25 minutes

That is how long I have to get this entry posted while today is still called today and not yesterday.  In reality this is the third time that I have tried to start this entry.  And it hasn't gotten any easier to get past the first few lines. But I promised I would and so I shall. 

Why did I promise that I would write?  What do I have to say?  Who do I think is going to read this?  I don't know the answers to any of those questions.  I just know that I am drawn to write, but yet I don't because I don't have the answers to those questions.  Those answers represent the great unknown to me.  And the unknown is something that I fear.  That fear keeps me enslaved.  Keeps me bound to the comfortable world of what I know.  The world of what I was brought up on, being safe, secure, take no risks that could land you in places that aren't 'safe'.  And I am finding I don't like that.  Not that I don't like being comfortable, or safe.  Those are things I enjoy very much.  But I don't like the feeling of being bound, the enslavement that goes along with it, the suffocation and the feeling that I am not really living.  So I am going to face that fear,  make a stand, step out and do something about it.

That is why I am writing.  If no one reads it, if no one responds to it, well maybe, I chose the wrong venue or maybe that writing was just for me.  I don't know.  But I know one thing I have discovered in the few minutes since I started this writing.  That writing fuels my thinking. And with that fuel I was able to realize yet one more thing about myself.  And that 15 minutes was 15 minutes well spent.

Where I do what all good teachers do and piggy back an idea.

There used to be a time that I blogged almost daily.  I loved coming to the computer and relating parts of my day or lessons learned etc.  But that has been long ago.  I have tried to do so again and again but live has gotten busy. But I want to I want to have a voice, to use this, to help someone if it is only me I help.  But if this is going to happen I must actually blog.  And I know enough about myself that if I don't schedule a time and make it a priority it won't.get.done.

So like dear Dana  I am going to challenge myself to blog something, a thought, a picture, a list, a recipe, a thought provoking post, everyday, between now and the end of February (there is one weekend I will be gone and I may not have internet access but all other days are fair game :-) )

And also like Dana, I will take requests, I may need material, so leave any you may have in ye olde comments sections below.

Daily Routine

One of my goals for the new year is a daily routine that lets me get everything done and still have time for me etc.   So I have sketched out one that I will be working on the next few weeks, tweaking as I go

Mornings
*up early, Bible Reading (notes and reporting)
                Email and FB check (since my reporting is done in both places)
*shower/dress
   make bed/ start laundry

* Kids up dressed and beds made

*breakfast for all/ Clean UP

* School and computer time

* Lunch

* Down Time

* Daily Jobs/Special Jobs -- to be determined daily

*Afternoon down time

* prep/ dinner/ eat

*Evening act (usually out of the house)

* Night jobs (clean up - prep for next day etc)

* Bed -- Boys 9 - lights out 9:30
              Alli 10 - lights out 10:30
              me lights out by midnight

routines, resolutions and responses

I don't make New Year's Resolutions. I haven't since the 11th grade when I was in creative writing class and was learning to write feature articles.  It happens that that lesson was shortly after the new year in 1991 (yes that'd be 20 years ago) and I chose to research and write about resolutions.  It was then  that I made the decision with which I ended my feature article, that I would make goals instead of resolutions.  Because if I am honest, and if most people are truly honest, I can't keep resolutions at all.  As proof, I still have no fingernails to speak of.

So I started working on goals,  Where do I want to be by this time next year?  What do I want to have accomplished?  What do I want to be working toward? And other questions along the same line.

Goals represent processes, steps I have to take to get there and they aren't absolute, at least mine aren't.  Mine tend to be fluid changing as life changes.  But one thing always remains,  If I want to move forward I have to have a goal in mind to get there.

The problem is that lately, I have had not really had any goals.  I have been hit and miss in many, many areas in my life.  In fact, if I was totally honest, one big idea has totally consumed my thought processes.  The fact that we want to go to Officer Training (Seminary), and in order to gain the necessary recommendations we must become Corps Assistants (Church Interns) first. However, much of THAT process is out of our hands.  So I have been sitting in a holding pattern for much of the last year.  And THAT is not good.  So as I turn to look at the new year. I look at it with new eyes, and have decided I must look to improve me, because if I choose to remain stagnant, what I am really choosing is to fall backward.

So I am going to start with some broad general goals that I will refine as time goes by.

*Daily, weekly etc. routines for everyone, that we all know, which can be followed easily
*Read and Study more ~ there are several areas to which this applies
*Better health ~ including weight loss and exercise in some form
*Write, write, write, more.  here, journal, with the kids etc.

New Happy

Contentment vs Confusion

In reality I guess those should be put in the opposite order as it is confusion that prompted an email I sent out earlier.  I was, and truth be told, still am confused on some issues.  Those issues particularly relate to a yearly theme, namely my yearly theme.  The last three years I have had a yearly theme,  2008 it was Articulate, 2009 it was Prepare, 2010 it was Anticipate.  The first two I was able to do a wrap up fairly easily at the end of the year.  And at the beginning of this year I was ecstatic to anticipate what God was going to do.  I had some very, very specific hopes and dreams as to what this would be.  But as I end the year in much the same place I was at the beginning of the year I look back in confusion.  I wonder "Did I anticipate the wrong thing?"  "Was anticipation even supposed to be my theme?"  What? Why?  How?  All these thoughts plagued me.  And I HATE (yes read the all caps with all the vim and vigor you can muster) not knowing the answer. I can more easily say "I was wrong" than I can say "I don't know"

But as He often does, God talked through my words and as I wrote.  He gently reminded me that I have been given a word for next year.   And that word is Contentment.  But, but, BUT  I whine,  "I don't want to be content,  I want to move forward,  I want those things that I was anticipating for this year"  Did you read that?
I, I, I. --- I wasn't concentrating on what God wanted to show me I was concentrating on what I wanted.

Be Still and KNOW was thrust into my spirit.

so I sat still. I listened and I heard some more things gently spoken into my spirit.

just a smattering included:

Be content and know that I am working on your behalf..............

Let ME be Me and you just be you................

Be content to know I have the answers and you will get them as you need them..................

Be content to let the past stay in the past, not regret it, not try to amend it, not try to correct for it, let it be what it was, own up to it and your choices and let it be............(ouch tough one there)

Be content to know that the past three themes, Articulate, Prepare and Anticipate are all leading up to this year, but this year will not be the culmination of them or this year's theme either......................  

...........towards the end I began to get a picture of changes to be made by me this year........which will include.......

I will be writing more, I need to be a better steward of the gifts I am given (time, finances, etc), I can be a voice this year, if I listen and obey.  I will be studying and listening more, and in turn writing and speaking more..........

God's not through with me yet, but it is almost 2 am and I must get to sleep.

Perfectionism

is not all it is cracked up to be.