The Urban Farmhouse: Smiting myself with a time management book

Thursday, February 28, 2008

Smiting myself with a time management book

I would love, really and truly love, to have a set schedule. I would. You know, get up, have a shower, breakfast, workout, start the laundry, all in a neat and tidy order, all by XXX o'clock a/pm. I'd love that.

It's just not going to happen.

Here's my average day. It goes one of two ways...

Version 1

Out of bed sometime between 11 am and 3 pm.
Meditate for however long it takes my brain to start functioning
Start the coffee
Boot the laptop and say hello to whoever I need to say hello to today
Drink coffee and knit

Anywhere from 1 to 4 hours after I wake up the hubbo wakes up as well. At that point

Have breakfast
Get back on the computer/out of the way until the hubbo goes to work
Grab a quick shower, if I'm going to
Start the laundry
Alternate doing chores with fooling around on the computer until people go to bed.
Knit and listen to my podcast collection/read for a while until the hubbo gets home
Go to bed 17-20 hours after I got up.

Version 2:

Out of bed sometime between 11 am and 3 pm.
Meditate for however long it takes my brain to start functioning
Start the coffee
Boot the laptop and say hello to whoever I need to say hello to today
Drink coffee and knit

Anywhere from 1 to 4 hours after I wake up the hubbo wakes up as well. At that point

Have breakfast
Grab a quick shower, if I'm going to
Start the laundry
Alternate watching movies/Stargate with fooling around on the computer until people go to bed.
Somewhere in there break for supper
Go to bed 17-20 hours after I got up.

And here is my ideal day, really

Out of bed sometime between 11 am and 3 pm.
Meditate for however long it takes my brain to start functioning
Start the coffee
Boot the laptop and say hello to whoever I need to say hello to today
Have breakfast
Grab a quick shower, if I'm going to
Start the laundry
Drink coffee and knit until it's time to go somewhere/the hubbo goes to work/it's time to meet someone on line
Alternate watching movies/Stargate/doing chores with fooling around on the computer until people go to bed.
Somewhere in there break for supper
Knit and listen to podcasts/read for a while
Go to bed 17-20 hours after I got up.

I see the problem, it's a painfully obvious problem. But 3 days out of the week breakfast is the only meal the hubbo and I have together and I am not going to give it up. Maybe 4 days. Or two days. And sometimes I don't know until a few hours before.

And I already know I don't sleep well without the hubbo, and his schedule is *very* random as to when he gets to sleep. So while I may never have things done by XXX a/pm, it would be nice to say "have them done XXX hours after I get up". So be able to say.

Get up = hour 0
Hour 1 = Start the coffee, boot the laptop
Hour 2 = Have breakfast
Hour 3 = Workout
Hour 3.30 = Have a shower
Hour 4 = Get dressed and start the laundry

And so on right down the line.

*sigh*

Well, now that I have the problem defined, how to find an answer.

No comments:

A few words on why...

...this blog exists.

I created this blog for three reasons

To show the world that someone can be a stay-at-home wife, mother and homeschooler and also be secular (even an atheist), feminist and liberal.
To provide a public place to recommend secular homemaking ideas, blogs and media I found on the web.
To be a place to vent about some of the topics, issues and comments I found while reading the Christian homemaker blogosphere.

One thing I have noticed, many if not the majority of Christian bloggers moderate their comments. That is, they delete the comments that disagree with their opinion or their faith. This is a place where I can record my comments to them and not have them deleted out of hand.

This is also a place where you can freely reply. I do not have my comments moderated, post as you will. Just remember, while my words reflect on me, yours reflect on you, and if you say they are based on a Christian perspective or the Christian faith, they may very well reflect on your religious community as well. Regardless, I will let them stand.

That said, please try to at least pick a name and not reply anonymously. If you cannot defend your opinions or your faith publicly, are either really that strong?

UPDATE: I will, however, remove obvious spam.

UPDATE #2: I will also remove anything that is solely bigoted garbage and nothing else.

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And one more point:

If the only source/authority you can use to back up your point is the bible, do not expect that argument to carry much weight with me. I do not believe the bible is the infallible word of god. And while I respect the teachings of Jesus Christ, I do not believe in or follow or respect the writings of the Old Testament or of Paul. I find both sources to be filled with hate, highly immoral and have little bearing on modern society. I believe human morality has moved past both.

So if your justification for your argument is either of those sources and nothing else, do not expect to sway my opinion. In fact, expect the opposite.

Just a few quotes

All will be well
And all will be well
And every kind of thing will be well.

- Julian of Norwich
1373

Live a good life. If there are gods and they are just, then they will not care how devout you have been, but will welcome you based on the virtues you have lived by. If there are gods, but unjust, then you should not want to worship them. If there are no gods, then you will be gone, but will have lived a noble life that will live on in the memories of your loved ones.

- Marcus Aurelius

True manliness differs also from the false in its attitude to woman. Its knightly feeling makes it wish to defend her rights, to maintain her claims, to be her protector and advocate. False manliness wishes to show its superiority by treating women as inferiors. It flatters them, but it does not respect them. It fears their competition on equal levels, and wishes to keep them confined, not within walls, as in the Mohammedan regions, but behind the more subtle barriers of opinion, prejudice, and supposed feminine aptitudes. True manliness holds out the hand to woman, and says, ” Do whatever you are able to do; whatever God meant you to do. Neither you nor I can tell what that is till all artificial barriers are removed, and you have full opportunity to try.”

- James Freeman Clarke, 1886

It's the awareness of the worth of the gentle arts that counts, the ability to see that the feminists of the 1970's (and '80's) were misguided when they thought that teaching young girls to devalue domesticity constituted progress.

- Jane Brocket, The Gentle Art of Domesticity, pg 11

Look through the Hubble telescope if you want to see something awe inspiring. Don't look through a blood-stained old myth.

- Christopher Hitchens, spoken in a debate with the Rev. Al Sharpton, at the New York Public Library, May 7, 2007

And why beholdest thou the mote that is in thy brother's eye, but considerest not the beam that is in thine own eye? Or how wilt thou say to thy brother, Let me pull out the mote out of thine eye; and, behold, a beam is in thine own eye? Thou hypocrite, first cast out the beam out of thine own eye; and then shalt thou see clearly to cast out the mote out of thy brother's eye."

- Matthew 7:3-5 KJV

You lot seem to specialize in missing the point. What you seem not to understand is that most of us on the left don’t give two tosses about where and when grown-ups touch genitals with other adults - it is holier-than-thou hypocrisies we are so allergic to.

- Someone calling himself John McKee

The bible did not arrive by fax from heaven.

- Canon Martyn Percy

Beware of false prophets, which come to you in sheep's clothing, but inwardly they are ravening wolves.

- Matthew 7:15

"I already knew Pastor Ledbetter’s position. He held that women’s duties consisted of covering their heads, their mouths, and their casserole dishes, and I’d done all three about as long as I wanted to.”

– from Miss Julia Speaks Her Mind by Ann B. Ross

The concept of a Hitler in heaven if he was saved, and a Ghandi in hell if he wasn't, is morally repugnant.

- Someone calling himself Taliesan

On Modesty....

Unto the pure all things are pure: but unto them that are defiled and unbelieving is nothing pure; but even their mind and conscience is defiled.

-Titus 1:15 (KJV)

I was just telling ____ you are the most absolutely, quintessentially Puritan woman I have *ever* met. In good ways. Strong, intelligent, having faith on your own terms and expressing it in your own ways, practical and pragmatic, unselfish, unfond of scenes or wild excesses, and for you house and farm is altar. And on a night like tonight when I'm all woogie brain it's especially awesome

.-K, and one of the best compliments I have ever received.

I like paying taxes. With them I buy civilization.

- Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes

"I prayed for twenty years but received no answer until I prayed with my legs."

- Frederick Douglas

We're not looking to build moral, successful children. We're looking to build Christians.

-Pastor Star R. Scott, Calvary Temple

If God is willing to prevent evil, but not able?
Then he is not omnipotent.
If he is able, but not willing?
Then he is malevolent.
If he is both able and willing?
Then whence cometh evil?
If he is neither able nor willing?
Then why call him God?

- Epicurus (33 A. D)

We (atheists) do think there have to be rules, a social contract, that helps tie together the diverse people of our culture and permits civilized interactions between us. The difference is that we believe those rules should be developed by humane principles that recognize the equality and interdependence of all people, rather than being rules contrived by priests to perpetuate their power by inventing arbitrary ultimatums from imaginary superbeings.

- P. Z. Meyers

The crust is delicious, but the cranberry tartlet is not as filling as I imagined it would be.

- Sarah Ban Brethnach on worshiping Homemaking Goddesses rather than creating your own home.

Stress comes from dissonance. When two things in your mind can’t be resolved and you start thinking you’re going to be stuck with the incongruity forever, you stress.

But, as much as our minds and our hearts encourage us to believe the fault goes to our will or our lack of industry — rather than our thinking and cognition — the true cure for stress is to cut the Gordian Knot. To change your mind about at least one thing you think you’re not allowed to change your mind about.

You alter the game when you re-write the rules.

- Merlin Mann on stress

I didn't spend all those years playing Dungeons and Dragons and not learn a little something about courage.

- Blane on the X-Files

If you accept yourself as you are, then you’re undermining the effort of those poor suckers who are trying to fit in.

- Kate Harding on Fat Acceptance (and what might go a long way toward explaining a lot.)