By Tash Guthrie 
As I sit here in the morning sun with my Home Beautiful magazine and cup of tea, I take a deep breath and soak in the rays. What a beautiful day. I’d been waiting for this moment all week. Ding Ding Ding. Suddenly my peaceful morning is rudely interrupted by the sound of the washing machine. Time’s up! Already.
I amuse myself with the possibility of staying right where I am. That might be nice. But this got me thinking… Am I relaxing? Or am I being lazy? Could I stay right here and forget that the washing is ready to hang out and just keep reading? Could I truly relax? Probably not.
Nowadays I’m finding it harder and harder to know the difference between relaxing and being lazy. I work hard all week as a teacher, driving two hours a day and basically letting someone else raise my daughter four days a week, just so that we can afford to live in our little slice of country paradise. It wouldn’t matter where we lived or what we did, there are always things that need to be done. Up until recently I also had a home-based business and because I was busy, I was so organized! So organized in fact, that things got done consistently and it got done well. I had a routine that rocked and I enjoyed quite a beautiful balance between work and play. But since we sold the business I seem to have created enormous voids of time in my day and weekends.
These ‘voids of time’ have made me super lazy. Suddenly, there’s no urgency to get the bathroom cleaned, the washing hung out or the furniture dusted because there will always be ‘later’ and I’d rather just sit and relax. Heck, after teaching AND running a business after hours for five years I deserve to kick back a bit, right? Here’s the thing… The more I relax, the lazier I feel. Lazy for not having all of my jobs done before I relax and therefore guilty for not ‘deserving’ to relax. It’s a vicious cycle.
What I need is a new household routine. One that’s far more dare I say, ‘relaxed’ than the previous one and where all of the jobs are consistently getting done (but at a slower pace) and one that also gives me some clear, carved out time to relax and enjoy myself while I’m at home. I need to schedule some ‘me time’ into my routine so that I can sit back and truly enjoy what I’ve worked hard for. Some ‘me time’ that allows me to escape properly and truly relax, knowing that all of those jobs will still be there, waiting for me (at their scheduled time of course).
I’ll get right on to organizing that schedule. As soon as I’ve finished this cup of tea of course!
by Kelley Mack 
by Katie Revai LeFevre 
by Lindsay Davies 
by Brittany Moore 
by Anna Grace Marsala 
by Kimberly Keys 
by Valerie Goldstein 
