Seeds of Wisdom: "Words are, of course, the most powerful drug used by mankind." -- Rudyard Kipling
I need a day stretcher.
A few years ago some on line friends were talking about this product. It let you add hours to the day. Sounded wonderful. Unfortunately it doesn't exist.
Twenty-four hours is simply not enough - especially if you have as many interests as I do. Or children. Or a job. Or a husband. Or children, a job and a husband. Did I mention a house?
Work takes up seven hours of my day. I do get an hour for lunch, but there's not much you can squeeze into an hour. If you want to eat - forget it.
I like my job, but that time belongs to the company and not to me, so I can't pursue any of my other interests while I'm there. It also takes me an hour to get ready and then there's the 20 minute drive, both ways. And of course I never leave promptly at 5, so that leaves about 14 hours.
I love to sleep and I wish I could do more of it, but it seems so non-productive, so I get about 5 hours of it on any given week night - a bit more on the weekends.
Now we're down to 9 hours.
I've been trying to get back into the habit of exercising. I used to take a dance class and I belonged to a gym, but the dance teacher got another job and the gym went out of business. Time went by and I got out of the habit of exercising regularly. I've made a few abortive attempts, but something always seems to get in the way.
So now I bought a treadmill and I've been doing 20 minutes a day to work into it gradually. With stretches that takes up another half hour. We're down to 8.5.
I have some TV shows I like to watch. West Wing, Survivor, Farscape (when it's on), Sex and the City, The Sopranos (when it's on), The Great Race (new this week!), ER. These are my can't miss shows. There are a few others that I catch when I can. My husband likes most of them, so it's something we can do together. That's at least an hour out of most days, so that leaves 7.5
I usually read for at least a half hour - 7. I'm guessing I spend at least two to three hours doing miscellaneous chores, so that leaves only 4-5 hours to fit everything else in.
So what's the everything else?
Hockey (we have season tickets - 2-3 games a week during the season - 3 hours per game), Blogging/writing - can't live without it. Do most of it between 5 and 7:30. E-mail - gotta stay connected. Working on several of my personal web sites - love it, love it, love it. More reading. Taking photographs. Walking in the park. Graphics/art work. Playing with my cats. Travel - be it a trip to NYC or across the ocean.
How do I fit it all in? How do I fit in time to participate in our local Public Access TV group? I'm a camera person, producer, sometime editor and web designer
How do I find time to keep up with local politics? Trust me, your local governments need watching more than the central governments. Ours plans to add a mounted horse patrol to the tune of $75,000. Do we need this in a crowded suburb? Plastic palm trees were to be add to our town swimming pool. My tax dollars at work. Our school rating is slipping and many of our shopping districts are looking shabby, but we need horses and plastic palm trees.
Something's got to give. Usually it's housework. I hate it anyway. I'm allergic to dust, but I don't think dusting helps. It just moves the dust around; it never goes away. So I don't bother it. It doesn't bother me.
My cats think the dust bunnies are their playmates.
I can't have company, because my guests would stumble over the floor files (I've recently bought baskets to corral them somewhat) and my dining room table is home to two computers. There are two more - one in each corner. So I do save time by not entertaining. And you wonder why I have more friends on line than off. At least I don't have to worry about them dropping by for a cup of coffee.
So I need a day stretcher or I need to win the lottery so I can reclaim the 8 hours my company gets and I can hire a maid. The Big Game lottery is up to $30 million. I'm buying a ticket.
Posted by Cyberkat at March 7, 2002 8:01 AM | TrackBack