Time Management

Listen, I haven´t written in forever and it´s not like I haven´t experienced anything memorable worth writing about.

Just yesterday I had to do a number one behind my car, in broad daylight, in the Trader Joe´s parking lot.

I had been out all day – first to a charity event for Bobby´s Brigade. Bobby is my patient and he has a very traditional southern Dad and a also a gorgeous southern grandmother who told me that her name, which is Rita Redmond, could be remembered by RR or ¨Railroad.” So whenever I ran into her I called her Railroad Rita Redmond and she and I both got a kick out of that.

The family all had on yellow shirts with a Bobby´s Brigade logo and the CHP was there in their gorgeous uniforms celebrating Bobby´s charity. The uniforms are impressive when you aren´t worried about getting a ticket. The CHP was in a good mood but if they had checked my registration that might have changed. I am currently driving my son´s old Suburu and it needs a smog and new registration now that it´s back on the road. That´s on the schedule for next week.

Bobby´s Brigade makes Teddy Bear gift packs to give to children who find themselves by the side of the road and frightened. The packages have a coloring book and crayons and a Teddy Bear and a special note. I helped to color in the notes. In fact many of the adults were doing the coloring and it was the kids who were running around saying ¨faster¨ and assembling the kits. The kids were taskmasters and over 1200 kits were assembled.

I had planned on making a cameo but it was so much fun that I stayed for the whole thing and won the raffle (I always win raffles) and walked off with a 100 dollar pair of Tom Ford sunglasses which was perfect because I bought 40 tickets for a hundred dollars.

Win-win!!

Then I visited my mom and Colin on a whim and next I did a newborn house call and by the time I left Trader Joe´s with my shopping, I really had to GO. Suddenly all the coffee and iced tea needed out and by suddenly I mean one minute I was unloading groceries and the next I had to cross my legs and pray. Usually you just wait out the urge for a minute or so then get to a bathroom lickity-split but I couldn´t hold back the flood waters. I tried VERY hard but knew I could not make it half across the store to the bathroom with any kind of natural gait. AND, if I hopped holding my crotch I decided that would probably gather more attention than if I ducked behind my car.

So I did it right there in broad daylight behind my son´s 1995 Suburu Impreza that I had fixed to run so I could drive it while I wait the two weeks to six months it´s going to take to get a new catalytic converter. Oh right – mine was stolen from my Prius a couple of weeks ago along with several others on my block. Then just for fun, when I went to rent a car I discovered that the insurance agent at Farmer´s dropped my rental car coverage (and isn´t taking responsibility for the error) – so I am driving an antique clunker that smells of mold but runs great.

So the upshot is I was peeing behind a junky Suburu for what seemed like a good half hour and no one noticed. But it did occur to me that with material this good, I need to get back to blogging. Especially since this comes on the tail of me having a number two in Briones last week when I miscalculated things and set off for a hike carrying a load. OMG I can´t believe I just typed that.

Getting old is a lot about this sort of thing, so bring it. I am not afraid of my ones and my twos.

What I AM currently concerned about is finding time to do all I want and need to do while simultaneously working in enough down time that I don´t burn out and have to take to my bed.

I have two speeds – on and off – and I am trying to work in speeds like ¨slower but still productive¨ and ¨chill and relaxing but not horizontal.¨

Timer went off so I need to change the laundry, do some dishes and do a session with the fiddle. Be back soon.

I wrote this last weekend and never got back to finishing the post. I had a Sunday at home and wanted to blog, do laundry, work on some music, read and straighten up the house.

So I set a timer. Every time I switched out the laundry I moved to another item on my list – and by doing this I managed to avoid cleaning all day and my habit of never getting to the music and other fun things I always want to do but rarely seem to find time for.

It worked pretty well but I had to accept that though everything got some attention, nothing got done, exactly.

Let´s face it – our time on earth is brief. You get to a point where if there´s something you want to make happen, you´d best make it happen soon. Chop chop the clock is ticking.

So the only pearl here is this: it´s fine to go down a cleaning rabbit hole and important to do laundry but don´t put off all the other stuff…work it in and don´t wait for the sudden gift of enough time.

I´m going to end this post. It´s not really finished but I need to take my own advice and let it be good enough so I can get to the next activity. The next activity is feed all the animals and then get some shopping done for Mother´s Day brunch….but I will also play my violin and sing and stretch my hamstrings and read a bit and hang out with family and make some attempt to spend the minutes and hours and days on all the things that matter to me the most without losing myself in the grind and forgetting the things that should really be top priority.

Hint: a perfect home and a floor you can eat off may have to make room for other things.

Here´s to other things!