Where is Your Time Invested?

The older I get, the more intentional (thanks Christy for the word ) I become about where I invest my time and energies. Just staying on this planet takes more of it than I wish it did. Laundry. Cooking. Grocery shopping. Miscellaneous errands. (Notice I didn’t list cleaning, you already know I’m downright miserly about spending my time there!) Thankfully, I no longer have to share my valuable resources with an outside employer. I work for myself. (Can you hear me rejoicing?)

Now I chose to write and spin and weave and hug my sweet husband and crochet and knit and sometimes even build new structures for the railroad that operates in our basement. But I was in my sixth decade before I realized how important those investments are.

While we were visiting at Christmas with relatives on my husband’s side of the family, I discovered that one of our great nieces already knows how valuable her time is. She and her husband have four little girls from less than a year to almost eight. They are beautiful. Lined up on their family Christmas card picture in matching outfits they look like the perfect family. A picture that would be in the photographer’s front window.

On Christmas day I noticed their socks. I asked one of the older girls where she got such an unusual pair of socks. She said, “From the sock basket. We all do.” Sure enough two of her sisters sported colorful but different socks on each foot. I didn’t check the baby’s booties or mom and dad’s hosiery.

Their mother is wise beyond her years. She doesn’t invest her time matching socks. Instead she is home schooling her daughters and raising bright, well behaved youngsters who don’t have to be restricted to wearing perfectly matched socks. I guess if it begins to bother them they can match the pair they want wear that day for themselves.

What a liberating thing it would be if sock baskets were the norm. A place to relegate all the time consuming minutia that keeps you from the important things you want to do, people you want to hug, and the life you want to live.

What would you put in your Sock Basket?