the best kind of busy

i have known the worst kind of busy...in fact, i know it all too well. the kind of busy that creeps up on me...the kind that steals the joy out of life...the kind that makes me look back on the day with regret because i missed it. i was un-present. i was distracted.

this past week, i made conscious efforts to war against the busy. i embraced the good busy...the kind that keeps kids entranced in a world of play and encourages them to explore. entertain. be present.

don't get me wrong. i still scurry around. a one woman ball of frazzled at times. the blog world doesn't show that part. my frazzle-ocity doesn't quite make the blog-worthy cut...but believe me, it's there. i'm pretty darn good at frazzeled. i've nearly mastered it. so i'm looking onward to un-frazzeled. maybe someday i'll achieve it.

in my quest for un-frazzled...in the midst of the lifelong search for balance, i breathed.
and forced myself to forget, for a moment, the mounting things on my to-do list.
but it's not easy. some of the to-do items are actually important things...like homestudy update paperwork, and I-800A forms and fundraiser details and orders i need to respond to and my car registrations that is 4 months expired - yikes! not to mention daily things like meal planning and homeschool curriculum and laundry and getting the oil changed in my car (again 4 months overdue), my packing list for china (yes i've started making my list...it's 3 pages long...still in editing :), etc.

but, are any of them really more important than the two little ones in front of me??? does it really matter what my ever long list says? i need to choose what's in front of me more often and put the list aside more often.

i believe there are plenty of times that we just plain need to get stuff done to help our homes to run smoothly, make a meal for a friend who had a baby, clean up a recent craft disaster, or just plain sit in silence for a few moments, etc.
there are times that i turn "cat in the hat" on the tube, and my kids vedge. i scurry. counting how many more minuets the cat in the hat knows a lot about that and how much more scurry i can squeeze in. how many loads of laundry. how much of dinner can i prep. how many forms can i fill out. how many times i can run up and down and all around...but never really getting things done.

but when it becomes the norm...the scurry and the frazzled...things fall apart quickly.
balance goes missing.

last week, i planned ahead. something i've been planning on doing...it's been on my to-do list :) and finally found precidence over all of the other things.

so i'm sharing a few of the good busy things that we've done. google and i found these easy, cheap DIY projects.  there are a bunch more...maybe next week the blog will make a to-do list appearance and i will get to literarilly breathe for a few fleeting moments.

let's try it together. embrace the good busy. get a little messy. have a broom and dust pan nearby :) and put the cellphones down. build something tall. glue on googlie eyes. and make stuff up using the stuff we already have :)

i feel less frazzled already.