No matter who we are or where will we live, we all have at least two things in common – we all have 24 hours in a day and at some point, one of those days will be our last.
I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately, as I read news online and see how many people’s lives are cut short, whether it be through illness or a tragic event. With social media, we are privy to other people’s personal lives now more than ever. We experience their joys, sorrows and disappointments, as well as their vacations and celebrations.
Some people appear to be very productive – publishing books, advocating for different causes or volunteering – and others appear to spend more time commenting or arguing about different issues. Many people post snapshots of their daily lives – pictures of their children, a beautiful sunset or gatherings with friends, all those things that make life special.
How we spend our time
For most people in a free society, the decision how to spend our 24 hours each day is up to us. Some of those hours go toward refreshing your body, aka sleeping, and then we use our waking hours for work, chores, meals (preparing and eating), shopping, playing with the kids, reading the news, reading a book, exercising, taking classes, attending community events, socializing with friends, folding the laundry, checking social media accounts, organizing the closet, driving, playing guitar, writing a song, thinking about what to do with the kids over the summer, blogging, etc.
You can’t possibly fit everything into one day. So one day the floor goes unswept or the laundry remains unfolded. Another day the forms that you needed to fill out for that thing at school get forgotten again. You don’t exercise. Again. The evite that you read while in line at the grocery store gets unresponded to for a week because you needed to check with your husband first to make sure he can watch the other two boys while you take the third to the birthday party and the invitation gets buried in your inbox.
Although I intended to update this blog more regularly, I needed to shift my priorities last month. I took a class through the Freelance Writer’s Den that focused on different ways to market your freelance work. I realized I’m trying to do to many things at once and then feeling overwhelmed when I can’t successfully do it all. The class helped me narrow things down a bit and I’m looking forward to trying some new things in March.
In February, in addition to my part-time work with a PR/media company, I wrote a few articles, the most recently about the amazing work teens are doing as they advocate for safety in their schools. I wrote songs. My husband started a new job in the opposite direction of the boys’ schools so now I’m doing a lot more driving.
This past week, I read this quote from author JK Rowling (author of the “Harry Potter” series) that resonated with me:
“People very often say to me, ‘How did you do it, how did you raise a baby and write a book?’ And the answer is–I didn’t do housework for four years. I am not superwoman. And, um, living in squalor, that was the answer.”
(Note to my mother-in-law: Don’t worry, I’m not saying that we are going to live in squalor so I can write.)
As we go into the third month of 2018, may we all remember to use the 24 hours that we have each day in the best way we can for ourselves, our families and our communities.
‘Every day is a holiday’
Our family is still doing our “Every Day is a Holiday” campaign – where we mark some kind of holiday each day – because it’s been a fun family project. Here’s a recap of this past week:
Tortillas, strawberries and pistachios
Sometimes celebrating holidays is all about planning ahead with the shopping list. I was successful for National Tortilla Chip Day (Feb. 24), National Pistachio Day (Feb. 26) and National Strawberry Day (Feb. 27). Although we didn’t do any cooking or baking with those ingredients, we did eat some in celebration. Unfortunately I forgot about the National Chocolate Covered Nut Day (Feb. 25) and didn’t buy any of those treats. But we still did celebrate a holiday on Feb. 25 because we went to our synagogue’s Purim carnival. (Even though Purim didn’t start until Feb. 28, we still counted it as a celebration). We’ve been attending Purim carnivals at this synagogue since my oldest was a toddler and there was something pretty cool to see our kids running around with some of their friends that they’ve known most of their life.
Purim and peanut butter
We took full advantage of Purim, actually, because on Feb. 28 (the evening of Purim), we celebrated with a dinner and service at our synagogue and then on March 1 there were school celebrations and a festive meal and a friend’s house. March 1 is also National Peanut Butter Lovers Day, but only one of our sons is a huge fan of peanut butter so he had a peanut butter burrito.
Happy birthday, Dr. Seuss
On Dr. Seuss’s birthday, March 2, we celebrated National Read Across America Day with reading Dr. Seuss books.
How will you spend the next 24 hours?
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A Medley of Moments 