Finding the Missing Socks to Make Pairs of Socks in 2011
I know that everyone is writing the proverbial “what I plan to do in 2011” blog, but truly, it’s great to get goals down on paper. It holds you more accountable for trying to get them done. I have a few things on my mind, but I’m not going to take up this blog by listing 1-10 of New Year Resolutions. Only God knows the real plan right? I just want to get my life straight. I’m willing to be flexible and take it as it comes.
2010 was the first year of me being solely self-employed/full-time Mommy. It was a year of inconsistencies and struggles, but to my delight, many people found me “very put together” and “accomplished.” Not really, I’m just great at PR and try to stay up beat. I think 2010 was a happy year for us for many reasons, but also a very hard and emotional year. We have a lot of family issues, we have financial issues we are still trying to clean up from our divorces, my abusive marriage (abuse includes financial abuse) and Tim losing 3 jobs in 3 years. I quit my job because I became very ill even though many chose to not believe just how ill I was. We continued to raise 3 children the best we could, wiping many tears and potty training one. We tried to form and run 3 different businesses, and Tim started to write several novels. We made a lot of mistakes along the path of 2010. Mostly we were just trying to clean-up our life.
For 2011, I wish for God to truly lay on my heart, or continue to lay on my heart when I get sidetracked, just what I am supposed to be doing. If we need to stay in Ashland awhile longer, I wish for the ghosts of my past to go away. I hope for friends who truly are a part of your life and I wish for family to see what awesome kids I have and they are missing out on. I wish for small town small businesses to understand PR and the nature of what I do. I wish for clients that we could help without giving 24 hours of our day away to them to not be paid or for them to decide to do something else instead, or as in the case of many Tim met this year, to just disappear. I think in 2011, we’ll just focus on writing. Writing articles, novels, and an occasional press release. My goal for this year is to finally get my children’s book underway and maybe even completed! The rest of my time I’m going to devote to my Breathe Beauty Art and Photography business. I’m going to continue to take photos and make them beautiful. Find ways to sell more prints and notecards without being spammy and continue to love this as being what I can do to help my family. I want to keep painting more and doing art with my kids. And speaking of kids, I am going to continue to put my kids above all other work or functions. Everytime I start to step back into the rat race right now, God reminds me that He needs me here with them. He needs me focused on them, and time for the other will come. He reminds me of my burnout on social activities and ladders, functions, etc. I will continue to moderate my time in 2011 until I see where our life is going.
I hope and pray that in 2011 Tim can finally decide or have his life take a turn to where it needs to go for our family. He’s searching for a full time job where he can get out of the house every day and I hope that he finally lands one, while still finding time for his part time business writing job, writing his novel to completion this year, and finding time to help me out at home and spend time with us. I know there are big changes coming for him, and this is another major reason why I need to be focused at home until we know where our life is headed or how our schedule will be.
Have I quit dreaming? No. Coming up with idea after idea? No. Less enthusiastic about making a difference in the world? No. It just means that my kids need me and I’m diligently doing what God has asked me. It also means I am balancing my time so that I can keep feeling healthy and not struggle again to the point of debilitating myself. I am excited to spend time with the kids and continue to work with photos. And more than that, I am excited to make time to start writing again! I’m excited for time to be creative!
Wish me luck. Tim has done a lot of the laundry for the last few years as I struggled with my health but it is time to finally find all the mates for all the single socks floating around the house. I feel they’ve been away from their partners for much too long of a time.
Happy 2011, and don’t stop following your dreams….but listen to God and listen to your soul. Sometimes it knows best!
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