Update #2 -- Noticing time for ME

ME time view at the Dirt Bag Café

With home renos underway, my new job as "baking coordinator" at L'Arche Day Program, the greenhouse going full tilt and a number of other projects underway, it's been really challenging this month to find any ME time in this ME year. Even finding my way to my prayer chair is impossible this week as it's covered in painting cloths! And meditation while dog-walking doesn't seem to work. The birds' spring songs and mating celebrations are too distracting... or maybe they are my meditation! Oops, watch out for the puddles!

Even so, yesterday, while chauffeuring my daughter to an appointment, I had a lovely hour of ME time with a latte and some letter writing at the Dirt Bag Café. And wouldn't you know it, in the evening I ended up there a second time, listening to my kids perform at the Café's "Open Mic" evening.

Perhaps the thing about ME time isn't setting a time and place for it, but just recognizing it for what it is as it happens -- acknowledging a moment of happiness, peace or goodness in the moment. And if that's the case, life is full of ME time... the lunch I had with a friend, the light in the sky after last night's board meeting, seeing the sun on the trees when I got up this morning, and enjoying Shadow dog's perky little jog in the spring sunshine (finally!)

ME time can be seconds, minutes, or hours. The trick is to notice when it happens, and to live the moment!