We’ve got the whole month of August planned to visit Calgary and do what they call an ‘orientation visit’. I can’t wait. An orientation visit means going to Canada, seeing where my husband will be working, looking around schools, houses, getting a feel for the different areas, and starting to make plans for moving across from England. Yippee!

Luckily at this time of year, there is a direct flight from the north-west of England to Canada (9hrs in duration) which in Britain is commonly considered ‘long haul’. I would imagine most people living in Canada or indeed the USA, would consider this to be just nipping ‘around the corner’ 🙂

It got me thinking about time and how much time we spend on doing the great things in life, compared to the mundane and necessary.

 For instance, did you know over a lifetime:

• we spend 115 days laughing. That equates to 6 mins a day – but researchers tell me that in the 1950’s, we used to chuckle 3 times more!
• 27 days of our life is spent waiting for trains, buses and aeroplanes.
• 6 months of our life just trying to get to the front of a queue. (We’re very good at queuing in Britain, it’s a national past time and taken extremely seriously should anyone breach the etiquette).
• if you watch more than 4 hrs of television a day, you’ll end up spending 11 years of your life watching tv. Luckily, I’ve got kids and a low attention span, so the prospect of even getting 1 hr in front of the box in peace and quiet is rather remote.

Just thinking about these stats, if I think about how much time I’m really spending on the things that add value to my life – are life enhancing, and real quality activities, I bet over a lifetime, that’s not as much as each of us would hope.

I’m going to change this.

I’m going to spend more time laughing or chuckling – and at the very least, smiling.

I’m going to concentrate on making sure we do lots more life-enhancing stuff, quality time with the kids, and embracing the new.

Just a thought, but if I’m going to do this, I’ll need quality sleep to make this happen and with 3 young kids, I reckon I’m behind on my quota (26 years, I’m informed over a lifetime) – so I’m just off to capture a few extra winks….