How to Make Time

At the beginning of July, I looked at my calendar and counted 6 days of the entire month that I didn't have a scheduled activity outside of work. By the end of the month, it was probably more like 3, if that. I was also out of town for at least parts of 5 out of 6 weekends. I started to become a little worried about Dan coming home and having enough (if any) time to spend with him.

Then August rolls around, and to the best of my ability, I blocked off my calendar for two weeks during the Olympics. It didn't work out perfectly, but I spent significantly more time in my new apartment during those first 2 weeks than I did in the entire previous month. Even once I started spending time with people outside of office hours, my schedule was  a lot quieter than it had been for awhile. Dan and I had dinner together most nights, did errands together, spent time with our families, and enjoyed our first few weeks as a couple in the same city.

During this time, I decided that I got pretty bored in the evenings when I had nothing going on-especially those nights when I was home from work by 5 or 5:30 and had maybe worked out in the morning. Dan doesn't get home until at least 7, frequently after 7:30 and I rarely spend an hour making dinner or something like that during the week. Laura and I went on some walks trying to figure out what to do with our time/as an excuse to get out of our apartments while it's still nice out (its so nice to live only a 15 minute walk away!) We both wished we had hobbies of some sort. That's the reason I started blogging in the first place, and during the Olympics I starting working on this craft project for my brother than I originally began my senior year in high school and never finished. It wasn't enough to really hold my attention for long though.

Thankfully, September arrived, everyone came home from their end-of-summer vacations, and life picked up again. After a quiet Labor Day weekend where I miraculously had 4 hours on a Sunday afternoon to dedicate to getting Piper, life started getting busy again. Although I was desperately looking for more things to fill my 7 non-working hours every day, I am a little bit overwhelmed when I look at my calendar hanging in my cubicle and there's something written on nearly every day.

The past couple of weeks and the next few are filled with evening activities. Some of them are just briefly after work but many others will last into the evening. With Dan's 10:30/11pm bedtime (although he frequently passes out on the couch before this), we have pretty limited time together if I'm not home by the time he is. Thankfully long-distance prepared us for this and even if we only have 3 hours a day for 6 days of the week plus Sundays together, it's still better than what we've had for the majority of our relationship. We're also trying to work out strategies for Dan to move faster in the mornings (somehow I take 30 minutes to get ready and he takes an hour…) so hopefully if he can sleep in until 5:50/6 then he'll make it up until 11 without falling asleep. My first suggestion was not spending 15 minutes eating breakfast, his was to shower at night. He's remarkably slow at that too. 

This weekend is actually worse than most, he had a late soccer game last night and didn't get home until 11:30. Thankfully he didn't have to be at work until 1 today, but he also agreed to do a night flight with one of his students so he still isn't home. Normally we're able to spend Sundays together, but I decided to go to six flags with my family tomorrow and he opted out. Great way to prepare for my week of activities every evening! Doesn't look like things will slow down for either of us any time soon...but I'm grateful for every moment we spend together regardless of how few there seem to be. As we were falling asleep last night (neither of us passed out on the couch, even though I tried to and he yelled at me), I told him how sometimes I couldn't believe we actually made it. After so many years of struggling through the distance and thinking these days would never come, we're finally here!