Saturday Roundup: Time, mindful living, procrastination

It's Saturday, which means I'm supposed to be whipping through my house, straightening up, cracking the whip and working on some projects, getting the kids to clean rooms and so on.  But I woke with either a massive overload of allergies or a new head cold, so I'm procrastinating a bit.

This morning I'm moving slowly.  I'm thinking about how to slow things down, in general.  Because I live in a hectic house.  THE hectic house, one might fairly say.  With two graduations and one confirmation zipping toward us at a hundred miles an hour (next three weeks, all three, whew), the notion of time and how it compresses and opens up is on my mind.  I drive it away, often literally.  Too often, in this house, it gets compressed until it is gobbled up and then: gone.

So today I am thinking about how to slow it down.  Not that I can of course, I know.  But I can make it more peaceful, I can look at it more mindfully.  Which makes us all LIVE it more, and more kindly.  Which we really need to do, right now.  

My second son is graduating  high school and heading to college. I've been here, done this.  I know the drill: the assemblies, the tear jerker slide shows, the award nights, the Baccalaureate Mass, the caps, the gowns, the diplomas and cheers.  It's so easy to get caught up in all those "to do's."  In a way, it's good to get caught up in it all so you don't start leaking, misting up when  you catch him smiling that smile with a silly joke.  Now and then, it's the same smile he had when he was six.  And it catches your breath.  My breath.  And makes a lump in  my throat.  And it hits me.  He's done.  He's done already.  Golly that went fast.

So I want to savor this a time a bit.  This is now rarefied a bit.  Because it's a count down now, for real.  But the trick is: it is with all of them.  I just forget that in the compressed file of time that counts for our standard issue days around  here.  My first daughter is graduating eighth grade and heading to high school.  I don't want to busy that away either.  Because those four years will fly in a flash, more so as she is programmed much like me: be busy, always doing, go go go.

{See, she is already hobnobbing with the prez, I haven't even done that yet...}

So, as I procrastinate from chores a bit this morning, I have been dipping into this site, with this mom of many who gets it.  She understands how to savor, how to try to build kindness and mindfullness.
We need some more of that around here, so I guess I'll go make my house more of a home today, and less of a way station (an easy trap to fall into when you have a large busy family).

Don't blink.  Open your eyes, take a deep breath.  

Look.  See your home, your family.  

Here. Now.  

Today, I will too.