Thursday Thirteen: Things I would do if I had more time.

I wish I had more time. First I would sleep, but that's a given. Since Max arrived with us almost 5 years ago now I feel as though I have not had a full nights sleep. There may have been one or two ( I did go to BC every few weeks for school last fall and I am pretty sure I slept those nights :) but overall the sleep in the past five years has been sporadic at best.  For every one good night of sleep there are a dozen bad nights, for instance last night the boys were BOTH awake until 3 am - playing and causing a ruckus. Wait... this isn't a blog about sleep. So, taking sleep as a "given" here are the thirteen things I would do if I had more time...

1. I would quilt. I have always wanted to do it. I have patterns even, I have just never started, I think I would love it. I'd like to try it out anyway.

2. Write in my journal. I used to write faithfully every single day for many years and recently I have stopped. I wish I had more time now to do it because I feel like I am missing out on recording some amazing things about parenting and our boys and I find a certain clarity comes to me when I write daily.

3. Write letters and send cards and packages to people just for fun. There is nothing more exciting than getting a hand written letter or gift in the mail. I would love to be the originator of those cool things in the lives of others.

4. Learn to play the piano. I did take piano lessons when I was a kid, but I had no idea how valuable the skill would be and I have not ha a piano in my home for many, many years. I would love to get a piano and learn "again" how to play.

5. Cross stitch. This is something I used to spend a lot of time doing when I didn't have children. I had a bad habit of leaving needles stuck in arms of chairs where I was working which would absolutely NOT work with the current family dynamic. All I need is a needle sticking out of a great dane or a 2 year old - AI AI AI AI Ai. But the reason I stopped doing it was because I had no time. I have all my stuff packed away nicely and I would love to bring it out and get back to it. Unfortunately I think the boys might be a bit too fascinated with all the thread and they may still be too young to keep out of it. I think I could manage to keep my needles safely - but I wonder if my spouse might have a different idea about this.

6. Meditate. When I was in university I took a class on the Psychology of Dreams. Part of that class required daily meditation, journal writing and dream logging. I loved the class and I loved what meditation did for me each day. I wish I had a class to be accountable to in order to start it up again. I haven't found the motivation to do this one on my own.

7. Take more photos.

8. Travel with my spouse. This one ranks highly enough for me to contemplate putting it on my list of things to do this year. We travel alone together RARELY and I would love to do it. When we were first together we took some fun road trips and had a great time and made great memories. I fear our lives have been reduced to sleep deprived parenting. Don't get me wrong. I LOVE my family and I ADORE my sons. I just think my marriage needs a little TLC right now.

9. Prune. For as much as I like pruning can you believe that last year I don't think I did ANY?! How did that happen? I would like to spend a lot of time landscaping the yard but whenever I start I feel like it needs a huge investment of money and I get discouraged. Our yard (6 acres) could be a most excellent space, I just have to get over the "overwhelmingness" of it and put some hard physical work into it and I am sure some small improvement could be made. Maybe this is another one for my list of things to ACTUALLY do and not just to hope for.

10. Cook. I love to cook and rarely do it. I blame it on lack of time, but I wonder if there is some other reason.

11. Woodworking. Build a bookcase, refinish a dresser, make a sign for our back door, these are all things I would love to do and they continually fall off the to-do list because other, more urgent things come up. Pre-children I was very crafty. I think I am missing a bit of my pre-parent self this week!

12. Learn Photoshop. I actually signed up for a photoshop class for a PD day at work last year and went to the session. unfortunately the presentation did not "work" and the presenter was very frustrated and was not able to teach us anything. He did recommend two books to read and i wrote them both down, but I think I would do better in a hands on kind of learning workshop than I would do teaching myself the program. Although, maybe I'll just check out the books from the library as a start and see where it gets me. I am not incapable of teaching myself new things, I just like learning from others.

13. Be a better person. Is it crazy to think that more time would make me a better person?

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