Busy Days

Somehow it doesn't feel like there is enough time in a day to do all that I want to do and need to do. What do I want to do, need to do?

1. Keep house tidy and generally clean (i.e. clean dishes, keep up with laundry, organize Zoe's toys, make the bed if I get around to it, sort through and discard mail - that is a real battle, I tell you).

2. Find a job I would enjoy. This is sometimes very time consuming and sometimes not. Mostly, it involves my trawling through the internet for job postings, checking out the companies, see if it is worth sending out an application. Most days, job searching means learning about skills I need or need to update and taking steps to do so.

3. Work on the garden outside. Grow a vegetable garden. This has thus far been more a mental than physical task, a wish along the lines of wishful thinking because my soul is greener than my thumb. But I'm resolved to start somewhere soon (or start again since I did start a compost), which means I am again doing a lot of reading about gardening and will soon be running to the nurseries for supplies.

4. House hunting. This is sometimes all consuming. I reckon that on average this takes up two hours of my day. I look at the property listings everyday. I study the maps. I study school districts.... then on some days, we spend hours schlepping from house to house.

5. Reading and thinking about how we would like raise Zoe. Sure, we don't have to and I don't do this everyday. Hardly. And parents before us have raised their kids without help of books or too much conscious examination. But I like to understand what Zoe is going through developmentally. Sometimes books I read "for Zoe" is really "inspired by Zoe." For example, I picked up Handbook of Nature so that I may be able to observe and learn more about nature with Zoe.

6. Be in the now with Zoe and Dennis. That is, spend time together playing, talking, reading, doing things of interest to one another.

7. Plan and cook three meals.

8. Be more active in our financial planning. This, alas, is something we know we ought to do but never seem to do.

So you see, there is not a whole lot of time in the day for all that. What I really would like to do now is take a long, afternoon nap.