Where oh where does the time go?

Where does my time go??

At the end of the day when my to do list still has ten items left without a line through them, I constantly try to justify why I didn't have time to do everything. The list usually makes me feel guilty because I still didn't write thank you notes from Christmas, haven't emailed my mom for a week, and still haven't started reorganizing Asher's closet.

For my own sanity and because I just like to do research, I decided to start a log recording my activity every 10 minutes. This is my fourth day of analyzing how I spend my time and I'm actually not too surprised at my findings.

1. I've confirmed that I do take a lot of mini-breaks to check email, read blog posts, and check for new Facebook friends.

2. After I put Asher to sleep at night, around 8:00, my energy to even record what I'm doing next is zapped.

3. When Asher is awake, I have a hard time recording what I am doing because it switches minute by minute from eating breakfast to getting dressed to eat more breakfast to go potty to gather water cup for school to write check for school to clean up breakfast... Doing something for more than 10 minutes only happens when we are out of the house or Asher is "sleeping."

I'm not exactly sure what I'll do with the findings of my little research project. But it does make me more anxious to live outside of time. I forget where, but I recently read thoughts from C.S. Lewis about time. His basic idea is that we were created to live outside of time.which is why its so hard for us to grasp the passing of it.

We are eternal beings and it is not natural for us to be confined by time. He suggests this is why time never feels right to us. We are either saying Where did the time go? or When will this season of life finally be over? Time rarely seems to be ticking by just as it should be. It's always too fast or too slow.

Asher is obsessed with clocks and time, but he always wants to judge the passing of time by the clock on his tool set which never moves without human intervention. He promises me he will come get dressed when the clock on his tools gets to the four or maybe the eleventeen.

If only all clocks could tick-tock just as we dictate.

Sweet Reward!

We have been working on potty training and without going into the stinky details, Asher reached a major goal last night! As a reward, he got to eat the marshmallow penguin sucker we've been looking at for two weeks. What a morning to remember! Yes, this picture looks super blurry. I'll put the blame on too much sugar before breakfast. The sweetness in this special penguin took effect quickly and Asher had trouble standing still even for a quick picture.

Facebook Excitement

In December, my sister finally convinced me to join Facebook. I had previously dragged my feet because I was convinced it would join Google Reader, finding coupons for free things, and strawberry fruitbars as one of my obsessions. I'd have to ask Walter to find out if it should be added to the other must have things in my life, but I will admit that I checked it last night before going to bed at 10:30 and then when I got up this morning, just to make sure I didn't miss out on someone's exciting life happenings during the hours that I slept.

It hasn't amazed me so much that I can now read about what the friends who I keep in regular contact with are doing every hour. That's cool too.

But it is amazing that within minutes of finding old high school friend's names listed I can become connected with them and learn all about their lives. The faces of cousins who I see in person a couple of times a year are now displayed on my computer screen everyday! Suddenly I've learned the answers to my questions of "whatever happened to...." I wonder if she is married, if she has kids, does she travel the world? Now I know!

It's even more amazing to think about how my college student brother uses FB compared to how I do. Last week, he told me how mom wrote an embarrassing "non facebook" type post on his wall. I had to admit I almost embarrassed him with the same type of message (it was a mushy one with the word "love" in it).

So if Sam uses FB completely differently than I do, how much more will Asher's life be different as a result of using it!? Always being connected with any friend he has ever met will keep him from ever needing to think that thought of, "I wonder what happened to..." He will always know.

This is where I will reveal how my amazement has maybe gone too far.

I can't get it out of mind of how I feel like I've been given a tiny glimpse of Heaven. Not so much because I'm now connected to my best friend from grade school (which is really cool), but because the separation from friends and family which is often so painful is lessened knowing I can stay connected and instantly reconnect with anyone. Goodbyes are so painful and I hate them with a passion. Never having to say goodbye is an aspect of Heaven I can't wait to experience.

While people still move in a Facebook age, and there's nothing like having a cup of coffee with a friend face to face, I now find myself even more in touch with people who I am no longer close to geographically because I can see what they're doing on a daily and sometimes hourly basis.

OK. I've thought about this analogy between FB and Heaven for several weeks now so even though its a huge stretch, at least maybe now I can get over it and think about a different part of Heaven I am looking forward to (like maybe temperatures above 10 degrees and not being tied to a house with a 2 1/2 year old for days on end).

Guitar Stage

It wasn't a suprise to anyone, least of all Asher that he got a guitar for Christmas. Almost two weeks later, he is still obsessed with "rockin and rollin." Neither Walter or I are big performers so we have been surprised at how our little boy runs around the house dancing in true Elvis fashion while playing his guitar. Really, he didn't learn it from us!

We took this picture of our rock star son from the nose bleed section on the other side of the bed. Even as his parents, these were the best seats we were able to get from the scalper. The concert was a rockin' good time - you'll notice the "guitar stand" got knocked over with all of the dancing around. But here our son is slowing things down for the night by playing a more mellow song . This was Asher's debut performance on the new BBR (Big Boy Room) guitar stage. Celebrity sightings included Elmo, Pucca the Penguin, Albert the Alligator, and many many more.