You're Gonna Miss This

Trace Adkins didn't win Celebrity Apprentice, but he gets my vote for understanding what it takes to be a great parent! (at least in this song)

Lately I've been really thinking about distractions. I found that I've filled my life up with so many distractions that some of the more important things get put on the back burner. With Jason in the MBA program, I've had to pick up several of his responsibilities and I realize now how much I've taken that for granted.

With these new responsibilities, I've felt completely overwhelmed and find that I'm focusing on the wrong things. I'm completely missing out on really cherishing everyday moments with my boys.

I've done a lot of thinking about how I want to run my life and how on earth to get everything done. {{if that's even possible}} One thing kept coming to me - "I can't do everything on this list alone and I can't do everything on this list every week."

Over the past couple months, I've changed my thinking and it's worked for me. Now, I'm not pretending to have all the answers (any actually). I just thought I'd share what I've been mulling over inside my head.

Here goes: I no longer see multi-tasking as doing several things at once - now I look at it as doing one thing that accomplishes many goals. ;) I've also had to change some traditional thinking into "what would really work for me".

For example, since Jason's in school Monday nights - I've changed family home evening to Sunday mornings (we have church at 2:00pm). I've also changed family home evening to scouting stuff. Right now for Scouts we're focusing on the Faith in God award. It's been so wonderful for Davis to prepare a lesson on faithful historical figures, Joseph Smith, and prayer. Those family home evenings accomplished 3 goals - 1) family time 2) Scout merit badge 3)Faith in God award. {{yippee!}}

Even if the scouting badge is only the dessert part, it accomplished something that otherwise wouldn't have gotten done. For instance, one day we had a regular lesson but we roasted smores outside on the grill to get his outdoor cooking merit badge.

I've also changed the boys chore chart to reflect the household responsibilities I have a hard time with. Such as clearing the table and unloading the dishwasher. This way they are really helping me out instead of just doing a chore because they need to learn responsibility.

Anyone going green will hate me for this, but I've also taken a Mavens tip and started using paper bowls for cereal. We go through tons of bowls and it's been adding a lot of stress to my life when the boys are constantly asking me to wash a bowl. Problem solved.

I know this is a lot of random information, but basically what I did was sit down and think of the area's in my life that are causing me extra stress. Little things that would make my quality of life better. Then I made a list of all the basic things I wanted to do (like Scouts and board games) with my boys that in a perfect world I would happily do.

This is what I've come up with and it's been really working out well. I know that these years with the boys are tough, but I don't want to look back and think, "Boy, did I miss out on that."

What "multi-tasking" things do you do at home?