Yes and No....

So it has been awhile since I have blogged.  Is there a really good reason?  Nope.  I have had a blog topic floating up around in my head for a few weeks so really no excuses exist.  It was a poke from a fellow team member (thanks Mr. Dyble) that shoved me into my chair at the computer....

It is that point in the year where we spend time evaluating how things are going.  Really, we should be doing this all the time but December always seems to naturally bring it out.  Add to that the need to sit down and put down goals for the next year and it is the perfect recipe for some self evaluation. 

In many ways I have not had a great year.  My numbers overall are horrible.  My consistency has been non-existent.  I did reach the goal of receiving my second degree brown belt (earlier than anticipated) but as far as actual countable, visible kung fu I feel like my year fell off right after that.

Why?  It simply has to do with simple math and a couple simple words.  Each and every one of us has a limited number of minutes in each day.  It is our job to choose how we spend them.  We have the opportunity to say yes and no in each moment as to how we spend them.  Some moments feel like they are decided for us but ultimately, we are basically in control of at least our perspective and our attitude.

I said a big yes back in June.  It has been a life changing yes.  This yes was a good decision.  This yes has impacted nearly every moment since I said it.  Yet, with the simple math of time each yes has some corresponding no's.  Yes, I chose to homeschool my daughter.  I do not feel like I said no to any of my goals that I laid out before making this decision.  Yet, the simple math has lead to many no's in my days.   My time is far more limited than I anticipated.  I have yet to establish new routines that will make adding some of the other things back in sustainable.  I did not blatantly say no to anything yet by not saying yes and acting on it right away, it became a no.

The challenge that I am finding laid out before me is how to better balance it all.  I have not taken anything off my plate that existed before my big yes.  I was a busy person before without a lot of extra space in my days.  I have worked at learning to say no to new things which is really hard for me.  I will likely need to continue to look for some deliberate no's to say so that there are less inadvertent no's in my life.  Really it boils down to being mindful of the consequences of my choices in each moment.  Each yes I say in each moment, means I am saying no to something else.  It is these no's that I need to keep an eye on.  I have the power to choose.

Trying a New Mindset

This past weekend, I had a few glorious minutes alone in the car.  Time alone seems to be a precious commodity now.  I used to take all of those quiet moments in my day for granted, now they are treasured.

During my treasured minutes, I listened to a podcast that talked about focusing your mindset on today being the Best Day Ever.  The idea was that this mindset is not reserved for special days.  It's not hard to see certain days as our best day ever.  Days like birthdays, Christmas, graduation, wedding days, the birth of your children...  Those days are easier to put that focus on.  They were talking about applying this focus to each and every day of our lives.  To put on this mindset first thing in the morning and live it out all day no matter how ordinary your day looks.

I've been trying to do this for the past few days.  I have to say, it is honestly going to take a lot of work for me to maintain this mindset.

I wake up with my mind running a million miles an hour about all that I have to do today.  Stop!  This is the Best Day Ever!  I have breath in my lungs.  I can see across the room.  Today, I woke up a minute before my alarm so when the radio didn't seem to be working, I did still hear the click so we all did not sleep in and start Monday off on the wrong foot.  I had the opportunity to wake up each of my favourite people one at a time.  Even with in all of this, I still had to remind myself of where to keep my mind.

I was blessed to be able to start my week off with a kung fu class.  I had a headache and felt sluggish but let's remember - today is the Best Day Ever.  Class was exactly what I needed to get my morning and my week moving.

Tonight I am blessed to have the opportunity to take both of my kids down to the Mustard Seed to serve supper to their clients.  I am blessed that I get to stand on one side of the table being the one serving and that I am not in a situation where I need to stand on the other side receiving.  I am blessed that my kids jump at the chance to participate in helping others.  I am blessed to be part of a community that allows us these opportunities.

Today overall is a very normal, routine day.  I will spend much of it helping with grade 7 math, changing the sheets on our beds and cleaning the bathrooms.  If I choose the right mindset, I can choose to see the blessing in each moment.  If I don't make a conscious choice, I will likely miss out on seeing the blessings and get sucked into a much different mindset.

Maintaining this mindset requires nearly constant adjustments and reminders.  Right now I am not great at it but I plan to continue practicing it.  The payoff of this thinking for even short periods is powerful!

Anyone else having the Best Day Ever!

Twitch, Twitch, Ugh...

I've been struggling on what to blog about this week.  I feel like in many ways I am living on a hamster wheel and in the movie Groundhog Day.  Things are good...  Things are a struggle...  Things are really all over the place...  I don't want this blog to become a place where I am whining.  I want it to be a place where I document my journey but give myself a pep talk at the same time.  This week has been a struggle in the pity party, whine festival department.

This fall I have added a significant new activity to my life.  It has been good.  The issue is my life was very full (perhaps over full) when I started this new adventure.  I have yet to truly take anything off my plate.  I just keep living in the lie that I can keep heaping it up and somehow it'll all be fine.  I know I've blogged about dropping balls and flying plates and all sorts of things along these lines.  This story is nothing new in my life.  I just keep on plowing forward and hope for the best.

The past couple weeks I have noticed my anxiety rising.  I can cover it up pretty good most of the time, especially in public but it is always there lurking below the surface.  I keep trying to ignore it.  I had some eczema that I was not able to clear up but I put off going to the doctor for a couple weeks.  I finally gave myself the pep talk that I would have given any friend.  I went to the doctor and I believe that is back under control (mostly).  So I keep ignoring the underlying issue.  Last Thursday my mind was spinning so fast that I could not even remember my forms.  Sleep has been a challenge.  Since my car accident, my sleep patterns have significantly changed but lately I've been finding it even harder than normal to get my zzz's.  My weight is creeping up and now today my eye has been twitching like crazy.  More signs that the anxiety lurking under the surface needs to be addressed.

I'm not entirely sure how to resolve this but for now I will start by focusing on some serious self care.  More sleep, more movement, more quiet moments to just breath.

My #1 Focus

Mastery is a process of focusing on something with the heart of constant improvement.  It is impossible to live in a true state of mastery if your focus is too broad.  Simply put - You can't master everything in your life all at the same time.

What!?!  I know!  Earth shattering!  I am that person who secretly believes that I can do it all, all the time.  Then I fall on my face because nothing actually gets the focus it needs.  I have worked hard this year to not listen to my internal lie that I can indeed have and do it all right now.  I have instead really narrowed down my focus.  

When I started off my year of mastery, I had this wonderful list of goals.  If you know me, you know that I see the list as wonderful.   Not necessarily all of the contents of the list, but the list itself.  There are very tangible things on that list.  Do your push ups.  Write your blog.  Read some books.  Keep a journal.  These items are neat things on the list with check boxes that either happen or don't happen, very black and white.  

There is this one requirement that sits mixed in there that is not so black and white.  Mend a relationship....  This is not a one and done activity.  This is not easy to define.  This one is rarely a topic of conversation when we discuss how our goals are going.  This year, this was my primary goal.  If I accomplished nothing else this year, this was the requirement that I was wanting to put first and foremost in my life.  It wasn't just one relationship that I wanted to focus on but three.  I know the goal is one but the three relationships that I chose to work on are so inter-related, I couldn't pick just one.

My focus was on my family.  I like to think that my relationships with the people in my home have always been pretty good but there is always room for improvement.  I am at a stage in life where this focus is so important.  Raising a teen and tween has a different dynamic than raising younger children.  They do not just do what they are told because you told them.  Man, that would make it so much easier!!!!  You need to have a relationship with them.  You need to be a role model.  You need to be someone that they feel they can trust.  As I look forward into the years ahead, there will be a time when my home may have less people living in it.  My relationship with my hubby is one that I want to be thriving.  I want my home to be a place where love and acceptance runs rampant.

Having this goal as my main focus has been time consuming.  There are days where it takes every ounce of thought and energy that I have.  There are days where I go to bed feeling like I've been run over by a truck.  There are other days where I go to bed with a huge smile.  I am seeing the fruit of this focus.  I am seeing a teen who has transitioned to a new school and seems to be happier than he has been in a long time.  I have pulled my tween home to pour into her life.  The improvements to her mental health in the last few months honestly brings me to tears.  My relationship with my spouse is the best it has been since we started our family.  We have not arrived.  I do not believe that the work on these relationships is done (nor will it ever be).

That said, most of my requirements this year are not going well.  My list does not have nearly the number of check marks that this list maker would love to see.  That does not mean that I am giving up on the rest of the check boxes.  I will do what I can each day to pick up where I left off and move forward.  There are many great challenges put out there by other team members to help me with motivation and accountability.  I will do my best to not beat myself up over the lack of check marks and remember that success is not always so easily defined.  But if I accomplish nothing further this year, my focus on my family will have made this year of mastery one of great success.  Without these foundational relationships thriving, nothing else really matters anyway.  

Seeking Windows

At the end of August, I had blogged about how the summer had passed me by.  I had not taken the time to be present.  I had lived in either the past or the future much of the time.  All this lead to was a mix of guilt and anxiety.  Not a very healthy mix I must say....  I challenged myself to live more in the present.

For the past seven years, I have been primarily home alone during the school day.  I have been able to choose how I spend my minutes, often changing my mind at a seconds notice.  Having a schedule was not important, often just having a general feel for what I would like to get done that day for work and around the house.  The flexibility could be a blessing and a curse.  On days when life happened, it was easy to make the transition since there wasn't really a plan.  When I make a plan, I tend to want to be quite type A and rigid with it.  Perhaps this lack of planning came about as a self defense mechanism with little people around and plans being destroyed left, right and centre.  The days it was a curse were the ones where nothing really seemed to get done simply because there was no real plan.  Procrastination and the thoughts of "later" would often reign on these days.  There were other days that despite the lack of real structure, life would get nailed and I would go to be all smiles.  Really, there just was no consistency.

I spent a great deal of time looking into how to better structure my days with the changes we have made by adding homeschooling to the mix.  One of the principles that seemed to be most taught is that a plan was necessary but  it can't be rigid.  Schedules are rigid in the school system because they have to be.  That is the only way to manage a crowd and still get the learning done but it does not take into account individual needs or situations.  That is the beauty of having one student - that need to have a rigid schedule does not exist.  Yet, I do need to have a plan otherwise we may not get through all we need to.

I am finding it a struggle to make the mind shift from flying by the seat of my pants to having a plan, but not a plan that we are going to die making sure it happens perfectly....  So far I am loving this new role.  It is so much more time consuming than I had anticipated though.  The beauty is that is forcing me to be very present with daughter.  No point looking backwards.  There is much to get done.  Can't look too far forward or I will have us both feeling anxious and overwhelmed.  In the present moment is where we are trying to live.

As I am working to figure out how to structure our school days, I am struggling to figure out how my other life roles fit into the mix still.  I have not found many blocks of time that are uninterrupted making work a challenge.  I am finding that I am trying to fit more of that in at night after we are done schooling.  My home is definitely looking more lived in than I would like but I am slowly finding ways to get little bits done and we are working to put things away as we go through our day.

The one area that seems to be struggling the most is kung fu.  It is funny because I don't need huge pockets of time in a row to practice kung fu.  It literally takes a minute to drop and do a set of push ups or sit ups or a form rep.  When I sit and think about that, it should be simple to get this part of my life done.  Yet, I struggle.  Part of the issue at this point is recognizing the windows of time that I have where I can fit in a little something.  They exist all the time.  First step is to recognize them and then drop down and take care of business.  Today I have not done well finding windows for my physical requirements but I have managed to find enough small windows to write this blog.  

This week I have done more at home than I have for the last few months.  I am starting to move in the right direction again.  I will continue to focus on making a plan and being present as much as possible while recognizing the windows that I have open and then jump on through them.

Back to School...

This is it!  This is the week where there seems to be feelings flying randomly for all.  Kids are nervous, excited, dreading the grind.  Parents are also having feelings.  Some are super excited to see routine return and a change up from summer.  Some are mourning the relaxed moments of summer.  Some can't believe that their babies are heading to kindergarten or high school.  Nerves and feeling are running amok!

At our house the feelings have run the full range.  One off to high school...  I still remember how I felt the day I sent him to kindergarten.  He seems to be relatively unaffected by the changes in his life, at least not that he'd talk about it with me anyway.  He is a very cool teenage boy and I am his mom.

The other one started grade 7 at our kitchen table this week.  This has definitely created many feelings in our house over the past couple months.  There have been a few moments where she has mourned that lack of first day excitement and seeing all the kids again.  Yet, she jumped right into learning and is so excited. 

This is usually the week that I take a deep breath and recover from summer.  I clean the house.  I clean up the yard.  I start getting caught up on the work that piled up over the summer.  Not this year though.  I have jumped into my new role with both feet.  I still feel like I have no idea what I am doing and at moments that I have no right to take on this huge responsibility.  So far this week it has been a wonderful experience of learning and laughing with my girl.  Yes, laughing....  And it is seriously the best part of it all.  We have not had much laughter when it comes to school and handling life so it is so beautiful!

I have no idea how I am going to balance all of my responsibilities.  Right now I am trying to take advantage of the little moments.  I am working to stay present.  I make a lot of lists.  I will do what I can each and every day.  And I will continue to laugh!

The Last Week of August - Really?!?

There have been a few blogs that asked the question...

Where did summer go?????

I have no idea.  I feel like I blinked at some point in June and here we are today.  The days have virtually evaporated into thin air.  How? 

I have been reflecting on this the past few days while we have been away camping.  How did I miss summer this year?  The answer is simple.  I was not present.

Back in June we made the decision to bring our daughter home this next year for grade seven.  In a breath I went from being a mom to also being a grade seven teacher in the fall.  This is a task that I definitely did not feel equipped for.  So what does one do?  Well, they do what they can to get equipped.  I signed out and requested every book the library had on homeschooling.  I read website after website.  I listened to podcasts.  I immersed myself in learning.

The result is a mixed bag.  I definitely feel more equipped than I did in June.  I feel about as prepared as I can be at this stage of the game as an outsider still looking in.  I still feel more than a little overwhelmed by the responsibility that I have bitten off.  The biggest downside by far though is how it has impacted the past two months.  I may be ready(ish) for September but I missed July and August.  What?!?

I have one week of summer left.  It is time to get present - now!  I don't want to miss anymore time.  Then next week it will be time to get started.  In the words of my girl - "Buckle up Mom!  Things are getting real!"