One of the couples at church had a big party last night: combined birthdays and his retirement. I shared howdies with lots of people, but spent most of the time conversing with six nice nice couples. It was a really enjoyable time.
But one thing struck me yet again. What do I do with my time? A few people were chatting about skiing. Downhill or cross-country? Why one is better than the other. Then someone asked me, "Do you do cross-country?" No. "Oh, but you should. It's so beautiful. It's such good exercise. You'd love it." But WHEN?
After mulling that over for 12 hours, I whined at Gary about what I'm doing, and how I'm doing it wrong, how I must be wasting my time that I don't engage in hobbies and sports and those nice "family activities" that we should do with the kids. I recalled the jealousy I felt last summer when I'd be doing my paper route, and see all sorts of people out in their yards, grilling, drinking margueritas, socializing with their company. For the first time in four months, this week I got together with my friends for a few hours for the kids to play and the moms to talk.
I'd like to say that I'm busy homeschooling and spending all this quality time with my children, but the reality is that I don't spend as many hours on that as I ought. I wonder if I waste too much time on the computer, but it's usually done in 10-minute snatches while the bread is kneading or the meat is browning, so a lot of my computer time-wasting is slipped into small time-slots that would not be usable for a hobby or a sport.
Gary says that the things that gobble up my time are church and food. The friends who have more time for skiing and snowmobiling and baseball are (for the most part) friends who are willing to miss church on Sundays now and then, and who never come to midweek services or Bible class. As for food, I do spend hours daily on cooking from scratch. Gary reminds me that most of the people in America are willing to do take-out pizza, take-out Chinese, take-out Subways, and other fast food. As he talks to kids in his confirmation class, he finds that they don't often sit down for a family meal; food is just something to grab (from McDonalds or from the insta-food section of the grocery store) and eat "on the way" to wherever you're going.
So I guess my "hobbies" are making real dinners and going to church. Why am I unsatisfied with that, and want to be able to bowl and ski and sew and play music and all those other fun things?
Sunday, February 17, 2008
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Susan,
ReplyDeleteI understand what you mean. I too have wondered about my lack of "hobbies". I am starting to realize though that a hobby should be something that you enjoy and gives a creative outlet. Cooking can fit this bill quite easily. There can also be great joy in nurturing your loves ones with home cooked healthy meals. I am slowly seeing that the daily things we get to do as SAHMs (and pastor's wives) are what some people struggle to fit into their busy lives - cooking, attending church functions, studying home remedies, spending time their children, etc. As in all things, it is a give and take. Is skiing , etc worth more McDonalds and frozen pizza - only you can decide. You are an mentor to me in all that you do as a pastor's wife, mom, and homeschooler. --Michelle in NM
Well, gosh, Michelle, when you put it that bluntly (McDonalds-&-skiing versus homemade food) it really should be abundantly obvious to me which I value more! (Why can I be so dumb and jealous and want-want-want to have it ALL?)
ReplyDeleteSusan, I can so totally relate to this post. For years my husband has told me that I need to find a passion--meaning something that I do for myself just for the joy of it. But in the midst of all that life demands I had neither the time nor the energy for anything but what must be done to get through the day. As a family we also have always struggled with finding time for recreation--even something as minor as watching a 2-hour movie. So when we can't even find family time together how was I going to find time for myself? But in the last year I think the blogging has become that passion--that thing I do just for myself. And the nice thing about it, as you point out, is that you can do it whenever you can squeeze it in. There's not a designated time for a class or a meeting and no one else is depending on you to pull your weight and if you need to leave it for a while you can. And for me it feeds one of my passions, which is writing.
ReplyDeleteYou are not alone in your feelings on this topic. Thanks for voicing them!
Hi Susan,
ReplyDeleteI'm a new reader to your blog, and also a homeschool mom. I so appreciate you writing this post. It is refreshing to read about someone who is so honest about how they spend their time. We rarely go out to get here and I make most of our meals from scratch. It sometimes takes the whole day. In the last year or so I have trained my sons to do after meal clean up. This has given me a little bit of me time.
Thanks for the post,
Cynthia V
It is all about vocation, vocation, vocation.
ReplyDeleteWhen we are blessed with the Grace of God to understand or even to be convicted to remain within our vocation then we stop thinking about our hobbies and begin thinking about the needs of the family.
Love knows no hobby other than to give selflessly.
I don't know that these hobbies are necessarily outside of one's vocation. I mean, the family I was talking with yesterday goes cross-country skiing with the whole family together, as a way to spend time together, getting exercise, enjoying nature, talking with the other members of the family, and all sorts of other good things. The people I see enjoying dinner in the backyard with friends are not doing anything wrong; that too can be a good way to give selflessly to the neighbor. My struggle is wondering why they have time for those things and I don't. And I think it mostly comes down to food.
ReplyDeleteMichelle suggested that cooking can be a creative outlet, and I think it used to be for me. But it's not any more. (Not sure why.) So it's not cooking that consumes my time these days so much as it is nutrition and making sure that the bread is home-made from soaked grain, and that we have our kombucha, and that there are plenty of veggies and as many raw foods as we can fit in. I know it's a fine line to draw between cooking and nutrition, but it seems that my time is really wrapped up in making sure that the guys have real food to take with them for lunches when they go to work, and that there's a variety of veggies in the soup, and that we get different grains instead of just wheat. It's stuff like that that taxes my brain. And I think that's where I can get really jealous sometimes, knowing that other people can get by with eating a more typical diet and not have to suffer for it, and we have to go to these extreme measures just to stay healthy enough to be functional. Jealous jealous jealous.