prioritizing priorities
My nebulous New Years resolutions highlight a problem endemic to all aspects of my life. This evening I'm thinking how to prioritize a few different goals: writing; being a respectful participant in the work of the house; sleeping. Is it possible to do all three?! Maybe, but not if I want to write out the Complete Christmas and New Years Report (With Pictures).
Today Leah went back to work, and the boys and I resumed our regularly-scheduled existence. I use "scheduled" loosely, of course, but nothing could be looser than our vague, chocolate-fueled maunderings over the past ten days. The schedule for today included cleaning work, shopping, reading together, and free time outside. That last category means I kicked the boys out the door with instructions to go have fun; the biggest problem we had over the vacation was not spending any more time outside most days than it took to walk to the car.
To be honest, that's a considerable overstatement. In actual fact we took two hikes—or at vigorous walks in the woods—between Christmas and New Years, which is probably more than lots of other people managed. But it did feel generally that our life was very sedentary and inside-oriented. Which is probably fine for midwinter, especially midwinter without snow. Now that the sun is on its way back, though, it was just wonderful to see the boys spend a half-hour exploring in the woods across the street.
The cleaning work went fine too, at least the cleaning work we did together. Sent up to spend some time trying to clear out the "office" (a space that all four Archibald males share culpability for destroying) they allegedly worked hard for an hour, though I couldn't really see a tremendous amount of difference. They did find many previously missing lego pieces—from out of the big box of legos in that room, natch—so I suppose that counts for something. Not much to say about shopping, except that we hit all our marks for time, even with a tight schedule, and didn't forget anything. And the reading together was of course lovely.
Tomorrow is another day, and I don't have the schedule planned yet. That's another thing I'm meant to be doing with these precious moments after the sweet darlings are all abed (Leah is away at a meeting). Resolving is stressful!