Finding my way through the murky waters

Each day when I wake up, I take NaKoda outside to take care of her business and I sit and enjoy the sounds of the outdoors and thank God for the blessings he has shared with me.  I try to use this early morning time to mediate and think about all the goals and dreams I have for myself and how I am going to proceed in accomplishing these things.

I can never completely quiet the anxiety that rises within me though about if I am going to be able to continue my work, grow my business and create the life I desire. Right now things are improving on a weekly basis but still having the uncertainty of if I am going to succeed still lingers. The unknown if I will be able to maintain my clients, support myself and continue to grow in order to meet my goal of being able to provide jobs for others who are also desiring a change in their work lives and lifestyles is a constant reminder that I could fail and then where would  I be?

I so dearly love the lifestyle I have been able to provide for myself of being able to work from anywhere, any time while being able too spend more time with my loved ones. I want to continue this lifestyle. It means so much to me to be able to have a flexible schedule in order to have a more complete and happy life.  Previously, when I worked a strict schedule of 8-5, working for an employer who did not appreciate my skills and talents, and the success I brought to their company I did not have time to enjoy life. Engage in volunteer work, family activities, and spend time with friends. I was unhappy and lonely a lot of the time because my schedule conflicted with everything I wanted to do.

So each day I wake up, pray that I am heading in the right direction and making the right decisions and learning as I go - how to continue on.

Self Discovery

Over Memorial Day weekend I had a lot of down time to think about my life's direction. I realized, while I am pretty happy with my life and the direction it is taking; there are still areas in which I want to discover myself. One of those areas my spiritual beliefs.  For years I have struggled with what I believe, my experiences with religious organizations and what I am comfortable with.

For many people they attend church. They are excited about their church and they believe what their pastor tells them without any desire to research or discover the information on their own.  In my experience, some of these people are the same people you see all week long behaving in unethical or immoral ways but are in the church pews every Sunday. These people have turned me away.  Some of these people are devoted and try to behave in a manner that they believe is right and are at the church almost every time the doors are open and believe that you have to go to church in order to worship.  I have always questioned this because I have never understood why people have to leave their own environment, dress up, and go to another location in order to worship.  What is wrong with worshiping in your daily life, in your surroundings? I can understand the need for fellowship with like minded people but does that always have to be a building where organized religion takes place? Can my sister's backyard during a bbq not be considered fellowship with like minded people who pray and discuss and learn together be fellowship?

Prioritize your life

Many of us feel we spend our days putting out fires and accomplishing nothing we really wanted to accomplish during the course of our day. Sometimes this leads to bringing work home or spending long hours at our offices trying to accomplish all the things we thought were important and needed to be done (taking time away from our families and personal lives).  Recently, in meeting a colleague told me she put in a 12 hour day at a manufacturing plant and then spent another 2 hours per day staying after her shift has ended in order to complete all the paperwork, emails, and phone calls she could not get accomplished while the floor crew were around; due to constant interruptions.   This meant that Jane worked her normal 12 hour shift each day for her salary and then put in an additional 2 hours each day for no pay and this stole valuable time she could have been spending with her 2 small children. 

I suggested she create a list of:

·         Important;  urgent

·         Important; not urgent

·         urgent; not important

·         not important; not urgent tasks

                On this list she should include not only work related tasks but life tasks too such as playing with children, calling best friend, and reporting time sheets to HR. Once we begin to look at all our activities in these four categories we realize that some things just do not need our attention and some things we can hire others to handle.  One way to outline all the things in our life that truly need our attention and those that don’t we can use note cards.  Include your dreams, goals, plans and ideas.  The next step is to make two piles:  things that have to be done this very minute (or at least we think they do) and things that can wait.  Continue to narrow down each pile according to the list above and the things that do not fall under any of the four tasks can be thrown out immediately. (for example: read junk mail) Once you see these lists in writing it helps to prioritize your life! Instead of spending countless hours reading e-mails we don’t really care about we could have written our best a long e-mail catching up on the important things in life and maintaining our personal relationship.

                OK, OK. You’ve created a list of tasks that need to be accomplished in a timely fashion, tasks that can wait, and task that are not important but there’s still not enough hours in the day for you to balance work responsibilities and life.  To help create a healthy balance and live a more fulfilling life while accomplishing all those work related tasks still needing  to be completed is to delegate tasks to others. One simple way to do this is to hire a virtual assistant.  Perhaps on Mondays we want to be out of the office by noon so we have plenty of time to exercise, attend your child’s baseball practice and still be able to make a home cooked meal for your family before falling into bed and starting the routine all over again.  However, there are so many things that need to be done at the office such as checking time cards, reporting the numbers to our payroll clerk, promote a new service or product, scheduling meetings and e-mailing colleagues, customers, co workers, and following up on correspondence.  All of these items are tasks that can be delegated to a virtual assistant and while you enjoy the rewards of hard work and family things are still being accomplished! Remember if you are stuck trying to figure out things that are important and need to be accomplished and things that can just be discarded a virtual assistant can help you to organize your schedule and tasks as well! 

Reflections on Life

Last night I returned to the high school I attended for the first times since I graduated in 1995.  I returned to walk around the track with my NaKoda. As I walked around the track I thought about the years I actually attended there and all the events and experiences of my youth and the people I went to school with.  

I thought about all the people that were my "friends" at back then and how many of them actually remained a part of my life over the past 15 years. One thought that kept  coming back to me was something that I have heard from several people over the years, "Brownwood sucks, I hate that town, I will never go back there" and I kept thinking about all the people in other locations who say the same thing about the towns they lived in. It's as if we blame the actual towns for whatever negative experiences we had growing up. 

The thing is every town is pretty much the same. Politics, law enforcement, etc. all have issues that people don't like. The actual town though has nothing to do with any issues. The town is just a geographical location. Since moving back I have realized that Brownwood is not a bad little town. There has been growth while I was away and there have been some improvements and the actual town is a cute little small Texas town. Downtown has been cleaned up and reminds me of the way the town use to look back in the old days (from what pictures I have seen) A lot of the neighborhoods I remember being in bad shape have experienced clean ups and actually are decent looking now, new businesses have come to the area.   

I think about the issues I experienced that made me want to leave Brownwood and I realize that none of those experiences ever had anything to do with the actual town. (Well when I was younger I wanted to live where there were more things to do).  Most of my issues were with my so called "family" and "friends". My "family" proved to me day after day that they weren't really my family and friends did the same. It took me many years to work through the feelings of abandonment and neglect my family left me with that led to me being emancipated at 16. It took me awhile to realize that they were never going to understand what a true family was and that they were always going to be the people they were.  I realized that the people who said they were my friends but knew very little about me and were never truly friends were always going to be the same way too. I realized all of these things and through working through my issues and realizing that some things were out of my control, I was just going to have to learn to be ok with.  

As I continued my walk around the track and thought of how far I had come and how much I had learned about myself, human nature and what i wanted in the future I realized I had achieved FREEDOM! I was free from all my baggage. I had freed myself from other people's drama and I enjoyed who I was and all I had accomplished in life. I may not be some big Fortune 500 executive, I may not be a celebrity, but I had worked hard and accomplished many things in my life and still had many years to go to continue to grow and gain more success in my life! 

I realized I was glad to be back in Brownwood and that it could be a great place to be if I let it be!

Quotes

"why should big companies have the fun? Why can’t I join the biggest trend of the century? Why can’t I outsource life?" Tim Ferris

Karen's Fight

After finishing the last round of chemo we were all excited to relax and wait for test results to see what success chemo was going to bring to Karen.

A couple of weeks ago Karen rushed to the hospital because she was having difficulty breathing and could not stop coughing. After a series of tests we found out her lung tissue was inflamed. The doctor's were hopeful and were relieved it was not congenital heart failure. I must admit I was relieved too but I still was fearful.  So many memories of my own mother's struggles and her suffering were flooding my mind and I was trying to stay positive for Karen. I do not want to lose a second mother to the same damn disease!

Karen was in the hospital for a few days and then the doctors sent her home with steroids and orders to return in a couple of weeks for a check up.  As the days went by she reported to us that she was feeling better even though we could see she was still having difficulty breathing.  I pray for her every day.  Tuesday she went back to the hospital on doctor's orders because her check up reflected no changes in the tests and the doctor's wanted to do a lung biopsy to be safe.  She had the biopsy yesterday and now is recovering and we are waiting for the results.

This is one of the most difficult things to deal with. I fear every day that I am going to lose my second mother to the same disease I lost my biological mother. I fear that if I lose her I will lose my "family". I fear that we will not remain family if Karen is gone. I fear that she will miss seeing Railey grow up. I fear she will miss all the things she still wants to do in her lifetime.  With all the old memories coming back I find myself often crying  randomly.  I told a friend of all the horrible experiences I have had in my life - losing my mother and watching her suffer was the one thing I did not feel I could do again.