A quick succession of busy nothings

Between an ever-increasingly mobile one-year-old and a booming little business, I barely have time to breathe these days. I've just got to learn to paint faster, I guess. Because I don't think I can parent any faster, and I don't want to.

If only I could go back to my summers as a teenager, harvest all that wasted time, and bring it back to the present. There's just not enough time for all the things that I need and want to do.

I want to be a mom and a wife. Got that one down.

I want to be a painter and help to support my family financially. Check.

I want to go to church every week, read my scriptures and pray every day, go to the temple every month, and perform my calling. Check, check, check, and check (as far as I have a calling, which at this point is solely as a visiting teacher).

I want to cook healthy and delicious meals for my family. Eh, check sometimes.

I want to do my exercise video 4-5 days a week. This one is more for after pregnancy, though I've been doing it lately.

I want to first learn to be a clean and organized person, then maintain a clean and organized home. Not even close.

I want to get my illustration portfolio going, and have a good one up on an attractive website in about ten months or so. I do a little work on it every once in a while, but every spare second and creative thought is being funneled into Fine Doodles right now.

I want to write, and do that weekly short story blog. But this comes lower on the priority list than the illustration portfolio.

I want to actually use the sewing machine I got for my birthday to make a scripture case that finally fits all the things I need to bring to church, make nice things for my next home, make interesting toys for Elliot, etc. But this, too, is lower on the priority list than things that might actually make money for my family.

I want to read books again, make movies with Andy, write songs with Andy, learn HTML and CSS, play autoharp, play ukulele, play guitar, learn how to use my camera well, do claymation again, jump into some humanitarian work, and maybe take a class or two at a community college. Right now, the closest thing I have to expanding my mind is listening to sci-fi and science podcasts while I paint...which I actually really love. (Have you ever heard of spaghettification? It's when your body comes so close to a black hole feet-first that the gravity affecting your feet is much stronger than the gravity affecting your head, so your body stretches out like a noodle. It's a real thing, people.)

And on top of all this, I'm going to have a newborn in just over three months.

I think all I can do right now is parent, paint, and church, and do them with all my might. Unless somebody has a time-machine, a time-turner, or a few hundred thousand dollars they want to give me for keeps.