Do you have control over your time? How much of you time is governed by other people who need you or make plans which involve you - and are not the king of people you can say no to?
When my husband worked full time at his job all of my time during the day on weekdays was my own. Yes, I had to go to work and I went to my embroidery meetings, but I could easily plan what I was doing when back then.
Husband and I were in what is called a rotational art exhibit - okay, we were each in two of them. In this type of exhibition (run by two different township park departments) the artist, after having his/her work reviewed and approved, goes to a showcase. Different venues - town offices, libraries, local businesses... sign up with the program also and come to the showcase. They select which artist’s works they would like to have in their venue and they and the artist agree on which month (or two month period) the exhibition will be for. There would be months when we had 3 shows at 3 different venues (he had work in 2 different media in the show). Since he was working full time I was allowed to represent both of us - I also set up and took down the exhibitions. I could schedule the exhibitions, set them up and then take them down. When husband quit his job and worked part time from home we would do all of this together and there was always a problem with him as to when we were doing it, why we were doing it (we only sold 3 small pieces over the time he exhibited, my work was not for sale, so I did not sell any). It amazed me how much easier it was when I did this all alone, then when we did it together. Due to the fact that one of libraries may be where we got bedbugs, we stopped doing the shows - and it was relief to stop - although before he started coming along, this would not have been true.
When he first quit his job we had an agreement that we would each go our own way during the day - and we did for awhile. Then gasoline prices went up and up and up and husband pointed out that we were wasting money at the high price of gas for me to drive to the supermarket and him to drive separately to the Home Depot in the same parking lot and we started sort of car pooling for errands like this. Before I knew it, we were together all day, every day (except the days I went out to work and the days I went to my embroidery meeting).
Clients of mine, older senior citizens, had to shut down their business due to the economy and gradually I ended up with only one monthly business client. I used to go out to clients at least 8 days a month - some days to multiple clients - and had no problem scheduling them - now the 1 client is a problem to schedule.
I am not the world’s best house cleaner. I had a schedule - on Wednesdays I would clean - First Wednesday of the month I would dust, vacuum & wash floors, and clean the toilet upstairs. Second Wednesday of the month I would do the same downstairs. Third week I would do the upstairs - except the toilet - again. Fourth week I would do the same as the second, but would clean the kitchen instead of the bathroom. On the occasional fifth Wednesday I would do another chore that had not been done and needed doing. Now - forget it! It is hard to clean toilets or wash floors when as soon as one is mid cleaning one’s husband appears and says “I have to go in NOW.” And there is always a reason that the other bathroom is not where he wants to be. It has gotten so bad that I ended waiting until he fell asleep at night and then cleaned the upstairs bathroom - at 3 in the morning!
This comes up right now as the past 2 weeks I feel like screaming! Last week on Tuesday he decided it was time to put up the Christmas lights, and then looked at the bushes and the piles of fallen leaves and said “We can’t put up the lights with all these leaves here - there will be a fire.” Okay, so we are going to suddenly clear up the leaves. He found online at a home store near us a rack to hold the garbage bags and it was in stock at the store. We go there - I really don’t think we need the rack - without even knowing what it was. The store does not have any, even though the company website says that they do - and, while it is still November at that time, they don’t have it because it is a “fall” item and the main office therefore took all of them back! Oh, and according to them the website saying they have something does not mean anything - good thing husband did not buy it online and go to pick it up at the store. We lost an hour and a half of limited sunlight (remember we get started late and had already run errands) on that fool’s errand. We come home and we start clearing the leaves. Over the years husband has come up with a variety of methods to do this - vacuum them, shred them with a vacuum, and I don’t know what else - my system is a snow shovel - yes, a snow shovel. First I quickly rake the leaves out from between the bushes onto the driveway in a line of leaves. I shovel them into the garbage bag in the garbage pail, stop periodically to tamp them down with the shovel, then when the bag is full (probably overfull) I close the bad with a bag tie, drag the garbage can to by the curb, lay the pail down on it’s side, stand it up again with the open end down, pull the can off the bag and there it is - a bag of leaves where it needs to be for pickup. I am doing the work due to the pain that is still healing in his left arm and shoulder. He has to help (you know, like small children have to help). He wants to hold the rake for me to push the leaves against when shoveling, this is not needed as there is a line of leaves to push against and at the end I use the pail. Then he decides that too many leaves are falling and puts the rake over the leaves - resulting in almost all of the leaves falling off. I convince him to go and get more bags and bag ties to keep him busy. We eventually end up with about a dozen or more bags sitting at the curb - they were picked the next day as Wednesday is yard pickup. Wednesday we run errands and then go to clear the last of the leaves - these are leaves around the driveway where he is worried that mice will nest - he is shocked that new leaves are where we cleared the day before! Now, if I was involved in planning this ahead of time - we would not have had errands to run - I would make sure they were otherwise scheduled - and we would have eaten a quick lunch at home to give us enough time, instead of our daily half hour plus leisurely lunch at Wendys.
We had checked the light strands ahead of time, as we had not had a chance to check them when we took them down (I made a reminder in my cell phone for the middle of October about this, as well as about the 2 strands that went out while out last year and had purchased replacement lights. We had to wait after clearing the leaves for a day that was not below freezing and it was not raining. Over the weekend we put out the lights. I am, again, doing the work. We did a little bit different setup as he had some ideas, All was going well. We have a holly tree and the lights have to be (literally) thrown onto the upper part of it as neither of us likes to go on a ladder. I was trying to figure out how to put the higher lights on it - figuring a ladder will be needed - and he grabs the strand and throws it - and then is reminded of his shoulder and arm - and was back in pain like a few weeks ago! (Yes, the lights are up, look nice - one of his ideas I thought was terrible works very well.)
We spent yesterday evening taking apart his computer as it had stopped working - believe it or not it as the battery that keeps the time and such going as this is his desktop computer. So the time I would have spent washing dishes - I was lifting his computer (because even before he threw the light strand he should not have lifted it) as well as clearing off my desk for him to work on. I did some of my magic - “It needs a CR2032 battery, I guess we will have to buy one.” I go to our bag of button batteries (travels with us on trips) and find one, still sealed in the package. Then I did the dishes after we changed the battery, put the computer back on his side of the office on the floor and he had restarted the computer.
I have to take 20 hours of classes to do tax returns next year - I took 2 hours of them the other evening and I should have much more of them done by now - only 26 days to go - 6 days of which we will be involved in reenacting, two days of which will be Christmas Eve and Day, that leaves 18 days left! And Christmas decorations, shopping for one of his nieces (other is finished) and regular housework is left - oh, and he is still trying to fit in a one day trip to Lancaster, PA.
THOUGHT OF THE WEEK -
It is hard to make our time our own to be able to schedule what work needs to be done, but we have to do it. This time of year, especially, we have to make time for what we need to do as well as what we have to do.
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