Monday, February 22, 2010

Winter Blah-Blah-Blah Blues

Blog hopping can be a good thing and a bad thing. I am finding that many homeschooling mamas get a little less-than-enthused this time of year. One of my favorite things about blog hopping is that I love finding out that I am not the only one. After Christmas Break it was extremely difficult to get back into a school schedule. My kiddos want to play and I want to, well, blog hop. Hmmm.... and there's the bad! This is our first year of homeschooling and I am dizzy with all of the information out there in the Wonderful Wide Web. My latest curiosity is Workboxes. These could be just what this not-very-organized teaching mommy needs.

The original workbox system can be found here: http://www.workboxsystem.com/

A blog I've been exploring tonight with helpful information about workboxes is here: http://heartofwisdom.com/blog/inside-our-workboxes-photo-journal/

I am off to go plan for tomorrow. "I think I can... I think I can..." Chug, chug. Puff, puff. Up the hill I go...

Wednesday, February 10, 2010

Goals With a Capital GO!



We all know that Super Woman is not real. I have not been affected by the illusion except in looking at the chasm of the woman I see myself as and the woman I so desperately want to become. This evening I decided to play with my markers and some blank pages from one of my kids' art tablets. I love color and the possibilities of a blank page thrill me. I pictured, today for the first time, a large gap between where I am and where I want to be. So I drew it.
I brought my just-sharpened pencil to the left side of the long bright page. I drew a frumpy, wrinkly, sad, frazzled, Me with a bad hair do, bushy eyebrows, five chins, and a little globe on one of my shoulders. On the right side I drew a skinny, poised, high-heeled, lady with an "S" written on her chest and her hair just so - the Me Who I Want To Be.
In one color of ink (I chose grey) I wrote words randomly around the Me on the left. Words like; not worthy, ugly, frazzled, out of shape, not dependable, messy, and whiny. Around the picture on the right I wrote (in red); super mommy, put together, wise, fit, thin, sweet, gentle, energetic, and others.
Writing down some of those words and phrases made me cringe and some made me giggle out loud. I was glad my children were occupied on the other side of the house. They don't need any more proof that their mama has lost her mind! It occurred to me that my self image is not realistic. What an a-ha, huh? I crossed out some of those things that are just not true. I crossed out such things as; stupid, not worthy, bad mom. I also added words to make some statements truer. For example, I inserted an "always" between "not" and "dependable." I added "often" to "late."
I did the same thing with those lofty red words on the right. If it was unrealistic or impossible I crossed them out. Super mom, young, perfect, and thin were some words that ended up with lines drawn through them. Then I circled those things that I figured I really already am, at least to some degree. I circled; insightful, creative, witty, and wise. I added "can be" to "organized" because I really sometimes can be! Really!
I was having so much fun and learning so much about myself that I almost forgot that chasm between the two. So in pencil (I didn't have enough room for ink!) I jotted down some ideas of what I thought might be keeping me from being who I want to be. It did not take very long because I was realizing that the real problem was that who I am now and who I want to be are the same person. Just needs some tweaking! I wrote, "bad habits, lack of good habits, poor me attitude, feeling of worthlessness, accountability or lack thereof, time, tired, lies (to myself), schedule, and kids not minding."
Those red words that were left I considered them to be wishes or goals, things I would like to see in myself. I grouped them and then grouped them again. I was able to narrow them down to 5 goals/wishes/ideals.
  1. Be Purposeful (from such words as ambitious, goal-achieving)
  2. Faithful (patient, kind, gentle, sweet, role-model)
  3. Energetic, Fit, Youthful (energetic, muscular)
  4. Dependable, Neat, Put Together (dependable, neat, put together)
  5. Author
All of my red words could be combined to fit into that small list. It was fun placing them in order. Being purposeful could sure help out in every area of my life so that came first. I waste a lot of time flitting from task to task without accomplishing much. I decided the second on my list ought to be Faithful. The logic here is a little different. Since "kindness, gentleness, and patience" are Fruits of the Spirit, I figured that these will be accomplished in spite of me not because of me. God will be doing the work for those particular objectives. Scary how my mind works sometimes!
I do realize that it won't be easy.
My final task was to revisit the chasm-causers like; bad habits, being tired, and having a "poor me" attitude. I wrote a brief to-do list.
  • Quit Whining!
  • Make a schedule (and stick to it!)
  • Set a time for sleeping and waking
  • Be honest with myself
  • Establish habits with end results in mind
No mystery. Not really. But by doing things backwards this way, I have been able to see more clearly how skewed my thinking has been.
And look! I'm blogging again! So I can cross off #5!