HOW DO YOU FIND THE TIME?

It’s a question I’ve asked many times. I ask people who garden, people who decorate their homes, people who floss… How do you find the time?

It’s also the most frequent question I get about blogging. How do you find the time? The answer is simple.

You don’t.


Time does not spontaneously appear when you say the magic words.(Unless they happen to be “we-don’t-really-need-TSN-in-our-house”, because I’m sure my husband’s free time would grow exponentially at that point.)

Time is a limited resource, and often one that feels out of our control. I’ve always admired those buttoned up, disciplined souls who manage their time with military precision. I’m an orderly person, but trying to emulate them leaves me exhausted, cranky and desperately unhappy. Usually I find myself somewhere in the middle – enough routine to keep life moving, but margins for the unexpected (and the occasional hour of blissful uselessness).
Whether you wing it from one moment to the next, or plan your day down to the minute, we are all subject to the same limitations.

86,400 seconds

1,440 minutes

24 hours

Each day, everyday, it’s all we’ve got.

I’ve said it before and it bears repeating. In this day and age, we can do almost anything, but we can’t do everything!


When I choose to make something a priority, then I am going to have to sacrifice somewhere else. The older I get, the more comfortable I am with this necessity. No one has it all together – even if they look the part. Look at Martha Stewart. She has a large, talented staff and a bazillion dollars to help her get things done. But even she drops the occasional ball along the way. Her foray into white collar crime wasn’t terribly successful.
This is why my backyard looks like the set of Jurrasic Park. Who decided grass was the superior weed anyway? Dandelions are cheerful and prolific, plus my kids love them. This is also why I have boxes of pictures in the garage, not from our most recent move, but from the one before that nine years ago. I’m honestly working on the flossing thing. My brother-in-law is training to be a dentist and I don’t want him to know that I’ve had five cavities in the last year. Shhhhhh.


You don’t find time for the things that matter to you, you make it. In my busy life stage, this tends to be in bite-sized pieces scattered throughout the day. We pray in the van on the way to school. While driving, I’ve also found time to discuss important issues with my kids – like sex, work ethic, the value of money and whether American Idol is better with or without Simon Cowell. I talk on the phone while I fold laundry. I write my blog posts anytime, anywhere… there are notebooks all over my house, in my purse, in the car. I have written entire posts in blue crayon, because that was all I had at the time.

This is my very first blog post.
Written in my daughter's My Little Pony colouring book.

Right now:

Mount Clean Laundry is mocking me from atop my bed.

Life-Span in Human Development is taunting me from the kitchen table.

I can hear echoes of crucial sibling posturing in the hallway.

So here’s me, quite happily blogging away. THIS is how I find the time.

How do you find the time to do what matters to you? What are you willing to sacrifice?

CHRISTIE HOOS

So Here's Us

You Is Smart...You Is Kind...You Is Important

A couple of weeks ago I headed out to the movies to see "The Help" with a bunch of girlfriends.  I have anxiously been counting down the days until this film came out because I fell in love with the book a couple of years ago.  The book was a little hard to get into at first, but I fell in love with the characters, the time period, and the setting.

The movie lived up to my expectation and went beyond my dreams.  I do believe this was the first time that a book turned movie was, in my opinion, as good or maybe even a little bit better than the book.  My favorite line throughout the movie was when Aibileen, a maid, would get down on her knees and look the little girl she took care of in the eye and told her, "You is smart, you is kind, you is important."  This scene happened several times, and all were moving to me.  It moved me so much that it has stayed with me since the movie.

Fast forward to this week.  When I got in my car on Tuesday morning headed to work at 6 am, Pink's song, "Perfect" came on the radio.  For some reason, it brought tears to my eyes.  I thought about a conversation I had with a dear, dear friend about struggling in high school to fit in because of choices that we made or didn't make and how girls still struggle with finding positive groups of friends.  I began to think about the negative self-talk that I have been guilty of participating in on a regular basis.  The words that tell me that I'm not good enough, not pretty enough, not smart enough, not important enough.

In the midst of all this deep thinking, I had a glimpse of my two precious nieces sitting in high school thinking they were not enough, not valuable, not important.  It broke my heart into pieces.  If there is one thing I'd like to leave them it would be to know that you ARE enough.  You were created EXACTLY the way God wanted to be.  The perfect hair, eyes, shape, tastes, etc.  That you ARE valued and loved and significant.

Here are the lyrics:

Made a wrong turn
Once or twice
Dug my way out
Blood and fire
Bad decisions
That’s alright
Welcome to my silly life
Mistreated, misplaced, misunderstood
Miss “no way it’s all good”
It didn’t slow me down
Mistaken
Always second guessing
Underestimated
Look, I’m still around…

Pretty, pretty please
Don’t you ever, ever feel
Like your less than
Less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like your nothing
You are perfect to me

You’re so mean
When you talk
About yourself
You are wrong
Change the voices
In your head
Make them like you
Instead
So complicated
Look how big you’ll make it
Filled with so much hatred
Such a tired game
It’s enough
I’ve done all i can think of
Chased down all my demons
see you same

Pretty, pretty please
Don’t you ever, ever feel
Like your less than
Less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please
If you ever, ever feel
Like your nothing
You are perfect to me

The world stares while i swallow the fear
The only thing i should be drinking is an ice cold beer
So cool in lying and I tried tried
But we try too hard, it’s a waste of my time
Done looking for the critics, cuz they’re everywhere
They don’t like my genes, they don’t get my hair
String ourselves and we do it all the time
Why do we do that?
Why do I do that?
Why do I do that?

Yeah,
Ooh, oh, pretty pretty pretty,
Pretty pretty please don’t you ever ever feel
Like you’re less then, less than perfect
Pretty pretty please if you ever ever feel
Like you’re nothing you are perfect, to me
You’re perfect
You’re perfect
Pretty, pretty please don’t you ever ever feel like you’re less then, less than perfect
Pretty, pretty please if you ever ever feel like you’re nothing you are perfect to me.

Source: LYBIO.net

After processing all of this in my short drive, I made a change to my classroom because not only do I want my nieces to learn this important lesson, I want my students to know it too.  I want each child to know how valuable they are to me, to our classroom, and to our school.  So, I took the full length mirror in my classroom and I found a set of window markers.  I decided that when my students stand in front of the mirror they should see positive affirmations.  I wrote "You are..." at the top of the mirror and then wrote positive statements - smart, handsome, beautiful, valued, important, loved - all around the mirror.  

I have to say that sometimes, I find myself standing in that mirror reading the words that I've written out loud so I can hear them before my students arrive.  And today, when one of my students who needs more love than most came up to me and said, "Mrs. Looper...you is smart, you is kind, you is important," I melted.  Even big girls need to hear that some times.

Guest Post by SHASTA  LOOPER

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