Me time

We are all in different points in our lives. Right now I am staying home with two small children. One of them can do very little on her own and the other wants to do very little on her own. I am always needed. It isn't like it was when I was nursing in the middle of the night and felt like 99.9% of my day was devoted to taking care of my kids. Now I have a little more time but there is so much to do. I listed many of these things just now and then deleted the list because so many of them are things I enjoy but they are also obligations. I honestly feel like I am running all day to get stuff done but at the end of the day you can't tell that I have done much.

Now I know not everyone is at the same point in their life. Some people work really long hours. Some are in school. But I know very few people who think there are enough hours in the day. So there are things on my obligation list, even though I enjoy many of them: spending time in God's word, exercising, spending quality time with my family, and even my small business is something I enjoy. But with all the obligations there is one thing that is easy to leave out. Me time. It can be put aside because other things are more important. But guess what happens if you don't have "me time"? Eating a brownie becomes "me time." Drinking an 700 calorie coffee drink in the car on the way to costco is "me time." How about something you actually enjoy to do that isn't food? Something that is almost like a delicacy. Something maybe you do on your vacations?

For me it is reading or writing. I LOVE to read but I have barely read at all since my children were born. For you it could be a thousand different things. And I am not talking about something you sort of like, like jogging. I do love jogging but I also know it is an obligation to exercise.

So why not set aside 20 minutes to an hour - for you? You are worth it. How might your whole day and attitude be different if instead of cleaning when the kids napped (or whenever you hour of downtime might be), you read a book, or scrapbooked, or played an online game, or did something else useless except for the fact that you enjoyed doing it!

So what would your me time be?