I guess that babysitter wasn't too freaked out since she did come back.

I hired a week day babysitter for the first time yesterday morning. In over two and a half years of parenting a two year old, this is the first time I have had someone new and unrelated come into the house on a weekday to watch the boy while I went to recharge my creative juices.

The morning went well enough, but coming home seemed only to make me bitter about what I had not crossed off my list. In typical Shannon fashion, I had of course earmarked this "free time" for just about everything one could imagine, if one wanted to to take the time to imagine it.

As it turns out, I think the morning was more productive than I had thought. I had immersed myself in, well, in myself, had a little love affair with an old fashioned paper journal and a cup of coffee, and a little over 24 hours later I feel fresh and awakened in a meaningful way. That "to do" list hasn't gotten any shorter, but I have hope that maybe now I can approach those tasks with a little more creative vigor than I was carrying around the days before.

The challenge of course will be to arrange that creative flow and direct my head towards fathers, food, summer, music, magic, and the production of tangible materials. It will be a challenge, but I'll get there. I will.