I'd Like to Have That One Back

That day that I watched about 5 hours of old friends episodes on DVD. Okay, there were about 6 or more of those days this summer. I'd like to have those ones back.

Also, that other day(s) when the only thing I did all night was watch HGTV. Hours of Spice up my Kitchen, Property Virgins, Moving Up, House Hunters...

Or the long hours upon hours spent at the beach doing nothing but playing volleyball and working on my tan. They were great ones, but yeah, most of those ones too.

Of course all the hours on facebook. I'd like to have those hours back, if you don't mind.

Oh, and the hours spent at happy hour after work. Right now, I'd like to reclaim a lot of those hours as well, thank you.

Right, and those Saturdays where I let my obsessive compulsive tendencies get the best of me and cleaned every inch and corner of my house for hours. Can I have those too?

I'm going to need as many hours and minutes as I can get over the next week and a half. I made a brilliant decision during registration back in May to take three independant study courses this summer. Sounded great at the time. Full load? No problem. Independant study? Piece of cake, what could be better. Work full time on top of it? Sure! I thought to my naive, glass is always half full, beginning of the summer self.

All of the hours I'd like to reclaim right now were, at the time (and even now when I step outside of my current to-do list), time well wasted. But inside of my to-do list is where I'm currently standing, and from here, I'm going to need to go ahead and take those hours back. The next nine days are going to actually need to be 36 hours long, thanks God. I appreciate your help on this one.

I was on top of so much of my reading this summer, for the most part. I read some great books, took some good notes, listened to a few lectures. I did enough to deceive myself into believing that come this time of the summer quarter, I'd be fiiiiiine. Oops.

I realized last Monday that I was looking at a total of five papers, each written on books I was relatively close to having completed reading, although one of those papers was to be fifteen pages long. Did I mention that that one was on a book I had, as of last Monday, yet to order on Amazon? Got right on that, almost done reading it now, actually. Perfect. Also on the to-do list are three two hour essay exams as well. I know, you're jealous. Thankfully I became a hermit last weekend and didn't leave the house Friday night but just sat and toiled like a good little grad student, left twice Saturday to get coffee, and once Sunday to say goodbye to my pastor who is moving to Oregon, and was able to complete three of the short papers and fully prepare for and take one essay exam. Yes, I would like a cookie and a gold star, thanks.

So that leaves me with nine days to finish reading three books, write a fifteen page paper, edit the last of the short papers, and sufficiently prepare for and complete two essay exams. Sounds manageable enough, for real. I can do that. Add into the equation though working 40 hour weeks, two of my favorite people in the world coming to visit this weekend, and a fabulous wedding celebration on Sunday celebrating two of my closest friends getting married to each other (what could be better?!) and we've got a bit of a time crunch situation on our hands.

So, even though wasting time well is one of my favorite things about the extra long summer days (and one of my spiritual gifts year round, I think), right now I'd like to have some of those hours that were so sweet in the moment back to use more productively.