moving every couple of years. Over my eighteen years of marriage, my husband and I have moved so often! As a memory keeper and scrapbooker, it is important to me to love the place where I live. The more I love it, the more I will be active in creating special memories there. And the more memories I create, the more I have to document and capture in my scrapbook pages.
As we traveled from Kansas City to El Paso, Texas on our last move, I listened to the audiobook of This is Where You Belong: The Art and Science of Loving the Place You Live. It was so good to enter this next place with intention!!
Today, I’m sharing with you five steps that I have developed to love the place where you live. It is my hope that you’ll be able to take some or all of these and apply them to your own situation to enhance your personal memory keeping.
Go for Walks
Yes! Get outside and walk alone or with your family. Walk through your neighborhood and in the parks or on the walking trails in your city. Getting out in nature and feeling the air on your skin does so much for our well being. Some of my most treasured memories are our after dinner family walks.
Make Local Friends
Wherever we go, I try to be intentional about making friends in the local area. It can be so easy and sometimes very tempting to stay within the confines of our military community, but I have gained so much by making friends from the local area. I get together with friends once a month for breakfast to celebrate birthdays. Every one of the women in this group, except me, are from the local area. I love hearing the stories of their home!
Enjoy Local Festivities
We try to get out and enjoy as many local festivals and festivities as we can when we are in a new area and we have found some favorites that we make annual traditions. Just last weekend we visited the annual Chalk the Block Festival in our city. You can typically find out about these events by following the city on Facebook or reading a local newspaper.
Take a Class
I recently took a baking class at a local coffee shop and bakery. It was so much fun and I met new people!! Taking a class and learning a new skill that’s being taught by a master is a great way to fall in love with the place where you live. It’s also a great place to meet some of those local people I mentioned earlier!
Become a Regular
I encourage you to find a local spot and become a regular there. On Sunday evenings I have a little bit of time on my hands while my kids are in various activities at our church. I found a local coffee shop to visit and I can be found there every week. This gives such a great grounding and sense of belonging that I think we all desire.
No matter if you have lived where you are for all your life or if you are a newcomer, it is so important that we love the place where we live.
It’s important to our souls as memory keepers and just as people desiring to enjoy life! I hope that you’ve found these steps helpful and I would love to hear if you have anything to add to them!
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