A few weeks ago I began a training program called the Couch to 5K. I'm sure you've heard of it....it basically takes you from sitting on the couch to being able to run a 5K in just 8 weeks. You do run/walk intervals 3 times a week (approximately 30 minutes per day) and gradually work up to being able to run for longer periods of time. The bonus is that some of my Mops friends are also training for various races and logging their runs online, so I try to do the same so we can encourage each other.
Fast forward to this morning. The house is a mess, the kids haven't brushed their teeth in a couple days because we ran out of toothpaste, I have 7 loads of laundry to do, and I have no idea what we are eating for dinner after baseball practices tonight. Oh, and don't get me started on all the red and pink Valentine school stuff that is literally scattered throughout my house from yesterday. I was lamenting to Adam about all of it, saying "Why is it so hard to just stay on top of the BASICS? I feel like I am always trying to play catch-up". And he said something genius. He told me we can't keep up with the basics because we've added some extra non-basics to our lives lately. And it was like a light bulb went off in my head. During the past couple weeks we have added 5 weekly baseball practices to our schedule. 3 of those are on weeknights right before dinner. I have also started up at Mops again, which puts me out of the house for an entire morning every week. Add in my 3 30-minute trainings per week, and that's a lot of time spent on "non-basics". It is all really great stuff, but it pulls me away from spending time on the boring basics like dishes, laundry, meal-planning, and shopping for toothpaste.
Just yesterday at Mops the speaker did a demonstration. She had 8 moms stand in a circle, tossing bean bags back and forth. One bean bag represented spending time with our kids. Another was quality time with the husband. Another was cooking and grocery shopping, one was volunteering/working. Another was exercising, church/Bible reading, house cleaning, etc. The Moms were not supposed to drop any of the bean bags. As you can imagine, a few started to drop as the speaker added more and more bean bags to the mix.
Unfortunately, something's got to give when we add extras to our schedule. And with 4 little kids, sometimes the "basics" can fill up 95% of our time. I know I've blogged about this before, but clearly I haven't figured it out because it is an ongoing struggle. I am often left with this lingering feeling of "if only I get up earlier, try a little harder, stay up later, get more organized....".
How do you make time for the "extras" without sacrificing the "basics"?
Have you ever trained for a 5K?
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