Redeem the Time (Today)

   Last week or so I wrote for Edie my thoughts on time management, just my overall approach to making life count for what you want it to count for. Pardon all of those prepositions. Today I am thinking more in terms of right now, today, Tuesday, just these next eighteen hours or so. Since as all the poets tell us... all we really have is the present moment, it's good once in a while to focus on that.

   Since last week's grief, which kept us not just home but in our cave, Handsome and I have also taken a few days to be really sick. Like... running fevers and sleeping for a thousand hours at a time sick. So work here at the farm has been whittled down to the bare necessities. I am not quite where I should be with the marathon training schedule, nor am I completely caught on on ironing or animal habitat cleaning or even some semblance of order in the kitchen pantry. It's one of those weeks when I feel pretty good just having the shopping and laundry done and the floors swept.

   But today is a good day. I can feel it in my bones. After such an outpouring of love and support from all of you and our family and friends, Handsome and I already feel the sadness lifting. The happy memory making is right around the corner! So no more tears.

   And the groundhog's springtime promises are coming true too! Oklahoma is collecting one spring storm warning after another, and the days are so nice I have not used our house heater since early Sunday. Windows open. It's my favorite.

   With so much catching up to do, I am seeing my time in small increments right now. How can I redeem this little golden chunk of minutes? What results can I squeeze out of this half hour, this jackpot of freedom which in more leisurely weeks might seem like nothing?

   As with any resource, there is a great blessing to being limited. The less you have something (for me, this week, it's time), the more valuable it is. And the smarter you hopefully are in spending it. I am thoroughly enjoying the challenge of capturing pockets of time and finding out what they're worth. Redeeming the hours and the minutes for groomed horses, accomplished writing goals, pressed laundry, shiny rooms, and clean gardens. Yesterday was a great start! And with its momentum I feel like today will be even better. Our errands for the farm are done for at least a week, so any time I can keep to myself will be spent on this castle and its grounds and citizens.

   Do you do this? Do you ever reduce your biggest goals and values down to how they translate to just one day? I believe that if our foundations and pillars are properly set, then our energy will work for us day by day. Late last night I read this in the Dietrich Bonhoeffer biography currently being devoured by our book club:

"Under the right blessing, life becomes healthy, secure, expectant, active, precisely because it is lived out of the source of life, strength, joy, activity... If human beings have passed on to loved ones and to many the blessing they have themselves received, then they have surely fulfilled the most important thing in life; then they have surely themselves become persons happy in God and have made others happy in God."

   Expectant and active. I just love that. I love the entire passage. And I am so grateful to those of you who constantly share your joy and love, your blessings and wisdom. When it springs from the same source, it binds us all together.

   Thanks again for your generous love, everyone. Daphne's memory post will be up later this week. And may your Tuesday absolutely glitter with new life and satisfying work!

   Take today as it stands and wring out of it everything you want. Rest tonight.

"Anyone can carry his burden however hard, until nightfall.
Anyone can do his work, however hard, for one day.
Anyone can live sweetly, patiently, lovingly, purely, 
   till the sun goes down.
And this is all life really means."
~Robert Louis Stevenson
xoxoxo