Daylight saving time again, “Fall Backward”, the most glorious time of year, where moms everywhere gain a free hour back to do whatever they want. There are so many choices of what I can do with my extra hour of freedom this year. How will I ever choose?
I remember growing up in the 90s in Indiana, all I associated daylight saving time with was my favorite TV programs’ start time changing, not our clocks. Then in 2006, Indiana joined most of the country in this weird ritual in the spring and fall, changing the clocks, “Spring Forward”, “Fall Backward”. The premise of you lose an hour or gain an hour. Well, as we approach the annual time change, I have 60 suggestions of things you can do with your extra 60 minutes! How will you use your extra 60 minutes?
- Organizing your email Inbox
- Prepare a Gourmet Breakfast
- Reorganize the Pantry
- Sort my shoes
- Alphabetize the bookshelf
- Plan out your family’s meals for the whole year
- Drive 30 min East and then 30 min West
- Read a book about time management
- Sort my 60,000+ photos on your phone
- Finally finish the baby album
- Put together your wedding album
- Drink hot coffee for the first time
- Learn to play a new instrument
- Learn a new language
- Launch a neighborhood group
- Write a letter to all your government representatives about how much you love daylight saving
- Plan out family photo outfits for the next year
- Prepare and freeze a winter worth of freezer meals
- Read your TBR
- Plan and schedule all summer camps for kids
- Organize your sock drawer
- Learn New Math
- Order and address all your Christmas cards
- Organize the Tupperware drawer
- Drive the 465 Loop
- Clean the dryer vent
- Organize the attic
- Catalog the spice drawer
- Do all the holiday shopping and wrapping
- Schedule all the medical and dental appointments for the next year
- Listen 6 times to ATWTMVTVFTV “(all too well (10 minute version (Taylor’s version) (from the vault))
- Start a new side hustle collecting lost socks
- Water the dead mums you’ve long forgotten about
- Solve a true crime podcast’s cold case
- Find the long-lost City of Atlantis
- Master the latest viral dance trend
- Count how many licks it takes to get to the center of a tootsie-pop
- Master baking a soufflé
- Start homesteading with goats, chickens, and cows
- Master a Paul Hollywood Bread recipe
- Submit your audition to America’s Got Talent
- Train a pet to do your daily chores
- Learn to spin a basketball on your fingertip
- Knit a full quilt with your child’s baby clothes
- Identify Bigfoot’s natural habitat
- Solve world hunger
- Master Tuvan Throat Singing
- Master Latte Art
- Learn the dance from Miss Congeniality
- Sort all the spare keys in the house
- Make your children’s holiday outfits out of old curtains (ala Sound of Music)
- Teach yourself chess
- Put IKEA furniture together
- Sort the kids’ classroom papers and art
- Sort the ever-growing pile of mail
- Organize THE junk drawer, you know the one
- Learn to walk a tight rope
- Brew your own signature beer
- Throw away old electronics boxes (looking at you old iPhone box)
- Organize and declutter the boxes of cables and cords
But in all honesty, daylight saving time is a pain in the you know what, especially for parents. If your kid is routine-oriented or doesn’t like change, it will throw a wrench in your days for a bit till they get readjusted. There are many approaches you can take: adjusting their bedtime slightly every day leading up to the change, going cold turkey, or, my personal favorite, going on vacation and throwing their internal time clock into complete upheaval so they have no idea what time is real.
All you can really do is breathe, show fellow moms some extra grace (and the teachers), try to drink an extra cup of coffee, and remember to change that smoke detector battery.
