I used to stay on top of my weekly plan by outlining a schedule on Sunday afternoons. The thought was that I could keep on top of things “one week at a time.”
As my children have gotten older (they are now teenagers) and my work life has amped up, I’d look at the weekly “to do” list and tell myself, “Just take it one day at a time.” I could cope with the demands of my life by having a schedule for the week, but I would focus on what I needed to do “that day” and not project too much into the rest of the week.
Enter March 2008. I have seven part-time jobs. Wanna count ‘em? How about I list them in order of their demands on my time? No, that would be way too boring. Just believe me when I say that I have seven jobs.
And then there are my most important roles: Wife and Mother.
I’m not sharing this so you can “feel my pain.” I’m just giving you the information you need to have an appreciation for my new modus apparatus.
Today I had to stay on top of things in hour-long increments.
I could call this new plan “living in the moment.” That would be very Yoga Master thinking.
Unfortunately it isn’t so Zen. Currently, my days, my weeks, my plans, seem to change by the hour.
Here’s an example of what I’m talking about. This is just one day in the life…Well, maybe not. I just tried to condense the list and counted no less than 13 different increments of my day. You don’t really want me to go there…but here’s the briefest rundown I can come up with...
Today I worked downtown, took the kitten to the vet (she has bad a kitty cold), worked on my laptop at home, took favorite son to a doctor’s appointment, took him back to school, attended a gathering honoring the daughter of a friend, drove to Aiken to teach a cooking class and got home at 9:45 p.m.
Right now, the idea of going back to living “day to day” is looking really good and living “week to week” seems like the lap of luxury.
So I’ll just keep repeating my new Zen-like Yoga mantra and put a positive spin on my crazy life.
I’m in the moment...I’m in the moment...I’m in the moment.
(Check out my weekly recipes on www.augustachronicle.com/karin)