Extreme Busyness to an Unnecessarily High Degree

The other day was typical in a day in the life of Rob and Rachel. At 5:30pm, Rachel calls me to explain that a realtor is showing our home in 90 minutes.

Now a couple of notes here: 1) I'm still at work in Seattle. 2) Rachel had just gotten home from a long day working in Seattle and had just picked up the kids in daycare. 3) We live 60 minutes from Seattle in Tacoma. 4) Our home is on the market and could be shown at a moments notice (it's been on the market for over a year).

Back to the story, I fly home and arrive 60 minutes later to see my lovely wife literally wiping down the counters with a whiny toddler in the other hand and an infant strapped to her chest in a baby bjorn. One part incredibly impressed, and another part a little bitter about life, I can't think of what else to say but, "wow, Rachel. Thanks for cleaning the house and watching two boys and starting to make the dinner that we now can't eat for another 1 1/2 hours and for doing it all after you worked for 9 hours and commuted for 2 hours."

We didn't think we would have our home on the market for over a year. We thought it would be a couple of months. So at the time we started looking for a church in the community we intended to move to. And we found a great church. In Bellevue. 60 minutes away. And we enjoy our small group that we attend, 45 minutes away. So that's commuting 5 days a week plus twice on Thursday and again on Sunday.

Even though Rachel and I work a mile away from each other in Seattle, we can't commute together because our daycare - like all others - has a 10 hour limit per day. So Rachel wakes up at 5:00am (I sleep in until 5:30) and she leaves the house at 6:20. I stay and take the kids at 7:30. Rachel returns to Tacoma in time to pick up the boys by 5:30, and I try to get back home by 6:30.

Rachel was just offered her third promotion at work (she declined the first two) and she is now a manager of accounting with people, project and budget responsibilities.

We would love to have time to do a hobby, jog or get more involved, but few social activities meet between 11:45 and 12:15 noon weekdays...

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