Busyness

The busyness of being a wife, a mother and a full-time employee just might be getting to me.

As the girls get older, we all get busier.

Now that we've added soccer to our schedule, our week nights are busier than ever.

Mondays have me up at 5:15, showered and dressed by 6:00, both girls up and dressed by 6:15, Alyssa's lunch packed by 6:30, and the three of us on the road to my mom's by 6:45. Once there, Alyssa eats her cereal, I brush her hair and she's on the bus by 7:18. This gives me ten minutes to chat with my mom and let Olivia jump or dangle from me.

I get to work at 8:00 and leave at 4:30. Work has gotten busy enough that I rarely leave for lunch anymore, though I did today because I needed to go to the bank and make a student loan payment. Yes, I'm 40 years old and still paying off my student loan. It is what it is.

I race out the door at 4:30 on the dot, drive the twenty minutes to my mom's, yell at Alyssa to put on her gymnastics suit and remind Olivia to put on her pants. We leave by 5:15, drive back to town and Olivia and I sit in the waiting room for an hour while Alyssa attends her class.

Last night, we got home at 7:55. Just in time for Dancing with the Stars. Well, after I got both girls into their pajamas and gave them both a final snack for the night.

Tuesdays are a repeat of the above except we go twenty miles in the other direction, to soccer practice. And I pick up Alyssa's best friend. We were home 'early' tonight. It was only 7:00. Oh, and one other difference is that Olivia stays home with Tom. 40 degree weather is just not something I want to make her suffer through while we wait OUTSIDE during Alyssa's practice.

Wednesdays I usually work until 5:00 to make up for having to leave on time the rest of the week. I know. That makes no sense at all and yet...

Thursdays, I race home again, this time to pick up Olivia for her gynsastics class. Alyssa rides with S and her mom to soccer again.

Fridays? I'm just tired and ready for the weekend.

But this afternoon, while I stood to the side of the soccer field and shivered in the cold, I realized that I was being offered an opportunity to do something for myself. And I started walking. I was wearing my work shoes, though, so my feet hurt now. But I walked for 45 minutes, making circles around the playground adjacent to the soccer field. And while I'm defintely not the biggest fan of exercise of any kind, this felt so good.

I read an article today that said something about the key to weight loss and maintenance is exercise. And I thought, "Duh! We all know that. But who has time to exercise with everything else going on?"

Not me. Not really. I can't bring myself to get up earlier than I already do. And honestly, I don't enjoy most exercise. I just don't. It's boring, it's sweaty, I lose my breath. There are all kinds of excuses.

But I do know how good it is for all of us. I do, all physical evidence to the contrary.

So, as I was walking, I made a goal for myself. I'll walk during this hour each Tuesday. And someday, I might walk more often. But for now? One hour a week. That one hour when I don't have a child dangling from me. Or another child askingfor a snack or needing me to check her homework.

This one hour is for me, it will be my gift to myself. To my daughters. To my husband.

It's a small goal but it's more than I had yesterday. So there's that.