Distractions

I need to clean the house and organize things and pack for our end-of-this-week trip to Mexico, but there is nothing like a deadline looming to make me procrastinate. Why IS that? Suddenly, I feel that I have to do insane things like make a huge dinner - only 3 days before our huge Thanksgiving dinner - and invite 3 moms (including me) and 11 kids (including mine) over to play tomorrow. The hen and her two chicks suddenly need to be with the other chickens instead of separate as they have been for two weeks, and I absolutely must reorganize the garage today. Why do I feel the need to procrastinate on what's necessary? Am I half INSANE?!?

I am writing this to inspire me to get up and get working on my chores. Or should I write? Both chores and writing must be top priorities. I will always have this struggle unless I make a writing schedule and a chore schedule and work in the boundaries of them, not allowing one to muddle the other. Also, there needs to be a God-time schedule, and a homeschooling schedule, and a sleeping schedule. Ah! The problem is -- I don't like schedules! I like to be free with each day, with nothing scheduled and time to use freely.

When I do make a schedule finally, something breaks it up until I give it up. My writing time schedule this evening (it's now evening as I write this paragraph) has been broken into fragments by Alyssa Belle, our 1-1/2 year old, who decided she absolutely could not bear to sleep alone in her crib as she has done for countless nights before this one. After a couple of hours of crying, she is now asleep next to my right arm, looking like the sweetest baby on Earth who would never cause her parents even a bit of worry.

Is it the devil who causes the distractions when we are doing something that we know to be from God? Or is it simply the rhythms of daily life? I wonder what you think about that. Post your comments.