"That's what you've been doing with your free time"

In the spirit of full disclosure, I haven't been productive with my break so far.  I survived the semester and I have loafed since then.

Well, I haven't actually loafed around at all.  I have embarked on a craft project of near-epic proportions.  It takes up half my dining room table (but it's a tiny table, so it spills onto the piano).  I'm building snazzy paper baubles to decorate with, some for us, some as gifts, one as a memorial gift to a friend who was very close to our mutual friend who passed away this year.  The process has to this point been 3 days of getting set up to do the creative part of all this - I sliced and diced paper, hole punched stuff, made a heap of tiny glittery confetti, hacked things up and put stuff into organizers so the kid can help without dumping vast quantities of beads all over the house.

I've been meaning to do other things, but I got tunnel vision and with the varied parts, it's been quite the elaborate production.

I've also been thinking a lot about non-school things and while my head is sore in that "I've just studied for 16 hours for the third day and while I can tell you details about this drug/condition/treatment regime, I cannot tell you what I'd like for dinner, so just order take-out or whatever" sort of way.  Mostly I've been thinking about time and what we do with it and if it matters all that much what we do with it.  Today I was considering if ornament making is really a good use of our tiny evening time or if we should do something else.  The answer is clear: until I'm all done, the kid will participate.  She actually has quite an eye for designing these doodads.

Recently the spouse has been around the house an abnormal amount, but yesterday was a normal work day.  Today I got a "so THAT'S what you've been doing all day!" comment... which suggests to me that I've been "wasting" time.

I then thought some more about "you'll never get this time back" and how mad it makes me.  Picking out shiny pieces of paper and asking the kid to put them into a pattern, pick some beads, and then seeing that little smile when it's assembled and ready to hang up? Yep. I'd like more times like this.  Going from 95+% potty trained to less than 50% in one day (and for 2 subsequent days)? No thanks, I'll skip that time.

Yep, maybe the dishes and research project and studying for next semester are more important than crafts.  Maybe making cookies and getting them shipped in a timely manner is more important that crafts too.  Maybe that nap I'm not taking is more important.  But it's my time and I'm going to use it in healing ways right now.  My time will dwindle very soon when the semester starts and while we're very busy over the spouse's vacation time around the holidays (and be non-existent when Little Monster gets here).  It's soothing for me to make all this stuff and the kid likes it and so does the spouse (even with the hints that I've gone off the deep end).  The dishes will keep.  My free time will not.