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Brittany L. Bergman

Savoring motherhood, building marriage, and living simply

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5 Easy Ways to Simplify Your Life This Summer

Jun 7 30 Comments

The summers of my childhood were the very picture of carefree. I read heaps of books and played imaginary games with my brother and sister. I created plays and wrote stories and sang along to the radio and danced in my wet swimsuit (we spent nearly every afternoon at the pool).

I worked in education for five years after college and continued to enjoy mostly carefree summers off, but two years ago I started a job that is year-round and had to wave goodbye to the time off. Even while working, though, I think there’s something about summer that calls me to simplicity and relaxation.

Instead of going, going, going, let’s channel those summer of our youths and cut back our commitments so we can enjoy the gentleness of this season. If you’re looking to slow down and kick back a bit, here are five areas you can simplify this summer.

There’s something about summer that calls us to simplicity and relaxation. Instead of going, going, going, let’s channel those summers of our childhoods and cut back our commitments so we can enjoy the gentleness of this season. If you’re looking to slow down and kick back a bit, here are five areas you can simplify this summer. Home

When I think of a home in the summertime, I think of wide-open doors, children running in and out with dirty shoes, family and friends streaming in or skipping straight to the backyard. I think of open windows, fresh flowers on counters, toys in the front yard, and hands that are sticky with melted ice cream. Part of the charm and magic of summer is that it is a little messy.

I’m a believer in keeping my home “company clean,” as my friend Susannah of Simple Moments Stick calls it. (The idea is that at any time, your home is ready for company with just about 15 minutes of notice.) I think that’s a perfect goal for summer, and to be honest, in the summer I try to simplify my expectations of what “company clean” means. Saying yes to everyday cleaning tasks and saying no to deep-cleaning tasks allows for more balance in the summer.

Beauty

Cut back on your products and time spent getting ready! Summer is the perfect season for air-dried hair, beachy waves, and quick braids. It’s also a perfect season for bare (or bare-er) faces. I don’t think I’ve ever written about a beauty product before (mostly because I’m not into makeup at all), but I just can’t help myself right now: I am totally obsessed with Aveeno CC Cream. (This is in no way paid or sponsored, nor is this an affiliate product—I just love this stuff!) In the summer I hate using moisturizer, sunscreen, foundation, and powder, and this cream does the trick of all four. It’s a huge timesaver and it keeps my skin healthy. Summer is a great time to kiss the rest of your beauty products goodbye for a while and embrace a natural face and a messy ponytail.

Food

Produce tends to be fresher and cheaper in the summer, so take advantage of eating whole or even raw foods (you know, not including chicken). I find that quality produce needs very little in the way of seasoning, which keeps dinner simple.

My favorite summertime weeknight dinner is to cut thick slices of pepper and onion, toss them in some olive oil, salt, pepper, and garlic powder, and throw them on the grill with some chicken and barbecue sauce. Twenty minutes and done. I also like to make a giant salad on Sunday and eat it throughout the week for lunch. Batch cooking isn’t just for spaghetti sauce and chili! Check out these fresh spins on salad from Jenna of A Savory Feast.

Schedule

I find that summer can become overwhelmingly busy if we’re not careful to set limits on our time. It’s easy for me to say yes to too many commitments when the days are longer and the sun is shining and I don’t have to trudge through the snow to get to an event. But nothing about my schedule actually changes in the summer—I still work full time and carry the same load at home with Selah—so I need to balance enthusiasm with reality.

Simplifying other parts of life can help you say yes to more in the summer, but it’s still good to filter invitations through your core values. You may even want to choose a word, theme, or mantra for your summer as a way to guide your scheduling decisions. I want this to be the summer of home and hospitality. Dan and I are working hard to create intentional spaces in our home (starting with a new dining room table!), and I want to share those spaces with the people I love, even before the rooms are complete.

Mind and Soul

Take it outside! Whether your relaxation method of choice is reading, writing, meditating, exercising, or any number of other hobbies, we can find so much joy and connection to the season just by moving these activities out the door.

I love to read the Bible and pray outside as the sun is rising over my backyard. I try to spend my Sunday afternoons reading while my legs are outstretched and the sun is overhead and my coffee is chilling on ice. I head out for twilight walks with lightning bugs and flickering stars, with Riley’s leash in one hand and Dan’s in the other. We eat dinner on the patio instead of in front of the TV, because this change of scenery invites us to linger a little longer. Find ways to get outside and enjoy the season while doing the stuff you already love to do.

Summer is a time to loosen up (not always easy for me), to enjoy little luxuries, and to simplify our everyday lives. What’s your favorite way to shake things up and simplify your life for the summer?

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Filed Under: Simple Living & Minimalism Tagged With: choices, contentment, experiences, family, gratitude, habits, intention, joy, priorities, simple living, summer, values

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brittanylbergman

Brittany L. Bergman
✔️ Kamala shirt ✔️ Kamala pearls ✔️ Ka ✔️ Kamala shirt
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It’s a great day to witness the shattering of a glass ceiling, to embrace empathy and decency, and to breathe a collective sigh of relief.

The work is only just beginning, but today, we celebrate. Congratulations, President Joe Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris! 👏🏼🎉💙
What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaki What a beautiful, exhausting, festive, heartbreaking, cozy, chaotic-but-strangely-quiet Christmas we had. ✨🎄✨

That’s a wrap for me on 2020—I’ll be off social media until sometime in January. May you be filled with peace and hope as we close this year but still wait for the close of this chapter in our history. 💜
I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; d I have faced Christmases full of grief and loss; depression and rage; exhaustion and loneliness. But I can honestly say this is the weariest Christmas I can remember. I say that not to shine a spotlight on me, but to say that I have a feeling this might be your experience too. I’m with you.
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And so the words to my favorite Christmas hymn hit me different this year. They resonate in a place much deeper, more tender and true than ever before. I rejoice in the giggles of my meltdown-prone child. I rejoice in stolen moments alone in the dark, the room lit only by the glow of the Christmas tree. I rejoice in every video and every social media post I see of a frontline worker receiving the COVID vaccine, our ticket out of this nightmare. I rejoice in the vision that next Christmas might look more familiar than this one does. I rejoice in the hope of Christ, whose universal, creative, motherly love holds the whole universe together.
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On this Christmas Eve, I’ll leave you with this quote from Howard Thurman. I hope these words bring a slant of light to your day.
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“The symbol of Christmas—what is it? It is the rainbow arched over the roof of the sky when the clouds are heavy with foreboding. It is the cry of life in the newborn babe when, forced from its mother’s nest, it claims its right to live. It is the brooding Presence of the Eternal Spirit making crooked paths straight, rough places smooth, tired hearts refreshed, dead hopes stir with newness of life. It is the promise of tomorrow at the close of every day, the movement of life in defiance of death, and the assurance that love is sturdier than hate, that right is more confident than wrong, that good is more permanent than evil.”
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Whatever and however you celebrate at this time of year, I’m sending you all my love and peace. 💫
I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in I found my Christmas spirit this weekend, just in the nick of time.

I baked cookies with Selah without getting frustrated (first time ever?), took the kids on drive to see Christmas lights, and wrapped a bunch of gifts.

But here’s what I think did the trick, and please do steal this idea (because I stole it from someone else but have no idea who): Magical Movie Night™️.

On Saturday night, I stealthily placed a golden ticket under Selah’s pillow (which I printed from the internets and colored quickly with a yellow marker; good enough is good enough for Magical Movie Night!). We put Eamon to bed and got Selah ready for bed too, going through all the normal motions of brushing teeth, putting on pajamas, picking out a book. When we climbed into bed, I told her to look under her pillow.

She was confused when she found the ticket, and I told her it was for a Christmas movie night. “When?” she asked. “Right now!” I said. “What do you mean ‘right now’?” When it dawned on her that she was going to stay up past her bedtime to have a special movie night with Mommy and Daddy (sans Eamon), she lost her mind with excitement.

Bonus: Gramma was waiting downstairs with a bag of popcorn and Swedish Fish!

We snuggled under blankets, turned on Elf, and laughed our festive butts off. (This was her first time watching Elf, and it felt like the dawning of a new era. It’s such a big kid movie! And she loved it! Hold me. 😭)

Deck the halls, bring on Christmas, fill my mug with holly jolly goodness. 

I also acknowledge this has been a crappy year in so many ways, and I know many of you are not going to be able to access Christmas cheer this year. That’s okay. The real spirit of Christmas is light breaking through the dark, love making a way, and the beauty that can’t help seeping through the dirty, messy, horribly human moments of our lives. So you’re covered.

(And if you want to fake it ’til you make it, give Magical Movie Night a try. It’s the actual easiest.)
In which I couldn’t come up with a clever captio In which I couldn’t come up with a clever caption. There are signs of life but my brain is dead. 💀
“This is what I find most mystifying about Adven “This is what I find most mystifying about Advent: the period of waiting ultimately ends in great joy, but we can’t get to that great joy without intense, active, unbearable pain. In Advent we sense the mingling of anticipation and anxiety, excitement and disappointment, joy and pain, hope and fear.
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“On this side of history, we have the luxury of waiting with great hope, great joy, and great expectation. We know Jesus will be born, we know he will save us and redeem us, we know he will die and rise again, and we know he will set all things right one day.
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“But before Christ came, Advent was dark. It was lonely and unknown, as the Israelites waited in faith to hear from God, and all they got was… nothing. Silence.
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“Isn’t this more characteristic of the waiting we usually do? The waiting seasons of our lives are less often marked by joy and hope and more often marked by pain and fear. They are not often cozy or comforting but difficult and dark and even laborious.
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“We wait as a pregnant mother waits for her child to be born—there’s a vision of the joy to come, to be sure, but in the throes of gut-wrenching labor pains, we think we might actually die before we see that joy fulfilled. After a long season of pregnancy, when the fullness of time has arrived, the advent of labor ushers in the real period of waiting—and it is active and painful and raw.”
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// From “In the Fullness of Time,” a new blog post on @first15. There’s a link in my bio to the whole piece, with thoughts on pregnancy, Advent, and waiting well in an exceptionally hard year. 💜 Thank you so much to @first15 for publishing this post!
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Brittany L Bergman is a for-profit blog. Any company that I collaborate with is chosen by me and fits the theme and readership of my blog. At times, posts may contain affiliate links or sponsored content, which is never at any charge to you.

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