Enough time

“Everything changed the day she figured out there was exactly enough time for the important things in her life”.

I ran across this quote from The Story People while I was browsing the web today, and it made me happy.  Being a stay at home mom, I sometimes find myself with excessive time.  Sometimes these last few months, when the day starts and we have no plans, I feel like I can see time stretching out toward dinner and bedtime as a loooong road that me and the kids would need to travel together.  Or perhaps like it was an obstacle course, and my goal was to make it to the finish in one piece.

If I was working outside the home, I think I’d be scrambling to find time to do the basics: grocery shopping, laundry, meals…  Being home full time, I sometimes think that all I have is time, but I’ve also got some individuals I live with who can make productive work, uh, challenging.  In fact, even with all the time I do have, I often find myself scrambling to do the basics.  Kids don’t cooperate, snuggling time occurs, life gets complicated, tantrums happen, playtime stretches out…

I find that I tend to be compulsively honest about not making excuses.  If I’m late or didn’t get something done, I find that I feel much better about fessing up with the honest truth rather than a light excuse.  “I’m not on time because I stayed in my pajamas too long.”  “I didn’t finish that project because I wanted to snuggle with my husband and watch The Office rather than work last night.”  Those feel better to me than, “Traffic was bad.” or “We got really busy.”  Along those lines, I don’t really like the “I didn’t have time” excuse.  It’s often true, and in some cases, there is just too much that absolutely needs to get done.  But when I hear “I didn’t have time” (or when I hear myself say it!), I also hear “It just wasn’t important enough.”

There’s time for the important things.  There’s always time for the important things, but it means I have to prioritize.  One of my goals is to keep a sharp eye out for the important things so I’m sure to make time for them in my life!