Clearing off Space

My dining room table is the hub of my family home. It is where we come together daily to enjoy a meal or two. Whoever is here can be expected to our family sit down meal. When it is time for the meal, sometimes everyone is there rather quickly, eager, and hungry. Sometimes we wait for a member to finish up an activity or get into the house and the beginning of the meal is delayed. The television is off (or at least paused). Conversation stops as someone leads a prayer. We talk about the food, we talk about anything, we talk about nothing, but most meals can bring us closer as we come from our respective places of our modestly large home.

Then comes a project, one of mine usually, and the sanctity of the dining room table is lost. It is covered with something that needs attention. Something is there that no one but the person working on the project can deal with. Meals are shifted to the kitchen. Much more cramped, but we are still together. It happened just this week. My dining room table had been covered since Sunday afternoon with empty boxes and craft supplies. There were also two boxes that need to go out of the house altogether. Why was all of that still sitting there today...interrupting the family meals? I did a fifteen minute rescue this morning before work and it is mostly cleared. Just 15 minutes; and why didn't I deal with that Sunday? I needed to reclaim the space for my family. Fifteen minutes and it was nearly all cleared (except the boxes that needed to be loaded in my van). Why did I let that little job junk up the family dining tradition for so many days? Come six o'clock the dining room table will be the center of a meal again.