Keeping My Balance

I am having a really hard time keeping all of the demands of my life in balance right now. It's amazing how it all piles up and how one thing impacts another. I've always liked to keep busy, but it's beyond that now and I need to figure out what needs to go.

I'm trying to look at things through the lens of my vocations as wife and mother and evaluate what supports those and what detracts from them. Homeschooling my kids supports them, but I'm not sure that the level of my involvement in the homeschool community does. (So maybe I need to reevaluate the time I'm spending on that.)

I have a business that often gets neglected and pushed aside, but it, too, is important because the income serves our family and also allows us to give more generously to our church and community. I am fortunate that it is very flexible and very forgiving of my busy-ness elsewhere, but my husband and I both agree that I need to put more time into it. But from where will the time come?

It can't come from cleaning my house, 'cause it's not getting done!

Taking ballroom dance lessons with my husband seems like it should be something expendable, but it is probably one of the best things that has ever happened to our marriage. As for my other hobbies--scrapbooking, genealogy--I spend less than two hours a month on those when I average it out. So those aren't the problem.

I think I know where the problem is, but it's the hardest for me to cure. I volunteer too much. I haven't gotten to the critical point with this for a long time because we've moved so often, but now that we've been here four years I've had plenty of time to find things to do. And they're all worthwhile. But added together they often take as much time in a week as a full time job.

So I need to decide what to weed out, but I'm not sure where to start.