Another small victory in my struggle with Time (and how I feel there's not enough of it) Part II

Right. It's been a few days since I started this story. Here is Part I of this post.

So that morning, Tuesday it was, I had a haircut. And as part of an effort to be able to go to a wedding  and look nice, I had the woman who cuts my hair give me part two of a tutorial on how to do an updo, using the curlers I got for Christmas, hairspray, mousse, and bobby pins, none of which I have used for at least 20 years, if ever. So it was good, and I felt like I was working toward a goal, plus, I had a nice conversation with my haircutter, who is very different from me in a lot of ways (e.g., I have never in my life used hot curlers before), but I've been seeing her every few months for 3 years or so, and I feel like we are pals.

Then I did something that I am very proud of. Since I was already out, I had a long list of errands I could run: things that have been on the list for weeks that I could finally cross off, but weren't exactly urgent. So instead of doing the easiest ones, or the most fun ones, I looked at my list and thought about how much time I really had for errands if I wanted to be able to do my exercises and laundry and blog post and not be late for preschool pickup. I also thought about which things would actually improve my quality of life for the rest of the day or week or have long-term benefits if done sooner rather than later. Picking up the photos I ordered would be fun and easy, but might take a while, and could be done just as easily next week, while looking for a piece of 2-inch webbing to do my physical therapy exercises correctly would mean that I was able to start doing my exercises that morning. Picking up the base for the birdfeeder would mean getting to watch the birds out the kitchen window, but a quick trip to the grocery store would mean we had some staples we were running out of as well as something for dinner.

So I made my choices, and took the time to call around (even though I hate calling around) to figure out where I might find 2-inch webbing, and finally decided that the fabric store next to the grocery store that was on the way home would be my best chance, with an outdoor store across the parking lot as backup. Well. I went to the fabric store, asked at the front where to find the webbing, marched the the fabric counter, and found someone else who was buying some of the exact thing I needed! I chatted with her (which I really enjoyed) and then bought what I needed. I even thought to look for a coupon on my phone, and found one for 50% off! Then I looked at some craft things that I like that were on sale, but decided not to buy any. Lately, the thrill I get from deciding not to buy things is even bigger than the thrill I get from returning things I don't really need. Then I made a lightning-fast trip to the grocery, and made it home in time to exercise and write the first half of this blog post.

I felt really good about all these things. In the past, I would have been overly optimistic about how long things would take, and I would have tried to do all my errands, starting with the fun and easy ones rather than the important ones, and wouldn't have called around before shopping for the webbing, and probably wouldn't have found it or had time to exercise or blog.

So. When I stopped to put something in my kids' room on my way up to exercise, I saw the big basket of laundry to be put away. Normally, my mind would have immediately raced to my giant To Do list, and I would have had the world-falling-in-on-my-head feeling.

But this time I skipped that. I immediately thought of all the really valuable things I'd gotten done this morning, and actually felt really excited about the fact that I'd connected with people, gotten food to feed my family, enabled myself to effectively do my PT exercises, and learned how to put my hair up for dressy occasions, not to mention that I had been honest with myself about which errands could be put off and how much time I had this morning for errands. It felt like a big victory.