Pause

It's Wednesday morning --- which is quickly becoming my favorite time of the week. While most people's "Hump Day" is just something to get through, mine is something to savor - a chance to do those things that are hard to get done otherwise (laundry, catch-up on email, pick up the house a bit) - but mostly, it seems to be the one day of the week when I can pause for just a moment, and finish a thought or a note, and take a look at the weeks ahead and determine what I need to do to prepare for its arrival.

How is this possible? From a beautiful combination of Ben being in school, and me being home from work. My new job is very demanding, and it's hard to carve away time to keep it part-time --- a status I'm supposed to be able to enjoy until September. So I try to block of my calendar for Wednesdays (I'm successful maybe 3/4 weeks), and I drop off Ben at school in the morning --- and then get to savor five hours of time where I decide what to do. Not my deadlines at work. Not a demanding (although adorable) Toddler. Me.

And I try to take a few minutes on these Wednesday mornings to do something fun --- like post on my blog --- in the hopes that when I pick up Ben this afternoon, I will be refreshed and energized. Ready to tackle the challenge of balancing deadlines and demands during another round in the office while still trying to carve out time and energy to spend with Ben. And trying to also remember that I'm still a wife to my husband, and a friend to my friends, and a daughter/sister to my family. Sometimes it can just seem like so much, and I wonder if I'm simply being carried along by my life, or if I am in fact leading it.

But for today - for this morning, this WEDNESDAY morning, I get to pause.