Weak week

A while back, Jill and I stopped hosting our Monday night prayer group, which had been a Tuesday night prayer group, and then became a Thursday night prayer group when Adam started it back up a month or so ago. We stopped because we were getting seriously stretched on having time off. And now that it's back, as much as we love it, time's getting crunched again. I don't know if we'd feel the same way if we were watching Lost with everyone on Thursdays. I think we would. Besides, I'm really getting into the 1gb 720p versions I can download on Fridays. Mmm, resolution.

Mondays are our free day now. Unless there's a surprise birthday party or something.

Tuesdays I run the small group for the Jr. high guys at church, and then I write with Amanda.

Wednesday, I play board games with Dave Weatherford at Borders in Olathe. It used to be Scrabble, but it's more Three-Dragon Ante and Ticket to Ride these days.

Thursday is Conversations. We pray and eat sandwiches and take communion.

Friday is Friday. Now and then, we get that free, but the people who don't have anything going during the week like to plan things to do. And I like to do them.

Second Saturdays, we have the service project at church. I work one of the others every month. That leaves two Saturdays a month open during the day, and usually one of those at least is taken up by an all-day thing. Then, at 6:00 we have group at our house.

Sundays, I help with the youth at church at 11, have Jacob's Well Institute book study at 3:30, Church at 5:30, and then we usually eat together afterwards.

Amanda and I are trying to finish a draft of our book as soon as we can, so we're gettign together every night we can. I'm trying to get my own book writing going every morning.

The only thing I can see to cut, we already cut, and got brought back by popular demand.

Jill says we should try to convince everyone to do what we do for Conversations on Saturday night. I like this idea, but I also think Bible study is beneficial. Maybe prayer is more so. I dunno.

Brett asked me the other day if I was fine with not having free time. At the time, I said, I thought so because I have this job where I can do as I please most of the day. I've been playing a lot of Awesome Awesome Ball Game the last couple days. And finally organized a bunch of things how I liked them in an RSS aggregator, which makes keeping up on blog updates a lot easier than clicking bookmarks every ten minutes. But after I had that conversation with Brett, I think the weariness of it all started to set in.

I don't live in my house much. I mean, I attend plenty of events there. But as far as actually spending time in it as a resident? Not much. Sort of a waste of a house if you ask me. At least I'm not teaching and trying to do all this stuff at the same time. I think I'd pass out after week one.

And that's part of the conundrum. I'd like a job where I can feel meaningful, and do engaging work. But how can I do that, and keep up the after-work busy-ness I'm so deeply embroiled in now? Then add in kids at some point in the future. Kinda gotta be around them, too.

This is part of why I'm waking up early to write. Nothing like residuals to make your day job less necessary. Get a couple 'o books on the market, and I could cut back to a part-time thingy, I'd bet, and still be able to maintain my level of activity.

People ask me why I don't watch movies or add any more TV shows to my stable. Besides the influence of the heroin-like nature of books on my experience of story that I discussed last week, it's time. I'm all full, thanks.