"So much time and so little to do. Wait a minute. Strike that. Reverse it." Willy Wonka

"My favorite things in life don't cost any money. It's really clear that the most precious resource we all have is time." (Steve Jobs)

Time.

I wonder, often, if I am making the best use of time. Like most of you I suppose there are days when I do accomplish all that is possible and then on other days nothing seems to get done. In my professional life I have the potential for a lot of down time. If other salespeople are not working deals and bringing those customers to see me to complete their contracts and other legal requirements I don't always have work related items that demand my attention. There are days, though when it seems that I arrive in my office to find a customer waiting for me and then I look up and it is 5:00 pm and time to start thinking about what happens that evening. I need to find productive things to do that will make each day like that.

The real problem, as I see it, with having days like today where there are no customers in the store, no deals to work online, and no fires from previous contracts to put out, lead to habits that make it difficult to transition back to going full bore upon my arrival at home. Often these days of inactivity leave me so worn out mentally that it is hard to get motivated to activity throughout the evening. That means that Mrs. Mahan suffers because I am less inclined to help out with the few things that I can do to assist her around our home. Sometimes I mentally blame it on my physical (lack of) health and she, grudgingly, lets me get away with it.

I am resolved that this needs to change. Time is a very precious resource and once expended it cannot be retrieved. We just have to move on anew.

Speaking of time well spent. As posted a few months ago we had our annual reunion at Powderhorn Resort on Grand Mesa over Labor Day weekend. What a great time. Three days and nights spent with 23 of the best people I know. All our children (their spouses), grandchildren, and friends that we have come to love just as much as our own children. A lot of time spent just conversing and renewing relationships. We have some traditions (new and old) that have become part of this weekend. We love going to Lands End overlook on top of Grand Mesa to watch the setting sun over the Colorado National Monument to the west. The sun setting and the lights coming on in the Grand Valley make for a beautiful sight. Many photos taken and kind of a culminating event that signals that we are soon to return to life in whatever lane we run in normally.

It was good to have them all there this year. It has been several years since we all could make it. I am amused and pleased that the technology of today (smart phones with Facetime capability) make it so that cousins that live hundreds of miles apart know one another by sight and voice and already have a better relationship than I ever had with my cousins who lived nearby. They pick up their conversations as though they live next door and play together daily. Grandma also benefits from the technology (she can't work it easily, also amusing, but she gets by) and has a more personal relationship with each of those granddaughters than would have been possible a few decades ago.

A good use of time? I think so. But that technology that can be such a blessing can also become a distraction that leads to inattention to other things that should command more of our time. The old adage "everything in moderation" seems to universally apply even to modern advances.

Well, enough written for today. I hope you all are well.

Thanks for checking in. More to come soon. See you then.