Overdue

I got an oil change this morning. The vehicle I drive has a sensor that tells you when it is time for an oil change... oil life 15%, oil life 5%, oil life -27...that's how low it got. The plan was to bring the car to the local Honda dealership and get all of the recommended maintenance done, but since a free half day to sit at the car place is not really an option at this time of year, and the flashing -27 was stressing me out, I took a short-cut. I pulled into the local quick lube place and was out of there in 7 minutes. I am a big fan of short-cuts. Sometimes that's the only way that things can get done. Lest you think I am a complete loser driving around in a timebomb, the oil life was 5% yesterday morning, the usual daily in town driving brought it down to 0 and then the negative numbers started racking up really fast -3, -4, -10, -11, which brought me to -27 by the time I pulled into the lube place. On my way there I first had to drop off the overdue car payment (not too overdue, don't worry) (and it's not for the vehicle with the -27 oil life so don't worry about that either), and then I hit the library where I paid for my overdue fines with can goods for the needy (a December tradition around here). Are you starting to see a trend here? Jake is currently in the driveway cutting his fingernails, an activity that was way overdue. Jonathan and Madi need to finish up their online PE class this week so we stop getting the automated emails and phone calls about them needing to finish the semester (the actual teacher things they are amazing and is totally fine with their timetable, but the automated overdue notices stress me out like the flashing -27). It is a well known theme among homeschooling moms (and probably all moms) that you can't do everything all the time. Either the house is clean and the kids aren't getting taught, or the meals are super healthy and from scratch and the laundry is overflowing, or you try to some extent to keep up with all of these things and car maintenance, bills, and fingernails are neglected. There are only so many hours in a day, no one can do it all. Every minute of a mom's life is met with decisions, do I vacuum or read the history lesson with my child? Do I cook a healthy dinner or run errands? Do I pay bills or play a game with my son? Some of these decisions and responsibilites have easy short-cuts, like today's oil change. Some are more important. I recommend short-cuts when they apply so there's more time for the really important things of which there is no short-cut.