Time

This week has been particularly hectic. I feel like I've had no time to spare, running hither and yon all day long, and stretching my patience, energy and cheerfulness to their limits. So, I decided to really look at this week, considering it is probably a fairly "typical" week-in-the-life of Chaos Times Six and see how it breaks down. For study purposes, let's say I have 17 hours in a day (that would be me waking up at 5:30 a.m. and going to bed at 10:30 p.m. which is kind of early for me, but we'll use that for a nice, round number). Of course, this doesn't count sleeping, which , even in this somewhat offset example, only allows me 7 hours. Which could explain the crankiness. But I digress........

So, of those 17 hours, this week (five days, a workweek, shall we say, not including weekends, which we all know are consumed by eating bon bons by the fire and taking in a cinematic adventure on the DVD player, eating freshly popped popcorn and painting my toenails), I will have spent: 7 hours driving, 13 1/2 hours working at my job, 4 hours in appointments for the kids, 4 hours in meetings for the kids, 1 1/2 hours waiting for kids at various sports, 1 hour volunteering at the school, 1 hour doing yoga, 10 hours doing housework, 5 hours doing paperwork, 5 hours helping with homework, 3 hours having coffee with friends, 10 hours on the computer, 2 1/2 hours reading for myself, 3 hours showering and getting ready for the day, 1 hour getting ready for bed,1 1/2 hours making lunches, 3 hours shopping and running errands, and 2 1/2 hours reading to Harrison. That's 83 1/2 hours. Out of 85 hours. That's a 1 1/2 hour defecit. Which means I should have approximately 20 minutes each day of EXTRA TIME!!! But where did that time go? Where is it? Look at my calendar and you will see every day penciled in, something nearly every hour, and drive times in between. Where is my 20 minutes? I'm sure I have not accounted for time spent looking for lost things, refereeing fights, having long conversations with the kids, putting the cereal and milk away, turning off lights, finding (insert word here - scissors, heavy white paper, pencil top erasers) for homework, and saying goodnight to the kids.

Time. We say we "never have enough time". We squander time. We are in a "time crunch". We practice "time management". We live in different "time zones". We have watches, cell phones and an array of public clocks to remind us of the time we're spending, the time we're wasting and how much time we have left. And at the end of the day, time is all we have. Our time is finite. An hour wasted is an hour you never get back. I have so many things I plan to do when I "have more time" - scrapbook all of my thousands of photos, clip recipes out of magazines, "really organize" my (insert word here - closet, laundry room, kids' art cabinet, armoire), clean off my desk, write a book, create a picture wall in my upstairs hallway, paint the house, clean out the junk drawer. But I find myself time and again not choosing to spend my time doing those things. Out of my missing 20 minutes a day, I hope some of it was spent smiling at someone, hugging my kids, thinking of someone I missed, saying a little prayer for someone, being grateful, and laughing. I hope I always have time for that. But I'd really like to get to those scrapbooks...........if only I had more time!