Speaking of time....

Having gone over many - but not all - of the 'musts' for each day yesterday, I'm moving on to what TIME of day you're supposed do to it all.

Morning must do's
Gotta eat breakfast by 8 am for longevity. Gotta meditate before eating. Gotta exercise before eating, because doing an of 'em on a full stomach is miserable, and you gotta do exercising in the morning. Gotta do yoga before meditating (all yoga starts with hatha yogo and ends with kundalini yoga, ya know. Trust 'them', 'they' say so). Gotta exercise before showering, of course.

Gotta leave for work early enough to get to work on time. How about setting up the slow cooker so much of dinner is ready when you get home? How about putting bread in the oven, and maybe even remembering to take it out. And DO preheat the oven so the bread dough doesn't burn when you put it in....

How that works out
So - up at 5:30? Stagger to washroom for a few minutes. Do half an hour of yoga. Meditate for 20 minutes. It's now 6:30. Wake the kids, start them on their day. Do aerobics. Do weights routine. Check up on kids. It's 7:30. Shower, dress - oh, crap, it's 8, and you've not made or eaten breakfast, or made lunches. Get up at 5 am ....

The Night Before The Morning After
To have gotten the 8 hours of sleep you 'must' get, you had to be asleep by 9 the night before.
Now, you got home no earlier than 5:30, assuming no major traffic problems and only a 30 minute commute. The kids magically transported themselves home from after school care, so you didn't have to pick them up, and also magically get home the same time you do.

I love magic.

You didn't have time to put food in the slow cooker, but DID remember to defrost a chicken. Season it, put it in oven for an hour. Scrub and add some potatoes to the oven, with a skewer thru' them so they cook faster. Grab a bag of green beans from the freezer, put them in pot on stove - you'll start that when the chicken's about done. Make salads. While you do this, the kids are talking to you about the slings and arrows of their day, if you're lucky. Once the chicken is in the oven, you can see what homework they have (maybe checking against a school web site that lists the homework - my child with ADD never managed to write down assignments).
Since the kid use the kitchen table for homework, they can't really start it before dinner is done.

You slip in 20 minutes of meditation now, right?

Meditation over, turn the beans on and take the chicken out of the oven to rest. When beans are done, serve dinner.

It's 7:15 when dinner is over. Put away leftovers. Do dishes. Supervise the start of homework.

It's 7:30 - 90 minutes before you need to be asleep. Sweep kitchen. Iron/prep clothes for tomorrow. Do the other 30 minutes of aerobics.

45 minutes left 'till you need to be asleep. Pay the bills, read the paper. Supervise putting away homework in backpacks and kids getting ready for bed. Go to bed yourself. Day is done.

Did we leave anything out?
Like, for instance, talking to a non-work related adult (friend, family member)? Any evening activities, like soccer or religious ed, or tutoring? How about the real time it takes to commute if you use public transportation? You didn't grind grain into flour for bread (so much cheaper and fresher!) let alone make the bread. I guess you went thru' the mail when you paid the bills. Hey, you didn't read the kids a story at bedtime! You didn't scoop the litter box, either, or take out garbage.

Are we having fun yet? Oh - fun isn't a 'must do', apparently. OTOH, you're supposed to have regular sex, but how do you fit THAT in, all puns intended?

Feeling guilty yet?
Truth - unless you don't have to work full time you can't do all you 'must' do. We do what we can. We serve convenience foods - carry out on way to little league game, eaten in car - so the kid can get to the game and we all eat something. Because we weigh all the 'musts' and decide that having our child play a sport is more important than the home-cooked food at every meal. We gain weight, because we are not getting the amount of exercise it takes to burn off calories we don't burn at our sedentary jobs. Etc.

That, darlings, is life. Real life. Screw the 'shoulds'. Screw the 'musts'.

Catch you later!

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