“Time is like money, you can spend it any way you like, but you can only spend it once.”

Before this week, I’d never heard this statement before.  This week, I’ve heard it twice and have driven past it on a church billboard.  It captured my attention because I’ve spent a lot of time recently thinking about how precious a commodity time is.  My Twinners are heading off to high school this coming fall, and starting the steep, downward slide to leaving home and venturing out on their own.  My youngest started Kindergarten and my middle started Middle School this year, signaling big next steps in their lives.  Now that we’re into the new calendar year, my birthday is approaching, and I’m moving further and further across the 50 yard line of an average life span.  And, perhaps most unsettling, three young, vibrant, wonderful friends are battling terminal illnesses.

I shared my work “to do” list earlier this week, but nothing on the “to do” list really matters when you think about it in terms of this expression.  If I put my household into terms of only having 4 1/2 years left with my two oldest kids, if I knew I only had three weeks left to live, there are a lot of things I would cross off of my “to do” list — not because they were complete, but because they simply don’t matter.  If this were my last quarter, I’d spend it the most meaningful way I could.