Taking Back Time

It is still July but already the summer days feel like they are slipping away.  My advocacy calls have started picking back up and I am refreshing my familiarity with each of "my children's" IEP's.

I am hoping to sell some of my crafts at a few holiday shows this fall, and am taking stock of my supplies and setting up a schedule to boost my inventory.

The kiddos are anxious to get back to their school too... although preschool doesn't begin until after Labor day.  In an effort to satisfy their hunger to learn and my need to feel useful in their education, we are trying to spend a little bit of time each day on letters, shapes, numbers, coloring, etc.  My hat goes off to homeschool mamas. I don't know how they do it.  God knew what He was doing when He had me walk past the Communication building to get to the Education building during college.  I've always been easily distracted and the change in majors was definitely the right move.  I do not have the patience to teach.

I have once again limited my time on Facebook, getting rid of time-sucking games and purging my friend list to something more realistic.  As a stay at home mom who doesn't have much contact with the outside world (three kids, one car, and no friends in walking distance), I found myself using the internet as an escape from Groundhog Day instead of trying to recreate my reality.  While life on the Frontier proved to be a distraction, I could also feel it physically diminishing my IQ and this morning woke up with the resolve to eliminate it from my life.  I can barely keep up my little household as it is without being responsible for farming, ranching, and collecting chicken eggs.

Add to that a dead pine tree that needs to come down, a bee infestation in my baby girl's room, and the daily demands of three kids, three dogs, and a traveling husband, and my insomnia is back in full swing.

I love the chaos of my life.  I like having lots to do.  It makes me feel useful and gives me a sense of purpose.  But I've never been great at time management, always biting off more than I can chew, and I'm back to the realm of feeling like 24 hours is not enough time in the day to accomplish everything that needs to be done.

I've come up with a few strategies to help manage my time and hope they will help.
1. I've always been a pen and paper kind of gal, so keeping a physical calendar and journal is the first weapon in my arsenal.  Yes, I have an iPhone, but electronic calendars just don't do it for me.  Plus, actually writing things down helps me remember them better.  So my "journal" keeps my random thoughts in one place, contains my never ending to-do list, and helps me remember things that I don't want to forget.  My calendar helps me maintain some resemblance of a schedule.

2.  I am making time for ME.  This is so important and for years I've neglected to take time for myself.  When the husband is around and it isn't 400 degrees outside, my me time also includes some running.  But for now, I'm spending my time at night with the TV off, listening to an audiobook and knitting.  I know I sound like a boring old lady... but it's lights out by 11:00 and I'm able to wake up and feed the six mouths demanding "breaksmast" with significantly less grumbling.  I've been doing this for a few weeks now and have become relentlessly protective of "my time".  It seems to be working.

3.  I'm (sort of) scheduling out my day.  Bedtime is set in stone for the wee-ones and the wake up hour seldom varies by more than a few minutes.  But up until now, all of the moments in between existed with little structure.  I'm still not scheduling out every second of our day, but there are chunks of time devoted to different things.  This helps me be sure I spend a little bit of each day on each thing I'm responsible for.  It's not perfect, and most days you'll still find us in PJ's at noon, but for us, for now, it works.  There will be plenty of time for over-scheduling as the kids get older.

Enjoy your time today, however you decide to spend it.

Love, hugs, and blessings,
The Mama