The Busy Season

It seems, sometimes, that the months can fly by and feel like days. You look back and wonder where the time went, how you managed to neglect your diary, how your blog goes without updates, and you haven't bothered to answer those e mails from your mom. (I don't have that problem with my mom... I think if I somehow didn't assert my existence in the universe for more than three consecutive days, she'd inundate my phone with messages and eventually end up on my doorstep.) In our world, we moved, took a vacation, and started a new teaching semester all in the same breath. Looking at the calendar, I realise this was more than thirty days ago, not yesterday. It's a miracle some couples manage to find the time to talk, right?



My husband and I found an interesting solution to this problem that inevitably creeps up during the busier phases of our lives. We came across this Q&A book at the bookstore and bought a pair of them. Essentially, there's a different question every day that you answer, everything from philosophical questions (what's standing in your way?) to silly questions (do you need a cold shower?) to questions about what you ate for dinner (what was the last meal someone cooked for you?). The book allows you to record your answers over a period of five years (starting from any year-- you can fill in the year as you go), so in 2012, I can see what I wrote in 2011, or in 2015, I can see what I wrote in 2014, 2013, and 2012. I'm curious to see how my answers this year will be different next year.





My husband I keep them on our night tables, and as we're going to bed, we answer the day's question and talk about our answers. Sometimes we have about thirty seconds of sharing, sometimes the day's question actually gets us talking before we pass out.

A bigger project we've taken on is a sort of auto-biographical journal that prompts you to write down different memories and experiences, info about your family, quirks and quarks, and your philosophy on life... we're hoping to finish them before we're old, senile, and can't remember our own names. We thought it might be a nifty keepsake for our kids or our grandkids, who would never know us as young thirty-somethings, just wrinkly, doddering, doting grandparents. (What I'd really like is for my parents to fill them out, but I don't think that'll happen. They somehow manage to be two of the busiest people I know.) I'll try and find the links for you so you can check it out for yourself. It seems a little daunting, but again, it's been a project that has definitely stimulated some conversation between my hubby and me. It's amazing how much you don't know about someone, even if you've been with them a million years.