But I have time to...

After the last post, I don't want anyone stressing out about calling me on the telephone to ask if I can watch their kids or make a dinner for someone else!  We are all busy.  We are all in some sort of different stage from another or the same stage as someone else.  I usually receive several comments about my blog, but they are usually verbal or in private e-mail.  The last posting surprised me, in a way I hadn't expected.  So many people commented on how they feel the same way as I'd written and/or that they were overwhelmed.  (All verbal and private comments were exactly the same as the comments left on this blog after the last post.)  I was just thinking that most people would get a good relate-able laugh.

So, I've given some thought to the word "overwhelmed."  For me, I wouldn't have applied that word to my life unless I was just one step shy of a nervous break-down.  I don't know if this is experience, my personality, or another word called "denial."

Being overwhelmed is another way of saying that one is "stressed."  Don't we all have some amount of stress in our lives?  It's okay ot own up to something that we all have!

Have you ever read the quote on my sidebar?  Here it is:

"I don't want to drive up to the pearly gates in a shiny sports car, wearing beautifully tailored clothes, my hair expertly coiffed, and with long, perfectly manicured fingernails. I want to drive up in a station wagon that has mud on the wheels from taking kids to scout camp. I want to be there with grass stains on my shoes from mowing Sister Scheneck's lawn. I want to be there with a smudge of peanut butter on my shirt from making sandwiches for a sick neighbor's children. I want to be there with a little dirt under my fingernails from helping to weed someone's garden. I want to be there with children's sticky kisses on my cheeks and tears of a friend on my shoulder. I want the Lord to know that I was really here and that I really lived."

-Sister Marjorie Pay Hinckley

It's all about balance.  I love that quote, but talking about balance, I did take time to have my nails done a couple of weeks ago (and it is still making me feel good).  I did find a beach towel five minutes before the bus came.  I did finish one book and put away another that I haven't been able to finish in exactly 23 months.  I put frozen waffles in the toaster for dinner last night, but I did also get out a pan and make scrambled eggs to go with them.
 
I do have time to:

• Make a fun St. Patrick's Day preschool treat (it's Parker's turn this month on that day)

• Drop everything and "get out of town" (isn't 1/2 our blog about that?!)
• Type a chore list that had been hand-written, revised (scratched over), and crumpled a few times over the course over the past year
• Take dinner to someone even with an hour's notice.  I have a "Meatball Soup" recipe in which all ingredients are frozen or canned.  I keep a few on hand at all times.
• Write another blog entry and call it "Perspectives and Blessings"  (stay tuned!)