18 hours....

I remember hearing a speaker at stake conference once talk about the pioneers and how those who pulled handcarts were limited to 18 pounds of personal belongings on the trip. He went on to explain that our trial is not a limitation of personal belongings but a limitation of time. If you take out 6 hours for sleep (which is pretty close to what we all get) we are limited to 18 hours in the day. I thought this was a fabulous parallel and it stuck.
Yesterday, a day off of work for me, was filled to the brim with things that HAD to get done. I had letters and packages to address and mail, copies to make, a little shopping to do, baking to be done, laundry, dishes, etc, etc, etc. There was no downtime. As I was bouncing from one thing to the next, I kept finding more and more things that I NEEDED to add to my list. It was exhausting. Poor Reed, got shuffled from one person to another all day long. Although much of my list was accomplished during his naps, I could see in his eyes a little look of "its my turn, Mommy". But the list prevailed. I'm embarrissed to admit that he spent the rest of the evening with Ella. She was so good to him, playing with him, getting him ready for bed and laying down with him to watch movies. I stopped long enough to lay down with him until he fell asleep and then I was at it again.
When my alarm sounded early this morning to get me up for work, I thought I was going to die. I am beyond exhausted, my legs sore. But the only thing I can think of is, not that I got a big chunk of stuff off my list, but that I had a whole day off of work and only spent about a cumulative hour with Reed. And the lesson from the talk so long ago came back to me.
So back to my original 18 pounds/hours. The pioneers had a limited 18 pounds. You better believe those 18 pounds were filled with the weight of very important things both spiritual and temporal. And here I was with my limited 18 hours that was filled with such silly, unimportant things that just HAD to be done. So, today, while I still have things on my list and will never have enough hours in my day, I think I will take some time and actually dedicate it to the more important things. No, not even the "more important things" but the most important things. Our (my) time should be as precious as those pounds were to the pioneers.