Gift to Self

I fritter away time like no one's business. When asked what I do in a day, I may be hard pressed to recall. But lately I have been hyper-vigilant in tracking my time and it amazes even me. I spend an awful lot of time doing things of little value. Or do I???

I feel like this has been a week (okay, two days out of seven) of walking around with a screwdriver. Fixing things. Tightening things. Moving latches and screwing them back in place. Tis the season of "shifting". Doors and gates don't close the way they did a week ago. Having had a screwdriver in my hand, I tend to notice a wobbly stool, loose cupboard door handles and why the heck did that bifold door fall off the track (I did it - I accidentally closed a mop handle in the immovable side of the door flush to the wall but did not notice the handle in said location until after watching a YouTube video on how to fix a bifold door).

There went (perhaps) an hour, maybe an hour and fifteen minutes all tolled, of my week. Where did the rest go?

Cat hair. Can I just say the allure of a hairless cat is starting to appeal to me? Where does the hair on a hairless cat go? Do they grow it and shed it? Or to they simply have a chronic case of alopecia and baldness means no new hair growth at all? Vacuuming, picking up, lint-brushing cat hair off of any surface cat hair can waft onto is consuming more of my time (now that I have a 100% cat hair free zone in my little home-away-from-home, I tend to notice cat hair more than ever before). Even at that, on an average, I cannot claim that cat hair removal claims any more than a half hour ten minutes per day.

Podcasts. My newest favorite thing. I believe I spend that time wisely as I combine listening to fun, inspiring and thought provoking topics while I do what I have done every morning for years. I listen while I work on my morning puzzles, sip on my morning smoothie and have my second (often third) cup of coffee. Now there is a full hour of my day, not counting the time I spend prior to and after the podcast, tending to banking and other computerized chores (grocery shopping), where I need to concentrate too hard to listen to a podcast at the same time. Let's say I spend two hours of the morning at the computer.

Morning pages. I have recently discovered if I have a smooth writing pen and write really, really fast without interruption, I can speed through three, 8-1/2" X 11" pages in half an hour to 35 minutes. Add the prep time to make my coffee and make my way to my quiet little writing spot and the amount of distractions it takes to get me from pre-morning pages to post-morning pages and there is another hour gone. POOF!

Cat litter. A separate paragraph and a separate thought from cat hair. Daily. On-going. A chore my daughter was/is willing to share with me but my inane perfectionist mind has convinced me it is easier to do it myself. I can always find an extra chore to add onto the litter cleaning. A five minute job probably rounds up to fifteen minutes some days. But I take weekends off. So there!

Vacuuming, bathing, showering, taking out garbage/recycling, shoveling snow, preparing my supper-to-go, taking time to stop and "chew" (my morning smoothie and coffee only takes me to about 10:30 and then the need for solid sustenance intervenes). Mail-checking, email-checking, message-checking, message-responding ... 

Oh!!!! The many, many distractions I opt in on. I tend to call these distractions "cleansing my palate" in the midst of my work-from-home day. I get my head in a mathematical problem and tend to think I need to walk away for a moment. Yes! That ONE piece of paper needs to go to the recycling bin by the back door immediately. Yes! I need to quickly check in on Instagram to see if any of the "talking dogs/cats" (people actually train their dogs/cats to speak to them with buttons to cue their humans to what they want/need); groundhogs; and other human critters with less hair I choose to follow and entertain me.

Distractions quite easily eat up (possibly) two hours out of a day. One day when I'm really bored (or in the need of "cleansing my palate"), I should track the time I loose to my various distracting habits.

Oh yes, then there is work. My actual job! Amazingly, it eats up a fair chunk of my day too. I am getting much better at working smarter. Or is it just called "working one job per day" for five days, in the past three weeks. Oh, there is nothing like being able to JUST STAY HOME until the work one wants to complete in a day is done. I called in "work" (not sick) from my second form of income one day and it was so intoxicating, I asked for a few more days off the following week, followed by an offer of one final day off this week. It was the best un-holiday I've ever had. When I grow up, I hope to have only ONE job ...

Am I whining? Complaining? Making excuses? Not intentionally. It may sound like it, but I am grateful for this cat-hairy, distracted, work-filled, people-filled life I lead. How I choose to spend my hours IS a choice. 

I could opt to invest my hours very differently than I do. The miracle of waking up every morning is that each day is a bright new set of options. 

Today?? I gave myself a little gift. I have chosen to sit still with this little blog space I used to call home and write. Just write.

Nothing big, small or indifferent to say. No lessons, no ranting, no carrying on about the myriad of thoughts in this busy little brain of mine. Just the little stuff. The inane. The act of choosing my daily grind in various ways with lots of room to adapt with the flow of whatever life throws my way.

Sitting down and typing (verses hand writing my morning pages) feels like an entirely different experience. I have been using my "gift" of computer time to spreadsheets, work-related emails, tax & accounting programs during my work-day, with a side order of puzzles, podcasts and on-line grocery shopping/banking for fun. I forgot how much I once enjoyed just letting my fingers fly over the keyboard and seeing what they have to say.

Apparently my fingers had much to say about nothing. I wish you a day of following your choices and hoping it takes you where you most need to be.

Today, may you give yourself the gift of spending time doing something that brings you joy.