Autumn rush

We are almost at the end of October and I have yet to post anything since sometime in September. To be fair, there was one major change in my life that I'm still adjusting to as it keeps changing on me.

I now work full time so you can imagine how much less time I had than before. I started back in mid-September right after my last post. It's been about 2 months and there have been only 2 weeks in which I have stayed under 40 hours. I've done more than a few 12 hour days because I can't say no, which is a little bit of a running gag at work. It's been a bit stressful and it's been a bit of a sharp learning curve but I'm getting there. The worst part has been the constant schedule changes as some weeks I'm working during the day and other weeks I'm working evenings as I'm trying to get as much training done as possible.

This has, of course, made changes in the household as we're all trying to adjust to the fact that as I have less time than before we need to all pitch in more together so that the house stays clean, animals are taken care of and we're all fed ourselves and that we still find some time together as a family. So far we're doing okay. Some days are better than others but we're getting there.

It doesn't help that it is autumn, which has always been a busy season for my family and this adjusting has to happen in the middle of it all. I am armed with my planners though and that's been helping with keeping things organized and descending into complete chaos. My husband and I also make it a point to chat every night to keep each other informed with what's happening to the both of us and to our family. Some things are still falling to the wayside and I'm fine with that, as long as the major things are being taken care of.

I do miss my time to work on my personal projects but I do what I can when I can and remind myself that I could go to sleep late to work on my own stuff but I need to sleep because of everything that happens during the day. Maybe once things calm down a bit we'll work out a better routine and hopefully I'll get to back to posting more regularly.

In a Planner World

I've taken my first steps into a bigger world. I'm now part of a planner group on Facebook. I joined the Llamas Love Lettering Group, which is a group that focuses on planner stuff and lettering all encouraged by Cindy Guentert-Baldo.

I've been watching her on Youtube a lot and she's one of my favorite planner people to watch as she's funny and more importantly, her brain seems to work in a similar way as mine when it comes to planning and such. She also does a lot of creative projects that I can get into myself along with art supply reviews. I'm not sure how much I'll be joining along with comments and such but I've started and we'll see how far I go into the planner rabbit hole.

This is late but I'm posting this on time so I'm getting better with keeping up again! Go me!

Challenging more

I was doing so well for a long while with posting regularly and on time but then I just fell off the bandwagon. This posting has been a good indicator of how far along or how far behind I feel with my general goals. If things are on time, I'm right on schedule with this little blog of mine but if I feel like I'm falling behind, the timing gets all screwy. Obviously, I'm feeling a bit overwhelmed with everything that's been happening.

For the past several weeks, I've been on overdrive with trying to get everything done. My daughter finished school last month and now we're just waiting to get information about her new school since we decided to switch her out of public school and into a charter school. It's been interesting trying to parent a preteen with the trappings of modern life. My house is a mess and I'm still dealing with insurance trying to get everything ready so that things might finally progress along. The weather has been up and down with thunderstorms every 4 days and just recently there was a heat wave, which made working in a warehouse so much fun. At this point, I don't think I know any other speed besides ludicrous speed. I honestly can't believe that it's already July. The year is halfway through and I feel like I've barely got anything done.

Of course, it's not enough and I have to add another thing to my to do list. I've been learning lettering and focusing on brush lettering and calligraphy. Luckily, that was indeed one of my things to learn this year so I'm ahead on that, slightly. To keep practicing, I decided to start up a challenge for the month of July. It's a lettering/journaling/doodling challenge on the topic of Harry Potter. Of course, I'm focusing on lettering this challenge. It's been fun so far. I'm hoping it'll be another thing that I can say that I completed this year.

Shell Shy

It's difficult being a person. I find myself to be more cat than a human at times. Once I like you, I claim you and I want all your attention. If I haven't claimed you, I'll take you in whatever doses I choose and no more. I'm perfectly happy being a hermit and not making an effort to talk to people who I'm not forced to see everyday and even with those people, I'm fine with simply not saying anything. I suppose that's just being an introvert though.

When things are difficult around me, I have a tendency to turtle myself in. When my emotions are chaotic and barely under my control I find it worse to be around people as their emotions tend to throw my own emotions off even more. This year has been very trying for me and my family so far so I've barely held onto my sense of self and have avoided people to not add to the drama that's already happening. The year is halfway through and I can't keep avoiding people, as much as I'd like to. I'm making steps to reach out to people again. 

Writing letters was the first step to getting used to the idea of starting conversation with people again. I started messaging people. I finally contacted someone to hang out, face to face. I'm getting there and hopefully it won't be long until I'm a person and not just a shell of a turtle. 

Summer's Almost Here!

I'm still here and still not sure what to do with this blog. I feel I should do something productive with it but I honestly have no idea as what that might be. I've continued journaling and that has helped with making sure my head doesn't feel too full with excess emotions. My planner continues to give me a great boost in productivity. I'm not sure what else I need after that.

I don't have much going on right now as I'm a bit busy dealing with life issues. I woke up a few days ago to a loud boom, in which a guy ran the stop light in front of my house, hit a van in the cross traffic which sent the van into my front door and the car into my car. I don't even have words on what a mess things have been and still are. The weather has just been crazy for the past several weeks with barely just a day or two of sunshine before rain and cloudiness settles in. I love the rain but I'm a bit sick of it at this point. I need some nice weather to stick around for a while.

It's the the last full week of May. Next week starts the month of June so before I even knew it, summer is just around the corner and I am so not ready. It seems the weather decided to just skip spring and go straight into the hot season. It's super hot or super rainy with not much else so far but hopefully we can sneak in a few nice days in between.

I'm going to make it my mission to enjoy this summer though. Spring was a wash in many ways but I'm determined to try my best to turn things around. We may not have major plans to go anywhere but we can still enjoy time together as a family and see friends again.

2018 check, check, 1, 2, 3

I am still here. Of course, I'm a couple of days late but that is because on the day that I would have posted I did actually journal a bit. I'm not completely done with this blog yet though. Sooner or later, I may actually have to change this blog to something but I'm not sure to what yet. I still need time to think through this.

Time is not something that I have a lot of. It is already April and 2018 has been a mess of a year so far. My sink broke the other day and it cost me just an arm to have it fixed. It was worth the price to get my sink fixed so quickly as living without a kitchen sink is a really annoying thing since we have no dishwasher. My kid is getting braces this year but for the first stage, she is getting just a spacer. Just a few weeks ago, I had to get a tire replaced. What this all means is that I am in a decent amount of debt right now.

I'm doing good on some things and other things I feel as if I'm floundering. I'm doing well with my Flowbook challenge. I like the nice break it gives me to focus on something that is out of the ordinary to do. I actually went jogging the other day and I'm hoping to go jogging again if the weather would not flip out every other day. I've been reading books and played video games. I'm writing letters, which has been so much fun. I'm proud of myself on those ends. My planner system is doing a good job of keeping me organized and not feeling as if I'm constantly forgetting things. My health is a bit of a mix up. I'm more tired and though I try to get to bed on time, it doesn't work out as I'm trying to give myself extra time to work on things that I want to do. It also means that I'm taking more naps, which is a good thing as when I need the rest I'm trying to not resist so hard but it also means I'm not far off from wearing myself down again. I took a nap today, which was only supposed to last 30-45 mins but I didn't wake for 4 hrs. I've been trying to keep healthy but I keep craving sugary things and I'm starving when I get home from work most nights so I end up eating way more than I should for being so late in the evening. Worst of all, I feel a little down lately. I'm not sure if it's stress from everything or that I am legitimately feeling down because of my bipolar.

I'm going to keep going though. I don't have any other choice but to keep taking each step forward. I'll get there, wherever I am supposed to be though it may be a tough journey. Maybe I'm just walking up a very large hill.

For every page there is a turn . . .

I've had this blog for the past 8 years and been fairly diligent with it. It started out as a class assignment and I just kept it going for no particular reason than my own amusement. I know no one reads this and I'm perfectly happy with that. It's just a spot to occasionally put down my thoughts without worrying about who might find this. If someone does stumble along this, well, there isn't really anything all that interesting on here. I think it might be time to move on though. Having this blog prevents me from journaling in an old fashioned notebook and I miss using a pen to do so. It's definitely more convenient to type out my words as there are times when my hand can't keep up with my brain but it's slightly less satisfying and I'm trying to move on from always convenient to more mindful. I still need to consider this some more though. For anyone, who does see this in the mean time, I hope you have a great day cause that's all I've got for now.

Madd for March

It's March! I can hardly believe it! This is just a few days late and going to be another update.

February blew by in a breeze. It's the shortest month of the year but I don't think any of us expected it to go by that fast. InCoWriMo is finished and I completed my version of it by writing at least 2 letters a week. In total it was 10 letters and I have already received 2 replies. Next year I'm doing it the right way and will write a letter everyday.

I came up with the idea of a reflection journal. My plan is that there will be an overall theme for the year that I want to focus on and then for each month there will be a theme that I need to work on as a person that will fit in the year's overall focus. I'm going to figure out at least 3 things on how to work on that subject and then journal a bit about why it's important for me to work on this particular topic., I'm going write a bit whether I feel if I fulfilled those 3 points too. I was kind of already doing this since the beginning of the year in my mind so I figured it was about time I simply put it down on paper. I'm just glad that I finally figured out a use for the Tototo notebook and pet set the hubby had given me so long ago.

I'm not sure if I'm going to have a big project for March yet. I still have a tiny bit of time to figure it out.

2018 so far . . .

Once again, I am a few days late with this post but at least it's better than a whole week late like last time though so I've made some progress, which is actually what this post is going to be about, so it all comes around full circle. 

It's been going well so far. Last month was a month of rest and reset. 2017 was a super busy year and I wore myself into the ground and I definitely needed some time to let my body basically heal up. This month has been a working progress on what I want to happen for 2018. I got my Chic Sparrow notebook and I absolutely love it. It's been a huge help with keeping me organized and focused with what needs to be done when I'm out of the house. 

I've been able to finish up a few small projects. I have also added new projects. I got a book about mindfulness and I have a goal to do at least 1 thing from that book a week. I have already finished reading 4 books and I've started reading my 5th book. I'm super excited and proud of myself that I'm already a fourth of a way through my goal for the year and it's only the 2nd month into this year. I'm really hoping that I won't lost momentum and will keep with it so that I might up my goal if I finish a decent amount of time before the year ends. I've already finished a small crochet project along with a large crochet project. I now have no excuses to not be working on my hubby's Mega Man blanket. I really hope that I can at least made good progress on it this and next month. I have even watched a few movies though I have not watched any new movies for my movie challenge. I've not been doing any learning last month or this month, which is really bad on my end but I'm hoping to change that next month. This month is a bit busy with InCoWriMo. This month I have been very excited to say that I have been taking some good Me Time with playing Mass Effect 3. I need to work on being social a bit more though as I have yet to contact any family for the past few weeks. 

There's still time though and with my planners and journals I definitely notice that I'm way more mindful of time and how I'm spending it. I don't feel as overwhelmed about things as I'm more aware of what needs to happen and how I need to make other things happen. I think I was feeling the same way back in 2017 after doing the planning and journaling for the last half of the year and just overestimated how much I thought I could handle. I'm super proud that I did everything but I'm not thrilled that it was at the cost of my health and how instead of jumping into the newness of 2018 I had to still rest up. It's a lesson learned, for now anyway until the next update. 

In case of writing to do . . .

Once again, I'm almost a week late with this blog post. On the plus side, I'm just about caught up on everything and doing my best to ensure that I'm not pushing myself too hard so there is progress.

I have added a new project to my never ending list to bust boredom and expand my horizons. I found InCoWriMo, which is International Correspondence Writing Month. They even have a list of addresses for people who are participating and I'm planning on joining in since back a few months ago I had expressed interest in doing something of this like. I unfortunately missed the actual start of this project but I don't want to miss out on all the fun so I'm putting my own twist on things. Instead of a handwritten letter everyday for the month of February, I'm simply going to do just a letter a week. It's a bit of a more doable goal for me. I have picked 3 international addresses to write and 1 here in the US. I'm hoping this will work out in the long run!

Mindful Time

Oh, I'm a week or so late with this one. I have been using that time as wisely as I am able to, trying to catch up with work. It has been marginally successful but obviously, I'm still not done. I will admit that playing catch up already in just the first few weeks into 2018 has me a bit worried and I'm hoping it won't be a trend that repeats itself too much or be a sign of bad foreshadowing for this year 2018. I'm determined to be positive for the time being though and I'm going with the idea that I'm simply finishing up 2017 karma. Moving into 2018, I have given myself a challenge for this entire year.

I had seen a review on youtube for A Book that Takes its Time, an Unhurried Adventure in Creative Mindfulness created by Flow magazine.

It's supposed to help me be present in the moment and get my creativity to flow and enjoy the little things in life. I thought it would be fun to give it a try and my goal is to read and do an activity from the book at least once a week. It has articles to read, recipes to try, journal cards and small notebooks to fill and other such different things to do.

I'll see how it works out and hopefully, I'll enjoy the journey of the book. It's a pretty trendy thing to do a word of the year and I'm thinking my word of the year might be mindfulness.

Out of 2017 and into the New Year

I was doing so good for a long while about keeping this updated within a day or two at most and this last month was just a fail on more levels than not posting to this blog. The end of year stress got to me.

I caught a stomach bug and I have seriously never been that sick in my entire life in just one night. I had to call out of work the next day, which almost turned into a really bad situation. It took a week to recover and then right on Christmas Day, I was sick again with a very bad cold, which took another week to recover. Having to work in a warehouse, in which the temperature inside is barely tolerable compared to the temperature outside does not help speed up recovery. Any progress on anything was completely halted as I barely had enough energy to enjoy the holiday.

It's 2018 now though so it's a good time to start anew. This month of January will be used as a catch up and recovery and refresh month. I need to get caught up with last month's stuff before I can move onto the current month stuff. I also need to take my time doing so to make sure my body is completely recovered so that it doesn't relapse twice again. The last step is just getting ready for this year and making sure plans are in place to continue to make progress on things around me and on myself.

So, here's to a new year and new beginnings and all that. 

A balancing act

So obviously I have been obsessed with my planning and notebook system. It's keeping me organized and I have been doing extremely well with getting almost everything I want done. It's also teaching me a lot about myself. It's really made me pay attention to my own habits, what motivates me and made me really aware of how long it actually takes to get certain tasks done. It's also shown me how much more I can get done if I set my mind to it and how important it is to make time for myself. It's even shown me what type of person I am.

I have learned that I am an extroverted introvert. I was aware of the fact that I have a tendency of hermitting myself for a good period of time especially during times when I'm feeling stressed. I wasn't aware of how long these periods would last or how often I would do so. Through keeping track of how much or how little I socialize I realized that I have no problems going days and even weeks without speaking to someone not in my household or from work. Seeing that trend made me realize that even speaking with the few that I speak to everyday I still need an intense amount of alone time before and after. I relish the daytime when my husband and daughter are at work or at school so that I have the entire day to get what I need done on my own. I'm very happy when get home and I greet them both with hugs and kisses at their arrival, then I head to work and I'm happy with chat cheerfully with anyone I see but then I'm more than happy to get home so what when my husband goes to bed I have time to myself to work on whatever I want or just to relax by myself. 

Reading and writing and are intensely solitary actions for me and I get extremely annoyed when I'm interrupted. Listening to music is also an intensely personal thing for me. I like working in my planner and notebooks in my quiet time and even going through paperwork that needs to be done. Once I get my fill of my alone time, I'm more than ready to socialize, talk and laugh about anything and everything. I'm quite well known to not know when to shut up and I'm usually the one with an interested anecdote to share.

The best thing I've learned so far with using my planner and notebooks is that I'm most happy when things are balanced now that I know what sort of balance I need. 

Gluttonous plans

I'm quite afraid that I've bitten off more than I might able to chew. I've been on a planning kick, obviously, and it's been going wonderfully well but I may have taken on a bit too much planning this time.

We decided to throw a Halloween party. Right after that is my Hubby's and mine's wedding anniversary. It's a bit more special than usual as it will be our 15th wedding anniversary. Of course, we then jump right into my daughter's birthday with Veteran's Day, which something must be done, as my hubby is a veteran. On a more low key note, my birthday is right after that. Adding another thing to my list is that I've decided it would be a good break for my mother-in-law for me to cook Thanksgiving dinner, which then leads us into the maddening chase of the Christmas season, which also happens to be the busiest time for my job. Major event after major event is happening with hardly a moment to take a breath in between them. I don't think I was quite right in my state of mind to think taking on all these things was the best idea but I am committed to these plans now and will be moving forward.

I have my planners and will keep using them to make sure I have as tight a reign on my time as much as possible so that I may utilize to the best of my ability but to also have time scheduled to simply relax. I am indeed doing a whole lot but it won't do anyone any good if I'm so stressed and tired that I can't get what need to be done. Planners gonna plan, but maybe next time, not so much.

Writers gonna write

To recap, I have my actual Recollections planner for household and work, a regular notebook that’s sort of like a bullet journal for personal habit tracking and a traveler’s notebook for when I’m running errands out of the house. It’s all been great for getting my life in somewhat of an order—remembering the past, organizing in the present and planning for the future.

I've even added 2 notebooks. I've started calligraphy so I have a notebook to practice the lettering. It's a bit trendy right now but I've always wanted to learn and while I've finally found a niche of time, I figured it was about time. I've also decided to start journaling again. I need to get back into writing, more than just the biweekly blog posts that I've been doing. Challenges are another trendy thing but I thought it might be interesting to try out. I don't normally do prompts but I've had such a difficult time trying to get my mind into the right place to start writing that I thought maybe having a starting point might give a good boost to jump off of. Since next month is November I thought I might go with a gratitude theme, what with Thanksgiving and all. I know that next month is NaNoWriMo and it would make more sense for me to start off with that but as I mentioned my mind isn't in the right frame to jump into writing a novel.

These are the plans so far. I'm hoping that I'll be able to keep up with my journaling challenge and that it won't take me too long to learn calligraphy but I'll take my time and enjoy the process as that is why I do things.

GSD

I have read Death Comes to Pemberley. I have restarted reading Pioneer Girl. I beat Mass Effect and its sequel Mass Effect 2. I am contemplating whether I should continue right away into the third game or take a break from PC gaming and finish playing Fire Emblem Awakening. I have watched Porco Rosso and finally re-watched Tales from EarthSea with plans to finally watch the rest of what we have for Studio Ghibli. I have also done random sketches while staying on top of the usual house chores.

I'm honestly quite amazed at how I've stayed on task with almost everything and gotten so much more than I expected done. Using a planner to keep track of work and a personal goals tracker has made all the difference. It's so satisfying to look into my planner every morning, get the job done and be able to cross it off the list everyday. It's an ever better feeling to see that my work is done and that I have time to meet my personal goals and either make progress on them or just straight out finish them up.

It's such a great feeling of accomplishment.

Planning a Plan

When I like something, I usually become obsessed with it. It's an unfortunate/fortunate thing that happens when one is a Scorpio. It's usually a good thing as it actually helps me get things done. Once I start a project, I will baring unfortunate circumstances will finish it.

Of course, I'm obsessed with planning by using planners and notebooks. I adore my Recollections planner as I use it to keep track of work, specifically household related chores, appointments and dated activities. I enjoy using my personal goal tracker notebook as it helps me take better care of myself from making sure I'm drinking water everyday to reminding myself to take time for myself. My next plan is get to get a traveler's notebook. I need an expense tracker that I can carry with me at all times. I can only use it to put in lists of things that need to be done while I am out.

I do have Ipad mini 4, which I still use to carry it with me around everywhere but being able to write things down helps me remember more things that need to be done. Apps also have a way of no longer being available to continuous use, which is highly annoying and utterly inconvenient. Paper and pen does not ever get out of use. Also, I have hope that once my current personal goal tracker book no longer has any pages to use at the end of this year, I may be able to add it as an insert into my traveler's notebook to condense the actual amount of separate books to carry around.

It's all about progress and a living system that I can use and adapt for my ever changing pace of life.

Time to plan

I honestly have no concept of time most days, as evidenced by inability to keep this blog updated regularly. I've been doing good lately though and I hope to keep it up and keep working on things that I tend to lay to the side and not always pick back up. I think I've found a working solution  to this problem. Recently I've gotten into planners, which I know sounds weird.

A friend of mine got into bullet journaling, which is a keeping of a schedule, to do list, goal tracker, brain dump, gratitude journal and whatever else you want to keep track of and jot it down using a bullet writing system. It's a living system that you create as you go to figure what you got done already and keep an ongoing list of things that still need to be done. It can very much be a minimalist system taking just seconds but some people really get into it and decorate their journals with art using markers, watercolors and anything they want with different design spreads and such.

I was intrigued with the idea but I wasn't sure if I could keep up with such a practice. I ended up watching youtube videos to see all the different ways that people do things and there is a whole community of people who do this. This video gives you the basics of the system by the person who actually created it. 

This video gives you an idea of just how far some people get into this system and how much you can really do with the bullet journal. I love how you can personalize it and get as creative with it as you want.

I have since tripped into the planner community. Once again, there are people who completely dedicate themselves to creating and decorating their planners and it's a whole industry with companies such as Erin Condren and The Happy Planner. Some of it is too much for me but for me, the system seemed to have a lot of merit in it. I've had planners before but I was never able to keep up with doing it. I decided to give it a shot though cause I needed something more to do than just using my Ipad mini 4. My to-do lists in the reminders app just wasn't cutting it and kept getting longer and longer. 

I went into Michael's craft store and bought a Recollections planner and I love it. In just 2 weeks I've gotten more done in 2 weeks than I have in the past 2 months. I've been slowly getting into it but have limited myself to a sticker pack, 2 different stick note packs and 2 different colored pens. I use my Ipad mini as a type of future log and my planner for more weekly and day to day planner.

Just putting this out there that I didn't know about any of these types of videos until after I had bought my Recollections planner. 

I also have another smaller journal that do create as I go, almost like a real bullet journal but using my own spread, to keep track of personal goals such as making sure I'm drinking enough water every day, working on my own personal goals and taking time for myself. 

It all seems like a lot and I would agree but it's working cause I've had time to play video games! In fact, I'm so excited to say that I beat the first Mass Effect game and I'm in the middle of playing Mass Effect 2 with plans to play Mass Effect 3 afterwards! Who knows if I'll still be into this 18 months later, when my current planner is finally finished, that maybe I'll buy a name brand planner such The Happy Planner. I love the idea of actually combining my weekly work planner with my daily personal planner into 1 book system. 

In case you can't tell . . .I'm Kassandra and I'm a stationery addict.  lol

Write it down!

Just a few days late with this one so that's progress. I figure I'm ahead of the curve anyway as I've kept this up for a handful of years already. I have an actual journal though it's been even longer since I've used it to pour my emotions into. I've started a few entries over the past five years or so but I've yet to finish one. A blog is just much faster but I'm a romantic as I adore pen to paper.

My love for putting ink onto paper shows at my desk. I'm surrounded by paper. I have binders of information ready at a fingertip's notice.  There's a binder for fun ideas and trips, a binder full of medical information ready to reference in the middle of phone calls to doctors' offices, a binder to keep general household information such bills and such and even a binder full of receipts and coupons to keep track of monthly spending. They all help keep my life organized. I have a small binder filled with more important information and a weekly planner for the more everyday lists of things to do.

I do believe I need to start a list of books I have read and books that I would like to read. I most definitely think I need to start a binder or journal of some sort to fill with all the ideas of projects that I would like to do. I have things everywhere and lists scattered all over the place so I think it's about time I put them all together so that I might be able to see right away what I want to do and actually do it. Or maybe I have enough binders.

Forward, march!

Sadly enough, I'm terribly late with this post. This isn't the best trend to be continuing for this year and I'm trying my best to turn things around, which is now my goal for this year.

The quote goes, "To the world, you might be one person but to one person you might be the world." Now, I'm not meaning to take this literally in that I mean to make myself so super important to a single person. I'm meaning to focus on my own interactions on a day to day basis, trying to make the most positive outcomes for myself and those around me. I want to better myself and others around me through more direct acts. I will continue to do what is right instead of what is easy.

First off, I'm going to work on myself. I can't help others if I can't take care of myself. I've started counting my calories again. I need to eat healthier and counting calories helps me with that. It forces me to drink more water and snack on junk food less but not totally deprive myself of the foods I enjoy. I've already lost about 5 lbs. Next, I need to exercise more. Luckily, I have a fairly active job and that gives me strength training on day to day basis. I need to add a daily stretch routine, which I'm hoping to start soon, maybe even today. I also want to add a little more cardio to my daily routine such as a walk or something. I will work up to it, going one step at a time. I want these habits to last.

I will continue on my ever lasting list of things to do around the house and try not to let things fall to the way side due to sheer laziness. I can't work in a messy environment and I have to remember that maintenance is a lot easier in the general run of things. I've been doing a good job of picking up the general work schedule again this past week and now I just have to keep it up.

Most important on my self, I need to remember to give myself time to relax, time to have fun and time to rest. It's my worst point. I'm always last on my own list. I have to remember that it's important to recharge my own batteries so that I have the energy and right frame of mind to keep going forward.

Second of all, I'm going to work on personal relationships. I need to be less judgmental and less likely to jump to conclusions. No matter how right I feel that I am, I need to approach situations with a cool head. I have to remember that ignorance can only be beaten by teaching a person to think for themselves and that arguing usually only causes a person to dig their own heels further into the issue. Each person has their own unique situation and I need to remember that I need to share in their experiences sometimes.

I was recently in a situation in which a person said something that came across as ignorant and completely hypocritical. I tried to confront this person in a less public fashion but this person instead decided to avoid confrontation without any explanation. The situation was a reminder that not everyone is as ready to deal with issues as I am and I have to remember that I have no control over that and to move on.

I am my world and there are others in their worlds. My goal is to let those worlds meet and be better off for it.