Interruptions or Opportunities?

I have a list of things to do about a mile long.  There are tomatoes sitting on my counter waiting to be made into sauce.  A morning preschool readiness program to prepare for the church.  Laundry sitting in piles.  And meat thawing for dinner.

I often measure my success by how many items I can check off my to-list. As I've mentioned before, this summer has been frustrating for me because most of my time is spent driving kids somewhere and I feel like I'm not accomplishing anything.

Yet, I am doing the things that really do matter in the long run. Housework, cooking, paperwork will always be there. My children will not. Working on my relationship with my husband and children should be one of the most important things in my life.

Obviously, we still do have to do those chore items or we'll be living in filth. But my point is that instead of getting frustrated with the interruptions, we should view them as opportunities to work on relationship.

I signed Emily up for sewing camp at a friend's church this week. Every day from 9-2, they are sewing quilts (both adults & teen girls) for the local pregnancy center. You pretty much can come and go at anytime between 9-2.

When I went to pick her up yesterday, my friend invited me to come and sew too. Now I have a thousand things here to do. I have laundry, cleaning, paperwork, etc.  So I really didn't want to commit and I do know, I wouldn't be able to spend every day for the rest of the week there. But then I was thinking, "This would be a wonderful opportunity to just spend some time with my daughter and work on relationship." So I will stay for a couple of the days.

I encourage you to take those interruptions and see how you can use them to strengthen your relationship with your family.  Today is Loving Our Children Tuesday at my friend, Kate's blog.