Since embarking on our homeschooling journey at the beginning of this year time for me to be alone, recharge and catchup with myself has been as rare as hens teeth. It is often squeezed in as five minutes here and five minutes there somewhere between breakfast and our evening bedtime rituals. Or it takes the form of late nights at the sewing machine or on the couch with a cuppa and some knitting when I know that I'm tired and should be in bed so my patience is not thin the following day. A grumpy Mama is not a pretty thing to behold in our house. So we Mama's do what we need to do to come back to ourselves each day even if that means staying up way too late, letting an early dinner slide by in order to finish that project or even locking oneself in the bathroom for fifteen minutes to take a deep breath or read a book. Never underestimate the value of keeping reading material in the bathroom I say..."I'll be out in five minutes". And while incorporating creativity and slowness to our days is one reason why we choose to homeschool, sometimes, just sometimes, amongst all this, these moments for ourselves are thin and we need just a little more to keep our bucket full.
Today Zahra was off creating with a local artist and hanging out with friends....all day. And once more ... all day. This morning while driving her to her class I found myself writing mental lists of what I could do with my time. It quickly became obvious that there were two kinds being formed in my mind. One full of things that I should do and one full of things that I love doing but don't get the chance to do by myself very often. The should do list was full of doing things like last night's dishes, vacuuming, laundry, menus, tidying the house, mowing the lawn and not forgetting a dose of exercise for me and Miss Kaya. As I thought of this vast expanse of time laid out before me, the other list took a more fluid form, full of a few doing things and a lot of just being. There were even a few moments, just a few, of not knowing what to do with so much time.
So there was a little necessary sewing, lots of tea drinking and chocolate eating, soaking up the sun, a first try at meringue making with leftover egg whites, burning of meringues, one load of linen on the line ( gotta make the most of the sun this time of year), more sitting and soaking up the sun, pottering and collecting from the garden, searching for new knitting pattern and a tiny trip to the store. A nice balance if I do say so.
While there was a bit of doing and just being going on all day, today was a good reminder to feel for that balance each day, to spend more moments enjoying the small things, slow down and just be. A good way to keep that bucket full.
