Creating white space

For a gal who talks about balance on the radio and makes a living of inspiring women to better help, sometimes I have trouble creating white space in my own life.  But as they say, we often teach what we most need to learn, and in theory I love the concept.

For the past twenty years I have rarely had a weekday evening free on a regular basis.  Initially I was teaching Jazzercise twice a week and going to Graduate School the other two evenings.  After collecting my Masters Degree, my schedule evolved into four nights a week of Jazzercise either on stage or at the desk.  Eventually I replaced some of the Jazzercise evenings with coaching clients facilitating a nutrition program, attending networking events to build my business, and whatever else came my way.

Then about a year or two ago, after twenty years,  I finally freed myself of working Thursday evenings.  Wow was that liberating.  I hardly knew what to do with myself, by that time 'must see t.v.' on Thursdays was a thing of the past. 

So I ended up filling most of my Thursday nights meeting friends for drinks or dinner, taking other classes, going to fundraisers, you name it.

How refreshing it was to find myself with a rare free night last night.  White space in my calendar. Aaaah!

I came home to find my hubby had picked up the flowers in the above pic ('cause it's Thursday, he said) and prepared one of our favorite 'ploughman' dinners, fruit, nuts, cheese, bread. This is our go to dinner when we want something simple, relatively healthy, and extremely easy to clean up.  We enjoyed it on the patio over drinks and conversation. 

After dinner I slipped into the bathtub with a bunch of magazines and a DIY mask of Greek yogurt, honey and almond oil (yes, I'm getting obsessed with making both natural cleaning and beauty products at home, but it's oh so fun!).  

Enjoying the white space was just as liberating as freeing up my Thursdays. It sure feels good, and I will not wait so long before I 'schedule' more of it.

 When was the last time you saw some white space in your calendar?  I highly recommend it!