Despite late nights at extended family birthday dinners and emotionally exhausting (despite satisfying) days for everyone in the GeekFamily, the kidlet and I have had a couple of serious heart-to-hearts right before bedtime in an attempt to process some of the more perplexing parts of behavior of other kids.

It seems my daughter comes honestly by the tendency to process the day’s events not as they happen but in one huge data dump right before sleep just like her mother.  While GeekDaddy has a tendency to wish the overly-chatty women could not attempt to discuss every nuance of their days moments before unconsciousness, the kidlet and I are often incapable of achieving sleep if events are not processed to a certain point beforehand.

For me, this has resulted in many a late night sitting in coffee shops with a good friend or on the phone with them trying to work through a flow-chart of “what-ifs” and probabilities.  It even led to my blogging habits and my initial Twitter forays – as there’s always *someone* to talk to on the Internet.

But when you’re 7 years old and in first grade, you’re sort of stuck hoping that one or the other of your parents is the sort who will work through things with you or relegating yourself to  just not sleeping well a lot.

The really cool thing as her Mother though?  Sometimes when I’m helping her work through stuff, I realize how parallel our situations are and how much I need to remember the particular lesson I’m trying to help her work through.

One of tonight’s themes was about caring about the opinions of those you respect or love while learning how not to take to heart negative words from those who fall in neither category.

Easier said than done, isn’t it?

So many of us are equipped with the standard, vulnerable and fragile human ego.  We learn early that we’re not supposed to care about the cruel words of bullies, strangers, or the spiteful — all the while secretly wondering if perhaps there’s truth to what they say and if we just can’t trust the people we should trust if they don’t agree.

This makes the average person susceptible to those few who actually are trying to make them insecure or hurt out of some misguided sense of power or revenge.   And it leads to a LOT of therapy for insecurities and trust issues and neuroses.  And a lot of people who could benefit from the therapy but will never go because secretly they’re sure that their worthlessness will be exposed.

I tend to feel more empowered when I remind myself that the weight of 1,000,000 random strangers telling me I’m not ‘worthy’ holds no candle to the weight of just one person whose opinions I respect, and who has truly taken the time to get to know me, saying ‘yes you are.’

]]> http://geekmommy.net/2010/01/26/taking-my-own-advice/feed/ 4 http://geekmommy.net/2009/11/05/just-breathe/ http://geekmommy.net/2009/11/05/just-breathe/#comments Thu, 05 Nov 2009 20:05:44 +0000 GeekMommy http://geekmommy.net/?p=832 I woke up today and my shoulder hurt.  My back hurt.  My ankle hurt.  (Did I mention I fell down the kitchen stairs the other day?)

It was far too early. 

I’m not a morning person by nature… usually, if I’m seeing the dawn it’s because I stayed up too late, not because I got up too early.  Traveling eastward is somewhat nightmarish for me, as it puts me getting up even earlier than usual… whereas westward is soothing since I get an excuse to stay up later and the morning lets me sleep in just a bit.

My darling husband usually takes Buttercup to school in the mornings.  This is good – because really, even when I am awake, I’m not sure driving at that hour is my best bet.  But with enough coffee, a 5 Hour Energy, and a good reason, I can be “she who braves the cross-town rush hour traffic” and get my daughter safely there.

Of course, GeekDaddy being out of town usually provides the good reason.

This week he has been in New York and Philadelphia on business, so I’ve been on morning, afternoon, and night duty.  This explains to those who know me why I fell down the stairs.  I’m ten times more accident prone when my husband is out of town.  He claims this is because I’m trying to get him to come home.  I think perhaps my subconcious agrees with him.  Because it seems to throw me down stairs, drop things on my head, sprain things, burn and cut and bruise things, and generally leave me in sorry shape whenever he is gone.  He gets back tonight.  I’m glad, because that means I’m less likely to end up in the E.R. before the weekend.

Where was I before I started rambling?

Oh yes, I woke up.  I hurt.  I got up anyways. 

I got ready and got the kidlet ready 20 minutes earlier than usual.  I say “than usual” because I was following GeekDaddy’s morning routine schedule with her.  It usually gets them out of the house just in time to make it to school on time.  I’ve discovered however that part of the issue with his routine is that it involves great stretches of a zombielike kidlet sitting on her bathroom rug staring off into space or playing with toys.  It turns out that the right motivation gets her moving faster.

So, we managed to get one game of Mario Kart for the Wii* in before leaving for school (*cough* the right motivation) and then we took off with both of us just a little more awake than usual.  It seems that crashing cars into each other and off cliffs does something for the adrenaline factor in the morning. Huh. Who knew?

As I drove her the 30+ minute drive to school, the sun was up.  I was on my second cup of coffee.  We chatted a bit.  I ended up on a call with my best friend.

I dropped the kidlet off in her class, chatted with a few parents, headed out and got into my car… but before I started the engine, I looked out the window.

There, off to the West, were the snow-covered caps of the Rocky Mountains that rise up from the plains to eventually meet the Great Divide – where water flows mindlessly toward either the Atlantic or the Pacific oceans.  There, off to the East, the sun was well on her way up into the morning sky… still low enough to cause drivers to need their sunglasses and to prove flipped-down visors useless, but turning the sky the most amazing shade of blue.  The clouds overhead were not omenous or looming, just puffy little white sheep slowing drifting in their airy pastures.

I stopped.

I took a deep breath and expelled it with a somewhat more satisfied sigh of relief than I had expected from myself at such an early hour.

I thought about the world around me and my place in it.  I thought about the changes that are looming by choice and those that were looming whether I desired them or not.  I thought about the possibilities that each new day brings and the metaphors for the dawn and what the rising sun reveals.  I thought about all the cliches that time has worn familiar: “the dawning of a new day” and “it’s always darkest just before the dawn” and “tomorrow is another day”…

And just for a moment – a mere moment of time – I was a “morning person.”  I was optimistic and ready to go and carpe any diem I could find!

Then I laughed at myself for feeling a bit too much like a heroine in a badly written novel (no Jane Austen narrating my existence, thank you.)  I started the engine, called my friend back, and drove home to tackle the dozen mundane tasks of work and life that hold no place in a novel of any sort.

But despite that… Here I am, writing about how sometimes, in the midst of the average day? It helps to just stop. And breathe.  And think of all the possibilities…

*administrative note: this post was not made in conjunction with any brand or advertiser.  No product was supplied or compensation of any sort given to the author.  My daughter just happens to be currently hooked on the game MarioKart, so I’m putting it in here.  But for the record? I fully endorse it – it’s a good game.  I just happen to endorse it of my own free will.

What made me think this?  It was a quick conversational moment between me and my husband. We were speculating whether or not this particular Stargate series would see the cast leaving the ship for a planet or not.

Visions of previous science fiction shows where the ship’s unending voyage flashed through my head: Farscape, Battlestar Galactica (both versions) and then naturally Star Trek.

I looked at my husband and said “huh… do you realize that this kind of mirrors the Star Trek series?”

What did I mean?

Well, there was this one really awesome television show, Star Trek (the original series), and this one really awesome movie, Stargate. They both launched franchises that have pretty much been juggernauts. Oddly, the underlying premise of the order of the series in each franchise matches up nicely.

Star Trek – the Next Generation (TNG) ===> Stargate SG-1 (SG-1)

Both revolve around people leaving their home base (TNG the ship, SG-1 the Earth base) to have episodic run-ins with the evil-or-not-so-evil aliens. Initially, everything was wrapped up during the course of one episode. TNG had the Romulans and SG-1 the Goa’uld. As things progressed, each morphed into multi-episode story arcs and got a bigger, badder, smarter, scarier enemy. TNG got the Borg and SG-1 got the Ori.

Star Trek – Deep Space Nine (DS9) ===> Stargate Atlantis (ATL)

Both take place on remote outposts. Earth isn’t in the picture here really. Sure there’s some contact. Sometimes the outpost is cut off. Both have wormholes to distant galaxies and Either way, there’s some mysterious race that provides the focus for the show – the Founders/Changelings of the Gamma Quadrant for DS9, the Ancients in the Pegasus Galaxy for ATL. The station inhabitants are usually on their own to face their problems – but somehow there’s also a bunch of local friendly aliens who get worked into the core team as trusted members.

Granted, the Founders end up being the complex bad-guys of the Dominion in DS9, while the gothy Wraith in ATL were the accidental foe of the Ancients – but hey, at least they didn’t stick with the lame Cardassians (DS9) or the Genii (ATL) who were essentially just angry, militaristic foes, rather than complex ones.

Star Trek – Voyager (VOY) ===> Stargate Universe (SU)

Granted, it’s only 5 episodes into SU as I write this, but come on now… a bunch of people, on a ship, far far from home – struggling to get back to Earth. STV only put their crew 75 years from home, a mere 70k light years away from home. SU has upped the ante by throwing their crew “billions of light years from home” in another galaxy entirely, not just a far-flung quadrant of the Milky Way. Both series have that “will they or won’t they ever get home?” element that wears thin after awhile. While it took VOY awhile to figure out how to create a method of contact between the ship & Earth, SU starts right off usings a communications device first used in the SG-1 series to have the two worlds touch base occasionally as necessary.

Still not convinced? Well, granted, the timing was a bit off, but both did have a not-as-successful-as-the-rest animated series: for Star Trek, it was Star Trek: The Animated Series in 1973 & 1974 while Stargate Infinity only ran for one season starting in 2002 and barely made a blip on the radar. Still, it’s worth noting that both franchises gave it a go.

Looking into the future & seeing the past

So where does that leave us? Well, if things keep progressing, apparently the next Stargate franchise will take its cue from Star Trek and we’ll have a “Stargate Ancients” series that mirrors Stargate Enterprise in taking us “back to the beginning.” At least, if they haven’t already done it, they ought to look at it.   I have to say that I never watched a single episode of the Enterprise series – but it ran for 4 seasons.  Hey, why mess with a successful formula?

Are you listening Brad Wright?***  Yeah, we’re on to you.  Keep up the good work.

* Now SyFy but I still hate that name change.
**  I know, I looked it up near the end of writing this – but I had no idea when the thought first occurred to me.
*** Yes, I looked it up on Wikipedia just for this article. No, I don’t really think it was planned this way, but I think I might be more impressed if I thought it was, rather than it just being an uncanny coincidence.  Either way, if they end up doing something similar? I’m sure it had nothing to do with this post .  It’s not like anyone couldn’t think of it.

I didn’t really know how to answer that. I mean, the last time I actually updated this blog was back in *cough* June.

It’s not that I didn’t think  about writing.  I did.  I thought about it hard every night as I fell asleep exhausted.  It turns out that being a full-time mom and working for a startup is harder than it sounds. 

My daughter was home all summer and yet, there were still things that had to be done.  So of course, something had to give — unfortunately, in my case it meant writing on my blog. 

But my little Buttercup went back to school at the end of last month, so I really have no excuse not to get back into blogging.  Except for that part where I’m still presently working for a startup.  It’s amazing how “spare time” becomes “not a second to spare” in that case.  I kind of forgot.  But then, the last startup I worked for was pre-kidlet.  Sheesh.  A lifetime ago!  That would’ve been 2001!! Whoa.

Still, there are some many things I do want to write about and share with y’all.  So I’m going to have to just make the time, huh?

Much travel coming up.  As usual? I’ll bring my camera and it will live in my suitcase.  Good thing I’ve got an iphone now and can embed Whrrl stories in my blog!! 

Whrrl ? Oh, you’ll see… they’re my favorite obsession of late.  You know how I was talking about Twitter back in 2007 and y’all thought I was crazy?  Yeah, well… if you’re not using Whrrl by 2011 I’ll be surprised.

Check it out.  Pretty awesome.  I think hey deserve a full write up of their own.  Aha! Something to write about this weekend!

This Whrrl story was created by me and some of the Whrrl guys and friends out in Detroit at the MARS home office.  We were there for a visit.  What an awesome day! Wish you could’ve been there with me, but this is the next best thing!

I say ‘tomorrow’ because most of my resolutions happen late at night.  When I’m thinking about what all I need to get done, or haven’t gotten done, or don’t remember that I haven’t and still need to get done right before I figure out if I should go to bed or if that will just mean more thinking myself in circles and I might as well stay up and play on the internet while I think about it.

I keep telling myself that if I could just sit down and get organized, I would sleep better – because I wouldn’t lie there thinking about what it is that isn’t organized and therefore must not be getting done.

But the truth is that no amount of organization will keep me from wondering what it is that I’m forgetting.

There’s no end of things to worry about if you’re that way inclined.  I worry that I’ll let someone down, or that someone will let me down.  I worry about the big things – like Global politics, poverty, and the next Flu pandemic.  I worry about little things – like whether or not I’ve posted to my blog, or whether I’ve mailed something I said I would (the answer is always no on that one – I suck at mailing things.)  I worry about slightly larger things – like whether or not that cavity that is resulting from where I lost a piece of my back upper right molar is going to need a root canal sooner rather than later and what I will have to give up to pay for the procedure.

I can’t imagine why anyone ever wants to take over the world.  I mean, how the heck would they EVER sleep at night? Worrying about an entire world? I can’t imagine the leaders of most countries sleep well, let alone empires.

And besides – if you were bent on conquering the world – how would you ever find an executive assistant to keep you organized for that one?  How does one place an ad on Craigslist for that?

“Wanted: one executive assistant.  Must be exceedingly well organized, be able to make travel arrangements, remind boss not to get engaged in a land war in Asia, and willing to take a cyanide capsule if World Conquest fails.  401k plan, dental and health included.”

Are you still with me? I worry that you’re not. I mean, you might’ve decided that this post is so chaotic that you just can’t stand it any more.  I’ll put that on my list.

1. Worry about whether or not people finish reading blog posts.
2. Write more organized blog posts.

Oh… and if you’re wondering about the cryptic title? Well, it just refers to the fact that if you dance with only one shoe on? You usually find yourself just dancing around in a lopsided circle.

Where did I put that other shoe? Hm. Adding that to my list.

I’m dying from a common cold right now – or at least, it feels like dying – lungs have hacking painful cough, sinuses are either aching or clogged with excess mucus production, voice keeps disappearing and throat is raw.

That wouldn’t be so bad if I didn’t have the damn Fibro.

Sickness makes it flare. It’s gotten worse rather than better over the past several years. Sometimes, late at night when I realize just how many pills I have to take to even approximate normalcy any more it hits me… this isn’t going to go away, is it? They don’t know what it is, they only know how to dull down the symptoms. They can’t cure it… and it doesn’t get better over time, it either stays the same or gets worse. Mine got worse.

I find myself doing “pain checks” in my head silently.

• Hands? pain? yes. Left worse than right tonight.
• Arms? pain? not really. Pretty good tonight.
• Shoulders? pain? yes. Achey. Pop when used.
• Back? upper and lower both having issues.
• Hips? nope – phew… surprising when the shoulders are bad
• Legs? nope, not really…
• Knees? mild or stabby – would be worse if the pressure were changing or I were standing Right worst than left tonight.
• Ankles? nope, popping but no pain
• Feet? cold as always… but no real pain comparatively
• Oops – Head? yeah, left jaw under ear – sinuses – miraculously no headache at the moment. huh.

This kind of “systems check” happens several times a day. Only *once* in the past year was the answer to all of the checks “no, no pain” – was very strange. For a brief couple of hours, I wondered if maybe it was gone. Silly me.

I have no immune system to speak of any more. If it’s around? I get it. If I get it? I get it as long as and unpleasantly as possible.
Travel? Wipes me out like I were a 98 year old woman. I try to hide it. I live on pills and 5 Hour Energys and then pay for it afterwards when it’s safe.  A full day down, sometimes 2.

In some effort to “fix” my pH imbalance I gave up red meat, soda, and coffee at the beginning of the year. I’ve been trying to eat healthier in general too. Haven’t broken the red meat/soda/coffee prohibition even once. Want to. Desperately want to. Want coffee fiercely. Can feel the difference in my body and wish I had strength to go entirely veg. I don’t. Chicken & fish have saved my sanity. Green Tea is my lifeline.

I want to be “normal” again. I want to wake up, not catalog which parts do or don’t hurt. Eat normal food. Have energy, no pain, be able to work out and lose weight and be healthy without having to take a handful of pills every day.

But right now? I’ll just be content if this frakking cold would go away.

Oh, and sleep, I could use some sleep.

Other weeks, I wonder if the reason I can’t blog consistently anymore is that there are too many of them just a Twitter away, waiting to converse with me on any ol’ thing from Superbowl Ads to world politics to whatever falls out of my brain and onto my keyboard.

I really meant to get some quality blogging in sometime in the past week.  But life was kind of chaotic with GeekDaddy out of town and Buttercup doing her best to keep my on my toes with illness, sleep deprivation, and general six-year-old related mayhem.  So when things did settle down just a little bit? (tonight, at about 8:13pm Mountain time) I just relaxed and didn’t even think about the fact that my blog was starting to get that dusty, disused look about it.

Then I remembered that I have some serious things to blog about… I mean, heck, I’ve got a wicked cool upcoming contest/give-away for Valentine’s Day – and if I get organized, I might have a couple of other ones as well. (This would require me digging through my email inbox and finding all the ones that were nice people wanting to give my readers something fun for the holiday and actually, um, you know… emailing back again and if they’re still willing, post the darn things!)  And I’ve had some thoughts on my mind, too.  Hey, it happens!

Well, I think I did anyways.  These days it seems like I have these great blogposts that are just itching to get written and then I get out of the shower and they melt away like so much soap down the drain.  Maybe you guys should just come hang out in my bathroom and I can shout them at you instead? Nah… I know. It’s a small bathroom.  And besides, I’m more likely to sing at you than verbally blog.

So then.  Tomorrow isn’t just Monday – it’s also Groundhog Day!!!

I was going to have this big surprise on Groundhog Day – but then *cough* it got pushed back – so that one is right out.  Maybe I can distract you with this picture of a groundhog… No? Okay, how about reminiscing about how great that Bill Murray movie called Groundhog Day is? Seriously, if I can’t get you with that one – we’re beyond hope.  I love that movie.

Alright then – I give up. I’ll start writing content again tomorrow.  I mean, after all… if Punxsatawney Phil sees his shadow, we have 6 more weeks of winter.  If *I* don’t see my shadow I have 6 more hours of sleep to come up with something more exciting than this post turned out to be.

See ya tomorrow then.  Shadow or not.

GeekDaddy left sometime around 0-dark-thirty for a business trip to Philadelphia, so today was just me, Buttercup, and the cat & dog.  Plus freezing temperatures and horridly grey weather colored with a bit of snow for variety.

Tonight found me trying to put her to bed alone and now that she’s 6, realizing that it’s actually much harder than it was when she was younger.  When it was just us and she was younger, bedtime w/o Daddy just meant the same usual struggle as every night.  Now she’s more aware of it when one of us is out of town.  Makes for several more ‘I couldn’t sleep because…’ trips.

I have to say that while I love my daughter with every ounce of my being, it’s weeks like this that I wonder how single parents make it without totally losing their sanity.  Especially those that work and are pretty much without any nearby family to support them.  I think they are made of sterner – or perhaps less selfish – stuff than I.

I do suspect that far too many of them sacrifice sleep in favor of “just a little me time” at night after the child(ren) are asleep.  It would certainly explain that glazed look so many single-parent friends of mine seem to have even after their past the early years of infant-originated sleep deprivation.

I just thought I’d take a second to recognize how amazing you single-parents are… because it’s nights like this one that make me think how awesome anyone is that can do this as such and somehow manage to raise happy, healthy children.

Meanwhile, I’m going to bed – I somehow have to be up at 5:30a tomorrow to get my daughter to school on time.  It’s a good thing GeekDaddy comes home in a couple of days or I’d so be considering home schooling just so I wouldn’t have to drive before 9 a.m. on a regular basis!

Why don’t they have night school for kindergartners?

I envy consistent people. They move along at a fairly even pace – awakening each day to the same process, facing the morning with some sort of well-practiced routine that gets them up, showered, dressed, and even exercised in some cases, long before they have to engage their brains and settle in for a day’s work.

Even in my days as a corporate denizen I was never any good at that. Some days I’d get up and through the necessary ablutions, have time for breakfast, coffee, and a perusal of the day’s news before heading out the door. Other days I’d be hard pressed to get out of bed without first making best friends with the snooze button too many times and then experiencing a harried flight outward just making it to work on time. Which pretty much describes every day of my education from kindergarten to college as well. Consistency has been a battle for me all of my life.

I’ve pondered at times why some of us are capable of incorporating such routines into our lives and why some of us are not. It’s one of those “2 types of people” dilemmas. I’ve noticed that those capable of doing it are almost always trying to convince those of us who aren’t that we could do it if only we “tried harder” or “got in the habit.”  In fact, I think they suspect that we’re just not trying or it would come as easily to us as it does to them.

And yet, still I have no “consistent bedtime” nor “consistent morning routine” nor, for that matter, a consistent anything.  We say humans are “creatures of habit” but I begin to wonder if it’s true for all of us.  I don’t drive the same way to places I go routinely.  I don’t break down my work day into smaller processes like so many ‘getting things done’ books say I should.

Not for lack of trying, mind you. I’m 42 years old… believe me, I’ve tried.  It’s just that something in me just refuses to ‘buckle down and fly right.’

This often makes it difficult for me to interact with the “if it’s Tuesday, this must be casserole night” crowd.  My lack of consistent routine or ability to implement one comes across to them as flakiness.  In fact, I’ve used that term to describe myself many times because it’s just easier than saying “I’m not like you.”

If you label someone as “inconsistent” it’s seldom a compliment.  We try hard ourselves to come up with more flattering terms – ecclectic, eccentric, artistic, marching to the beat of a different drummer – but really? We’re just as baffled as to why we can’t do it as those who can are as to why we can’t.

I’ve been battling this for a long time now (based on starting kindergarten at age 5, I’ll go with around 37 years or so) and I think I’ve just had an epiphany of sorts for me.  I need to quit trying to fit my little square self into that tempting round hole and try to figure out instead how to thrive as someone who will never have 2 days in a row that are the same (unless, of course, having 2 days in a row that are the same breaks the pattern, then it’s a given, right?)

So how does someone who is ‘consistently inconsistent’ turn that into an asset rather than a handicap? Well, I’m not sure yet.  But I’m going to find out sometime this year and I’ll let you know.  I’m done being down on myself for not being a ‘creature of habit’ – I’m ready to be a ‘creature of unpredictability’ with fabulous flair.  Success doesn’t depend on fitting in, after all – it depends on rising above the crowd.

Last year was amazing on a lot of levels for me. So many amazing people I’ve had the privilege to meet. So many amazing experiences I’ve had the good fortune to be a part of. I couldn’t have foreseen some of the events of 2008 in a million years before they happened and I’m still not quite sure I believe all of them have!

But this isn’t a ‘year in review post’ although perhaps it ought to be… It’s just that I had the chance to write about that stuff over the past twelve months. If I didn’t do it? It’s time to move on and get up to speed with 2009 instead of putting it off until I get the other done.

One of the things that made this blog so sparse last year was that I kept saying “oh I’ll post about such-and-such just as soon as I get X, Y, and Z done first.” Here’s one of those self-realizations: that just means that X, Y, Z and now A thru G aren’t getting posted in a timely manner either.

So while I’ve got a doozy of a post in the works for tomorrow and another one I want up right after that? I’m going to do this right this very moment.

I’m going to sit here and write out a preliminary list of my New Year’s Resolutions.  Will it be comprehensive? No.  Will it be well-fleshed out? No.  Will it be here in case I do get around to adding to it or adding to the detail? You betcher boots.

In 2009 I Resolve to:

1. Get things done in a more timely manner. I told you this would be on here!  I’ve had a horrid time the past six months or so with this.  I just deleted a huge, long “too much information” paragraph with details about it.  The short story? Moving from ‘procrastinates at times but gets things done’ to ‘can barely get through a day and get 1 out of 20 things on the to-do list done’ was the apparently-common side-effect of medication I have been on for health/pain issues over the past year.  The worsening of which coincides directly with dosage changes.  That will be changing.  Pain + productivity and a sense of accomplishment is better to me than less pain + non-productivity and resulting depression.
2. Lose weight, get healthy, get fit – yeah, I know… way to lump huge goals into 6 words!  But you really can’t separate them out. I can’t get fit & healthy without losing weight, I can’t lose weight without doing the other two.  The three are mutually dependent in my book.  Yes, I actually do have plans on how to achieve this.  I’m just not going to detail them here.  Changing my diet, exercising regularly, dealing with the side-effects and changing my medical approach? All parts of that. Which should help me more with the first goal too!
3. Set & achieve new career goals – can I be more vague? Yeah, I could. I could’ve left out “career.”  I know what it means – I’m hoping I can post about some new developments very soon.  I’m working on a few possible projects for this year that I think will enable me to both do what I love to do and benefit my clients and colleagues more regularly too.   But some things need to come out in their own times.
4. Strike a better balance between branches of my life time & energywise.  The social, work, and family aspects, specifically.  Less Twitter, more blogging.  Less internet for play, more family time.  More internet for work, less play time. You know the routine!
5. Travel more. There are some places and events I will find ways to be at this year… they will enable me to learn, teach, share, grow, and spend time with others who have similar passions.  But as much as I plan to ‘go more places’ I will remember that there’s no place like home.
6. Put my houses in order – all of them.  The place I spend each day, my online homes, my spiritual homes, and my places in the hearts of those who love me and whom I love? I will nurture them and care for them this year – so that next year, this list is shorter in “big” things and longer in detail.

That said? Specific enough or not, it’s time to quit making lists and get cracking on crossing items off of them! Wish me luck – I’ll wish it back to you.  Hopefully, what we both lack in luck, we can make up for in determination.

2009!!

picture source