A Time For Everything

    Lately, I’ve been feeling a little stressed out! Sometimes being a single parent can be a bit overwhelming! Even with the incredible support system my family provides for me, I often think about how much easier things would be if I had another half. I wish I had a husband to financially/emotionally/mentally support me so that I could be a housewife/mommy all day long! I am constantly being updated via facebook and twitter of all these amazing moms and the numerous amazing things they do on a daily basis.

For example: "Today I went to the grocery store, cleaned the house, completed the laundry, landscaped the yard, wrestled an alligator, and knitted an afghan for all five of my children's beds, oh and we did two full days of school in half the time it normally takes us”. I then sit back and wonder where do they find the time to do these awesome things??  I certainly feel I miss out on doing a lot of cool things with my daughter in the 8 hours I spend at work everyday. I sometimes feel that our weekend is just time to catch up on all the day to day chores we get behind on the rest of the week. By the time it's all said and done....not one alligator is wrestled, and well that’s just not cool! Weekends, especially summer ones, should be a time to relax and enjoy your family, and by all means have some fun!

    
With that being said, I guess it’s all about time management and prioritizing.  This really got me thinking about the things I put an emphasis on in my life. Of course work is a big priority. I need to work to take care of my daughter and myself. Another big one is tae kwon do (my daughter is a black belt!); we spend lots of hours there every week. I also have school (I started again this last term). I look at this list and I wonder if I’m prioritizing the right things. These are very important things and I definitely will not take them off my list, however, I feel my list is lacking and needs to be added to. As a mom I am generally with my child all the time (aside from work),so, why is it that I feel like our time to enjoy each other is the time that’s left after everything else is already completed; the time when we’re both tired and grumpy and just ready for bed, not really when we’re at our best.  I recently read a poll that said, men and women on average spend 5 hrs a day engaged in leisure activities, 2 of those hours being consumed by watching television. Now, I’m not a big television watcher (I usually watch maybe an hour a week), but I am on the computer quite often. If I cut computer time each day I could then replace it with time that I spend solely with my daughter.  We could do whatever: read, watch a movie, talk, knit an afghan, or even wrestle an alligator! Now this is just an example of how we think our time is full up, but really we’re just not filling it with the right things. Take a conscious look at what you fill your time with, and I bet you will be surprised at how much of it is taken up by meaningless and mundane things.

     The Bible tells us in Ecclesiastes 3 that, “There is a time for everything, and a season for every activity under the heavens:”  Sometimes it may not feel like there is enough time to be the “Super Mom”, but there is always enough time, its just how you choose to spend it! J

~Sonya

What are some ways that you find time to fit it all in?