Longing for Simpler Days

Do you ever find yourself at the end of the day Sunday wondering where your weekend went? Or worse? Going into the weekend feeling overwhelmed at all that has to take place during those two prescious days off?

My husband and I both work full time. And sometimes we can find outselves with a lot of stuff that needs doing on the weekends. I admit we don’t get enough chores done during the week. I always have aspirations to do more but my hobbies and pet projects usually get my attention instead – I opt for a workout instead of tidying my kitchen or blogging instead of vaccuuming.

But what happens, is we end up with the lion’s share of chores needing doing on the weekend. It sometimes feels like we don’t have much time for fun.

Now, part of our challenge is that mini-man still naps, so we have a 2 hour chunk during the middle of each day where we can’t plan on being anywhere. But we’re not very good at using that time wisely either. I don’t know… maybe we’re just lazy. I find the running around shopping and errands of a Saturday morning lead me to want to chill out during that coveted noon naptime rather than, say, scrub my toilet bowl.

To keep the quality in our lives, we try and do one fun thing as a family each weekend, if only for a couple of hours. Sometimes we’ll go swimming, or we’ll go to a park, or an indoor play area when the weather’s bad. There’s storytime at the local library, or even just playing a round of Wii Bowling. I think it’s more important to spend time together than it is that your home is just so.

Having my son in daycare every day gets me down sometimes. He’s there 9 hours each day Monday through Friday, and sadly, we couldn’t live in the community we do – where I grew up and grew to love – if I quit my job to stay home with him… or my husband did. But sometimes I long for a simpler life.

Just yesterday I found myself wanting to pack up and move.

In the meantime, however, I remind myself of how blessed I am to have a good job in this current world, to live in a beautiful community in a great city, to be happily married with a beautiful son… to have a loving and helpful extended family. And while I do find myself longing for simpler days, I still hold out hope that one day I’ll find that beautiful place of balance.

So Many Ideas; So Little Time

Photo: azrainman on Flickr

Photo: azrainman on Flickr

Here it is, Sunday evening once again. I find myself wondering if someone has managed to find a way to speed up the earth’s rotation because I’m quite certain I haven’t had a full two days since I switched from work mode to home mode.

Last week’s work week sped by like a bullet train and this weekend passed before my eyes like a parade. I wonder what it’ll feel like 30 years from now?! YIKES.

I find, more and more, the thoughts and plans and things I want to accomplish grow more and more, and yet the available hours of the day in which to accomplish them do not multiply at the same rate. Maybe I want too much. Maybe I strive too hard for things that don’t matter.

Do they matter? What matters? How do I tell the difference?

The Home Front

On Saturday we took mini-man downtown to his first IMAX movie – Wild Ocean 3D – and then to the Chinese New Year celebrations at the International Village and a stroll through Chinatown. Well, okay, the Chinatown part was more for my husband, who was stoked to take home a BBQ duck and assorted sauces for cheap; and the cultural experience of the Chinese New Year celebrations included mini-man enjoying the bouncy castle in the kids’ room, sponsored by the Vancouver Aquarium… But it was a fun family day.

Today was spent at church in the morning, where my pastor delivered quite the funny sermon – I thought maybe he was practicing for a stand-up routine… a bit like the Mars Hill Church guy for a bit. Very enjoyable. Then came grocery shopping, nap time and playing at Go Bananas. Following that brush with every biological organism known to man, mini-man and I returned home to where dinner and a game of Wii Bowling awaited us.

All in all a good weekend.

The problem is, I have so many more things I want to fit in to a weekend. I wanted to get some laundry done, shop for a couple of new tops, go for a run or take a yoga class and do my ironing.

I’m actually kind of grateful my husband isn’t working right now. At least he can take care of the house work during the work week so we can pack in the fun on weekends and I can attend to my various social media conversations, hobbies, blogs and business ideas in the evenings.

Here is just a short list of items on my spare-time agenda:

  • Blog my thoughts here so my head doesn’t explode
  • Spend more time reading my bible and praying
  • Write the songs God is laying on my heart
  • Renew my mortgage
  • Prepare my business plan for Intrinsic Influence
  • Blog some more for Urban Shore & build the community
  • Figure out how to customize CSS
  • Read more and engage with other bloggers
  • Update  Manding Jata to self-hosted WordPress
  • Run and snowboard more

The Work Front

On the eve of yet another work week, my head has already shifted to the days ahead…

There are also so many things I want to accomplish for Grouse Mountain before the Olympics come to Vancouver in 2010. It’s just a goal date I’ve picked to have finalized certain new programs, campaigns and communication methods/tools I want to implement, but it’s pretty ambitious for what I want to do:

  • Finalize our mobile website – m.grousemountain.com
  • Customize GrousePark Sessions as a self-hosted WordPress blog
  • Build a better corporate blog and engage more staff in social media
  • Completely re-build our e-commerce solution
  • Implement a CRM system to help people get the most value out of our products
  • Implement a loyalty program mountain-wide including F&B and retail

No small task eh? I know.

I also plan to continue pushing social media engagement as a valid business tool and would love the opportunity to start speaking on the topic at various industry events. I’m not in a hurry, though.

There are times I wish I could slow down the pace of thoughts. Perhaps I should re-listen to that sermon from this morning… Keeping It Simple, Pastor Owen Scott.