Self Observance

So in my quest to better myself and my attitude/mood about life I have been trying to understand what gets me so down. Simple...no.

This past weekend Hans' grandmother passed away. This is a good thing because these last few weeks, and honestly months, have been very hard for her. Her health has been going down hill for a while. Earlier in the year she fell and broke a hip. As statistics go, she did little to improve her walking skills after the surgery and then her mood (which was already on the brink) fell into the pits. For the last year or so she has been confused on a daily bais and often cried because she was embarrassed when she would mix us up. Then two weeks ago she suffered a stroke from which she never recovered. She was conscious from time to time, but her physical condition became so bad that in the end she was surviving on Ensure that we feed to her, as you would a baby bird, with a medicine syringe. It was very hard to do, see, watch and everything else. When the call finally came (almost a week later) it was a relief that her suffering was over and that she had indeed returned to our Father in Heaven where she will be taught and glorified.

The point of all this information is that it made me sit down and really ponder about the "things" that are within my control and the "things" that are not. I started with a list of the "things" that are bogging me down. Here they are in no particular order;

(1) CLUTTER & MESS: I become overwhelmed witht the clutter and mess that is in the house everyday. I can not figure out where to start or what exactly to do.

(2) FINANCES: Money sucks! We need it, we work for it, we spend it, and really it gives us little in return. I want to be debt FREE and while I am working very hard at this goal and have been for at least 6 months now, it is still hard.

(3) GIRLS ATTITUDE: I have three beautiful little girls, all 5 and under, but they are girls. Girls can be sugar but more often they are spice and mine are paprika on steroids. My oldest is at the stage of questioning authority, particularly mine, and had learned that if she says mean things like "I don't like you anymore" the other person becomes sad. With the little ones its just monkey see monkey do.

(4) FEELINGS OF LONELINESS: This last summer was hard for me as my two best friends moved to new states. As much as you can hope and say it won't change things, the reality is, that it does. I have strengthened a few other local friendships in their absence, but it brings the tallie of Out-of-Town best friends to over 6 and that sucks.

(5) TAXES: this is a hate of the season, I HATE TAXES! I hate gathering all the info, see how much we made and wondering where it all went, paying what we owe (we have not received a refund in over 4 years now), all of it. I DON'T LIKE IT!

(6) UNFINISHED PROJECTS: I am the queen of unfinished projects. I get excited about something, start it and then something else happens and I either forget about the old excitement or feel it is not high enough on the priority list. Excuses don't matter but the projects are consuming me.

So there it is the top 6 things that are bogging me down. When I look at this list I come to the realization that almost all six of them are "things" that I have control over, not COMPLETE control, but some at least. And so for the remainder of the month my focus is going to be on this list. I am going to work positively on each of these things and see how much will change.

My first goal is to tackle UNFINISHED PROJECTS. I want them done! Share with me your list so I don't feel alone. Together we will have accountability (a great thing huh) to someone and there's nothing like the power of accountability.