Letting Go of the Small Stuff

In my 'previous life', my time was committed but I wasn't overly busy. I had schedules, routines, expectations and goals that guided my days. But I wasn't busy. I had a lot of demands (kids) to deal with for 10 1/2 hours every day, but there were down times as well. I sat still from time to time. I really wasn't all that busy. Other than dancing, visiting and errand running ... my evenings were mine. I wasn't busy at all!

In my 'new life' so far, I have been busy.

I give myself 2 hours every morning to 'play'. To sit still, have my breakfast smoothie and have 2 cups of coffee. I blog, I email, I read other blogs. I sit and indulge my whims at the computer.

Then the day begins.

I'm driven to put in my 20 hours of education per week and make the most out of every hour that I am there. I take 15 minutes to eat lunch and I'm back to my books. My first 2 courses were introductory and pretty easy so I breezed through them and my goal was to have those complete and the exams written at the end of week one. Mission accomplished.

From school, I come straight home and I have moments to spare before school is out. Time to check the mail, email, phone messages and reestablish my home routines. It usually takes a half hour to settle back in.

Then I start my book keeping. This is a picture of my Wednesday, Thursday and Friday's projects (Tuesday's statements were mailed off Wednesday morning so I can't show the visual there). These 3 boxes = about 15 hours of work. That, plus Tuesday's statements = just about 20 hours of work for the week.

Then I squeezed in 3 hours of dancing into Wednesday and Thursday (which is the equivalent of almost 7 hours when you add in the prep time to get ready to go and travel back and forth).

I do stop for supper and for some reason, I seem to give myself an hour by that point in the day.

My book keeping has been keeping me up until 10 - 11:30 each night (except last night ... I finished at 9:20, thanks to having the night off of dancing!).

At that point, I sit down with my word puzzles and complete the day by challenging my weary brain.

Then I sleep.

Last night, Kurt and I were able to go and see the fireworks display that they had scheduled for of city's Fireworks Festival this weekend. It was the perfect end to a rather taxing week. We sat still and I was amazed and in awe of the pyrotechnics display that someone else went to all the work of putting together for our pleasure.

We came home and I gazed at the patio furniture on our deck ... and I wondered when I would ever have the chance to sit and enjoy the back yard again.

We walked into the house and I realized that I haven't swept the kitchen floor or vacuumed since Monday (my last day of kids). My 'Friday chores' remained undone. And it was Friday night. I still have to water the plants, dust and clean the bathroom no matter how few kids are in the house. So I watered the plants and saved their life ... but the dust remains untouched by the human hand.

The up-side of this ... is that I have an entire 3 day weekend off. Off of everything. No school work; my book keeping is caught up to the moment and the dance studio is closed (though I do have homework there). I have plans with friends and the entirety of the weekend to follow my whims.

Maybe I'll dust. Maybe I won't. But I do think that I will grab my book and sit out on the lawn swing and enjoy the day. I will be still.

Because, in my new life ... I am busy!