Simultaneously?

Share Now

Ray recently decided that he wanted to go back to using his smaller laptop screen instead of the larger extra screen he had been using. In that unused screen, I saw more efficient work for me and asked if I could use it.

Ray didn’t mind, so I asked Ethan, our in-house techie, if he could hook it up for me. Alas, my laptop only has ports for one extra screen. I was already using that for the really big screen I use to layout lessons for curriculum. One thing I learned from Mother is that if you don’t know how to do something already, you work at figuring it out.

My solution was to contact our friend, and occasional out-of-the-house techie consultant Garth. As usual, he had a solution up his sleeve right away. He sent me a link to a website that sold a USB display adapter. In a few short days, I was in business — after Ethan hooked it up for me, that is.

Here’s my new set-up.

There is almost nothing in this photo that was around when Ray and I got married except me. What a pile of electronics and gadgets. What is up on each screen varies throughout the day, but this is what was there yesterday.

• Laptop showing the page where I keep my hours every day. In a family business, we believe it is crucial to be accountable to one another.
• Thumb drive with photos Michelle, our customer service representative, took on her mission trip to Ireland. I want to put some of them in our lesson about Patrick taking the gospel. to Ireland.
• Big screen where I can see two whole pages of curriculum at once. I write better when I can see at a glance what a child will see when he opens a book. This lesson is on Palenque of the Mayans. I know absolutely nothing about Palenque at this moment, but I’m about to. That is one of the many things I love about writing. I get to learn such cool stuff.
• Ray’s extra screen. Yesterday afternoon it was showing my email.
• Cell phone with earphones so I don’t have to hold it against my head. I really don’t like the feeling of a cell phone beside my head.

My idea all along was to be able to write curriculum faster! Ray and I are always on that quest. So far, so good.

That’s why I wanted a USB display adapter, but this is the purpose I read on the back of the package (and I quote):

Surf the Web, Watch Movies and Work on Your PC Simultaneously

I guess that might work for a movie critic, but I certainly wouldn’t want to pay anyone wages for any other kind of work that was performed like that.

As mothers you have to do so many things. Many times you have to do many things at once — or at least in quick succession. Still, I encourage you to give yourself permission each day to do some things one at a time. Give your husband a long kiss in the kitchen like you did when you first married. Look into the eyes of one child and tell him something he did right. Look out the window and find something amazing that God made. I know you might not have more than five minutes total do all three of those things, but it will be five minutes well spent.

Paul told Titus to tell us older women to teach the younger women:

. . . to love their husbands, to love their children,
to be sensible, pure, workers at home,
kind, being subject to their own husbands,
so that the word of God will not be dishonored.
Titus 2:4

Sometimes we get so busy multi-tasking through that “workers at home” part that we don’t slow down long enough to enjoy those husbands and children we love.

Share Now