Where Does Time Go?

I don't know about you but I feel like time has actually sped up!  There's no scientific research to back me up, but I'm pretty sure that 24 hours is more like 14 these days.  My life is filled with so much stuff that by the weekends I just want to stay in bed and read a book.  I love all of the things that get to do during the week, it just becomes so much.  How do you slow down?  How do you prioritize how you spend your time?  We have homeschool, housework, yardwork, swim practice, tumbling class, school groups, organ practice, piano lessons, church service, family time, and random obligations like doctor appointments.  It's a lot!  I feel like the biggest lesson I have learned as a mom and a homeschooler is that you have to do what's most important and let everything else fall away.  It's a hard lesson.  I miss spending time with friends during the day.  Having lunch and time to visit was something I really loved.  But, I know that I what I am sacrificing is worth it.  I have little glimpses during the day of why I do what I do.  It's those moments when Graci reads me a story from her reading lesson book without asking if the letter h sounds like a k.   It's those moments when Gunnar will bring me Green Eggs and Ham, sit on my lap, and let me hold him and read him that book 15 times before he runs off to play.  It's those moments when Gavin, Gage, and Gibson use their free time to write a story together about a magical world with wizards and beasts, or when they come home from swim practice so proud of themselves that they mastered flip turns.  My family always comes first.  I know it's not just homeschoolers that feel this time crunch.  All families are trying so hard to keep their families close, while trying to keep up with the speed of this world.  I read once about the amish communities and how they value quiet peaceful time.  If you were to go to an amish farm you would notice how hard they work all day in the fields, but when the sun goes down they are done.  They, unlike most of us, understand that work is important but when the sun goes down it's time to put work aside and have peaceful time.  They go in their homes, read, talk, and just spend time together.   I should try to be more like the amish.  I need to let go of the guilt that if I don't let my family do everything they want that they won't be happy.  I think children would be happier if they had to do less, if they had time to decompress away from all electronics and media.  If families would make it a priority to spend time together.  Not just be in the same house doing their own thing, but to turn off everything and spend time talking and being together.  I think something that simple could change the world.  So I am challenging myself to be more amish.  To give my family the gift of calm and quiet.