Sundays with Ann Marie

Living life with intention, what's for dinner this week, my new favorite jeans, and more

Last week, one of my best friends was in town from Virginia checking in on her parents. Whenever she visits, we try to squeeze in a walk. We were lucky enough to walk two times while she was here. The first day was a check-in on parents, kids, holidays, work—our two hours flew by. On the second morning when we met all bundled up (it was 23 degrees at the start!), she said, “Today we’re talking about our goals.”

She gave me a heads up before she got to town that she wanted to talk about my New Year’s post where I wrote about my “ins and outs” for 2025. She said it had connected with her because she had been thinking about a lot of the same things. When she pressed me on what I was really hoping for in the new year, I said it was to disentangle myself from some of my volunteer responsibilities. I always try to approach everything from a place of yes, and a few years ago when I left my full-time job at the magazine, I put that tendency into overdrive. I said yes to all of the things, trying to leave myself open to opportunities that those things might lead to. That was a great way to be until I really hit a wall this fall and realized I was in over my head. Instead of these opportunities filling me up, I was going to bed every night completely depleted and dreading the to-dos for the next day—they seemed never ending. I was also becoming a little resentful of the people who didn’t step up the way I had and I hated that feeling. So…

For 2025, I’m being more guarded on what I say yes to. My friend said that I had discovered the line between intention and drift. When you commit to anything with intention, it’s leading you in a direction where you want to go. When you commit to something without it, you end up at the mercy of wherever that decision might lead—you drift.

For someone like me with an overactive guilt complex, I have a horrible time saying no. But this week, I found a way to do it where I didn’t feel badly afterwards. One of my editors emailed and asked if I could take on another assignment for the month. I was already in the middle of three other stories that were due last week. I knew my editor was in a jam in needing to assign this piece so late in the editorial calendar, but I also realized that I didn’t need to be the hero and figure out how to get this done. Instead, I told her that I couldn’t do it, but if she couldn’t find someone else to write the story, she could come back to me. It felt like a very happy medium where I was protecting my time, but also giving my editor a back-up plan if she needed it. And guess what? She didn’t. She found someone else.

Now my big challenge will be to apply this new intentional thinking to the bigger volunteer tasks that I have on my plate. I have just a few months left before I can roll off some of the big ones and feel okay with using that new-found time to work on growing my blog. I’ve been talking about this for years, but finally—no more drifting. I’m intentionally going to take steps that will allow me to make this happen.

Does this make sense? It feels liberating to get this down on paper. Growing up, my mom was always super intentional about what she gave her time to. She never wanted to be the leader on any project. Instead, she was the hardest worker on any committee she joined. She called the shots when it came to her time and it allowed her to step in and out of things when life had more important things for her to handle. Per usual, I still have lots to learn from her.

Saying no so that I can work on things for myself feels very selfish and counter to how I was raised. But as my girlfriend pointed out, if I do make my business successful, the results from that could benefit so many people and organizations—and that would be a very good thing.

I hope sharing this is helpful, or at least makes you feel like you’re in good company if you’re dealing with something similar.

Have a great week, my friends!

xo,

P.S. Before I let you go:

• Here’s what I’m making for dinner this week.

• I bought these jeans on Friday and I love them! Did you know that you can bring an old pair of jeans into Madewell (any brand) and they will give you $20 off of your purchase? I didn’t know this, but you can be sure I will be dropping off a few pairs this week.

• My Friday Favorites were good last week, if I do say so myself. In case you missed them, here they are.

• Next week, I’m going to talk about how we’re approaching the college process with our youngest Jimmy. If you have any questions you’d like me to be sure an answer, feel free to send me a message or respond to this post. Thank you!