For years my motto was, You can do anything for twenty minutes.
Some of my kids, I am sure, were sick of hearing it. But, I lived by it.
I never sat for more than twenty minutes.
I did dishes, laundry, gardening, grocery shopping, runs,
bike rides, all in twenty-minute cycles, sometimes as many as three cycles.
Projects like cleaning the basement- two times a day for twenty minutes.
If there were two of us working, I would comment on the twenty minutes times two effect.
When our children were still living at home, and we were all working in the gardens,
I would shout out, Twenty minutes times seven – that’s a lot of work!
We dressed in bizarre outfits of mismatched hats and gloves
for our twenty-minute walk before lunch.
I affectionately called this our Babushka walk, after the Polish matrons,
who dressed in similar fashion in one of our favorite read-aloud books.
Twenty minutes walking in the snow will be fun.
Ten minutes out ten, minutes back, piece of cake, I would cheer.
I don’t cheer any one on about time anymore. Even so, I am
still very aware of the seconds and minutes. I’ll be there in twelve minutes,
I’ll call you back in six minutes, are common things for me to say.
It was when I switched watches, that I ended up with a 00:21:01 on my timer.
So I have changed it up a bit…
I use that extra minute and one second, to get a good start.
