What Iguanas Can Teach Us About Time Management

 

I know I just shared this one yesterday, but it's genuinely my favorite now. Our big BIG iguana chased Stinky up a tree this week. I was standing in the picture window of the kitchen when I glimpsed Stinky up about twenty feet in the Carambola (Star Fruit) tree. The iguana ran him up the tree. I don't know if Stinky figured out yet that I have seen that five foot long beauty in the very tops of that tree. I had to come out and call Stinky. He did finally come down but cut a wide circle around this guy and every single time the iguana cut eyes at him Stinky went into a submissive cat posture. That unfurling of the flappy bits and spikes standing straight up is an example of male iguana dominance.

This has been the most incredible week in one way. Not one bit of asthma. I took only slight maintenance drugs for the first time in a year. I feel well.

I see this iguana quite a bit in our yard. He walks up to me now, very close, and has sat on the patio with Jim and I. I get to see him going about his daily business. He doesn't hurry, he does his own thing on his own schedule, no one elses. If he rounds the birds of paradise patch and I'm right there watering and trimming my orchids he bobs his head and passes on by.

I've been thinking about him, and how unruffled he seems to be about life's ups and down. Particularly on a week when no drugs to treat this or that were slowing me down or speeding me up. I've been busy. I made sauerkraut from the cabbages I grew in the garden. I replanted the garden this week. I washed all the guesthouse bedding. I did a shopping run to the bigger city. I did mountains of laundry. I cleaned out closets. I cleaned and reorganized the pantry. I did shoe repair. I washed all of the reusable shopping bags. I bought and mounted new curtain rods in the guesthouse and changed out the curtains to ones I like better. I cooked. I cleaned bathrooms. I mopped. I worked on drawing out some new quilt patterns. I reorganized and repacked my first responders first aid kit for the car, something very necessary here. I never want to come upon a terrible motorcycle car wreck and be begging for towels in English and Spanish again. We had our crazy waterfall adventure too.

Tomorrow I must tackle my sewing rooms many closets and reorganize them. It's time.

What I didn't get to do was watch longer live streams on those crazy new court documents spelling out the hacking attempts, death threats and other nonsense by Without a Moral Compass.

I missed the one by Charlotte early because one of my good friends called. She's had a time of it. Her marriage ended in Costa Rica because of domestic violence, and she's had to fight back hard to keep her children and life while running from her ex.

I missed the one by True Ball of Wax last night when she was interviewing Sue Elliott. My youngest daughter called and wanted to talk. She needed shoring up after finding out that the large piece of land and older home she was putting a contract together to buy had just been sniped by another buyer beating her to it. She was upset and disappointed.

Today it was my other daughter calling to touch base, cry on my shoulder, seeking to have momma tell her how awesome she is and her living arrangement remodel was going. She called just as I was sitting down to crochet and watch Emily D. Baker's reading of the new filings.

I always want to be here and present and listening fully when friends and family need to hear a friendly voice in tough times.  

But here's my question. How do people find the time to do it all? I don't have endless amounts of time, but I do what I must do to keep the household running smoothly, Jim happy and full and everything else. I cannot contemplate those who spend hours upon hours online daily. How do they manage it?

Me. I think I'm going to keep making like the iguana, doing what I must do in an unhurried fashion steadily without worrying about others time and tide.