Overbooked!

As 2010 started, I picked up my new calendar and prepared it for the upcoming year. I opened it and admired the blank pages untouched by the pens to come. I flipped through the pages of January, February, March, etc. enjoying the open days of freedom. Almost from the point I hung the calendar on my refrigerator, the calendar started quickly getting inked up. Two day weekends full of four or five activities. We have weekday appointments that inadvertently overlap and have to be changed to occupy mornings and evenings of nonstop running around. The Wiener family is overbooked! We haven’t even started soccer, music classes and basketball games yet and we barely have time for a non-planned day! I long for the days spent relaxing on the couch that I hear about from friends. I yearn for an unscheduled day playing at the new indoor play area. I dream of a day spent following where the wind takes us. Yet weekend after weekend, weekday after weekday I’m a slave to the calendar. What gives? Are these choices that I’m making? Am I unable to say no to the variety of requests? Are these unavoidable obstacles? Taking a step back, I look at the array of obligations on our calendar. Family, friends, friends, family and family… Can someone look at time spent with friends and family as really an obligation? It would be nice to eliminate the various doctors’ appointments and weekly chaos. Once you get past all that, we are mostly overbooked because the people we love most either want to spend time with us or because they have something they want to celebrate with us. Can we really complain about that? A weekend of lazy couch days and playing at the variety of kid friendly locations sounds wonderful but at the cost of missing time with our loved ones? Are memories made relaxing on our couch or enjoying the people most important to you? As my new calendar gets inked up with more and more activities, I’m going to embrace that without those activities my life (like my calendar) would be blank. I want our friends and family in my life even if it means they fill up my weekends and my calendar 🙂