Category Archives: Organization

When do YOU have time to blog???

Be not of those who think perfection consists in undertaking many things, but of those who place it in doing well what little they do.  For it is much better to do little and to do it well, than to undertake much and do it ill.”  St. Francis de Sales

My  blog posts are becoming fewer and further between.  WTH?  When do you people have time to write?  Do you pound it all out at one sitting or draft and edit and edit?  I’m a sit down, get it done, publish kind of girl.  I like to wrap it up.  No loose ends.

My writing time is in the morning and since I started morning boot camp last week that killed 3 days during the week of “writing” time.  We also implemented a new scheduling system at work that has opened up a whole box of cluster for our company as there are MANY people trying to learn (all at different paces) AND utilize the system all at the same time.  We’re waiting to see if a head will roll (or two), but in the meantime our company has offered OVERTIME (unheard.  of.) to get the backlog of scheduling caught up.  Yours truly is all kinds of up on that train.  We have back-to-school in 4 weeks (already?!?!?) and the OT will definitely ease the burden of supplies and new shoes, shorts, shirts, etc., which means even less time for blogging!!!  I guess until the blogging pays for itself that’s the way it will be and since I’m not really in it to market anything, nor really found (or am looking for) a niche to fill, I don’t foresee that any time soon!  So, in the meantime, (or at least the next 3 weeks I have boot camp in the mornings) my blogging will be sporadic.  Unless you all give me some good ideas.

This weekend when I wasn’t blogging I was here:

Walking with one of my oldest and dearest friends for ONE WHOLE HOUR on the beach early Saturday morning! Great sweaty girl time!

Then, later in the day when I wasn’t blogging we were here:

Ending the day with friends on the beach

So, really.  How and when DO you blog?  Does the beach (or other fun) get in your way?  I really want to know….

By the way, it is Natural Family Planning Awareness week.  For those of you thinking it’s the ol’ Rhythm method here are a few sites to check out and learn a little somethin’ somethin’ about your body (or your wife’s), save a little dough and avoid added carcinogens in your body (because don’t we get enough from everything else we face on a daily basis?).  So, I may (or may not) have a few re-blogs here this week on interesting NFP stuff.  Excited, aren’t ya?  😉

iusenfp.com

1Flesh.org

It is done. PTL!!!

iWeb you may disintegrate, self combust, implode…whatever.  I have my blog.  I moved it.  No thanks to you apple people!  I only waited until the bitter end because I was just SURE someone was going to figure out a simple way to move my blog off of iWeb before it “goes away” forever on June 30.  Sadly, that just never manifested.  Or my search engines completely bite.  which is a possibility.  However, I managed to get my 222 blog posts over a 3 year period moved over to a 2nd WordPress site so that I can sort them out and re-blog (bonus for me! and you!)  at will.

As I was madly cutting, pasting, dragging and dropping this past week I did get sidetracked a few times re-reading old blogs.  Something I just don’t do.  I don’t love the same song over and over, the same TV show, the same movie more than once (OK….VERY few exceptions* on that one).  It was interesting.  and funny.  and sad.  and bittersweet.  and insightful.

Do you re-read any of YOUR old blogs?  Journals?  I’m curious.  Have I just been missing out in NOT re-reading my old musings?  Hmmmmm…..

Well.  I have a few other things I’m mulling over in my brain before I put it to the blog, but be assured….I have so much to share with you….maybe not all 222 posts but plenty of them!

Now I’m off to put some cortisone on this garden issue on my forearm…..it better NOT be poison ivy, that’s all I’m going to say!!!  And then I’m off to bed!

**Movies I will watch more than once, in no particular order:

Under the Tuscan Sun

Steel Magnolias

Fried Green Tomatoes

Star Wars (purely as a matter of chance….2 boys who’ve watched them a zillion times and 2 girls who are being newly indoctricated…starting with #4.  of course)

Pretty Woman

Father of the Bride…1 &2

Cheaper by the Dozen 1&2

there might be a couple more, but that’s just off the top of my head…what about YOU?

I hate moving…..

Apple you confound me.  It’s a love/hate thing.  Really.  So easy to work with, such pleasant employees, intoxicating stores; I sing your praises often. (although, I have lots to learn and my Hubby does not share my love of Apple products necessarily, especially when he asks me how to do something on my laptop and I say “yeah, I don’t know….google it.”), anyway….really I love Apple.  However, right now they are my “S List”.  That’s right.  The Sucko List.

They are discontinuing their iWeb service (and a few other things that I don’t really use….) and that caused me to have to uproot my prior blog to new and less precarious pastures.  The problem is….unlike many of their other services, they didn’t really have a super clear and/or EASY way to move the iWeb blogs to other services.  I could use a big red Staples button here.  Really.  Not kidding.

easy it ain’t!!

Last summer I started looking around for other blog homes and decided on an unnamed site that could move my blog easy sneezy, had pretty good directions (even for me), however, I ended up calling IT support and between the two of us they could NOT move my blog.  Something in the version of my laptop or the iWeb I have is hindering progress, so I came up with a big fat ZERO!!  Very frustrating.  In the meantime, I decided to cease and desist any further bloggage on the iWeb and I moved to WordPress with my new blog (which, incidentally is working for me so far) and deal with the move later.  Much later.

In my infamous procrastinator-fashion, I have truly waited until the bitter end to move that B.  I currently have 7 6 days to move a little over 2 years and 3 months.  I’ve moved 9 months of blogging in the past 3 days.  It’s a cut and paste nightmare.  Screenshots for pics that aren’t crossing over on the cut and paste.  I’m a little fried.  Wondering if I’ll actually get it done.  The worst part is….my hard drive crashed a few months ago and guess what didn’t get backed up….yep. iWeb.  the bane of my existence right now.  So, I don’t even have the blog on my harddrive to just pick and pull when I feel like it.  Which is probably best.  Because in all reality, under pressure is my best work and I will get it done.  Under pressure, I turn into a focused Type-A person.  Once crisis averted, I’m back to my laid back procrastinating self.  It’s a vicious cycle.

Either way.  You might not see much blogging on my end for a few days.  I guess it’s good we are getting a lot of rain today, I know what I’ll be doing.  And at least for the next 7 days in between.  After that…I must say…I fully plan on recycling some of my old posts.  There was some good stuff in there.  I’ll keep my second WP site private, it’s very personal and emotional (in fact, I am working diligently on NOT getting sidetracked re-reading old posts….it’s HARD!!), but I will recycle and update them to share with you as I pour over them.  My heart will be on my sleeve, but WOW was God working over-time in my life those 3 years–He still is now, but when you look back you can see His presence so vividly.  It.  Is.  AWE-some!

Well, time for coffee #2 and a little breakfast before Mass!  C ya!

Blessings!

Time management…..whatev! We can’t ALL be perfect.

Here we are in our second week of summer.  Yesterday as I rolled into work late for the second day in a row it occurred to me that my time management skills are el sucko!  Actually, not so much that it’s my time management skills but that fact that I haven’t made a successful transition to our summer schedule yet. Nor have  I even tried.  Therein lies the problem.  And then I remember, for some reason it usually takes me about two weeks to make the transition to a new routine……..WHY?!??!!?

In the mornings I am now finding myself with a surplus of time and that is the foundation of my time management rearrangement challenge.  With all this extra time I feel I can do so much more, neglecting the clock and then rushing like a madwoman in the last 5 minutes and leaving late (BUT…..still managing to get it done….just late!).

Last night I looked at my morning and mentally readjusted my “plan” allotting myself a set time for my Quiet time in the morning with a definitive END time to my Quiet activities, thus BEGINNING my daily routine of getting the girls up, ready and out the door.  ON.  TIME.

Here we go.  Day 1 of readjusting the summer clock.  Wish me luck!!  Anyone else have problems adjusting to new changes in schedules, i.e. summer, back-to-school??  Or is it just me?

And so it begins…..

In the beginning…..everything seems so exciting, shiny, full of promise and hope.  New school clothes.  Unopened packets of pens, paper, folders, dividers.  Unscathed backpacks.  Unscuffed tennis shoes.  And then you settle into a routine and as you near the end, ripped shorts, crumpled paper, graffiti’ed backpacks, holey shoes and you plug on with your eye on the prize because the end is just. around. the. corner.

Ah.  And so it realistically be with the blog challenge.  Every day in May.  Seems fun.  Exciting. All these ideas floating in my brain.  And then finding the time to put them down.  Struggling between what I want to say and how it’s coming out of my brain.  Often not even on the same hemisphere!!

The reality is, I LOVE a challenge.  I always work better under pressure with a specific goal in mind. Whether it was when I used to run and was training for a race or with my girlfriends at the beginning of the year when we decided we could do ANYTHing for 12 weeks!!  (here it is into our 4th month and still plugging along in our new routines!)  I’m a structured person.  I wish I was more relaxed sometimes, but it’s not where my comfort zone is…a first-born, goal-oriented, nurturer.

HOWEVER, you may be more free.  Less inclined to stay inside the lines.  YAY! for you.  I’ll live vicariously through you and maybe gain some courage to step outside the box once in a while.  So, join me in our blogging “challenge” for May.  Blog each day.  Blog some days.  Use words.  Use pictures.  Use both.   Send your blog name in the comment section, I’ll add you in.  So far, we are FOUR.  I look forward to sliding into the end of May, tattered, blogged and having “met” other bloggers and styles to steal learn from throughout the 31 days!

Have a wonderful day!!

Brite  (this awesome Mama is the sweetest and gentlest!  with 4 little ones–including a newborn, she homeschools, farms, sews, cooks and sometimes includes great pictures of life’s ups and downs)

Amanda (I just met her yesterday through her blog, and Brite, and I enjoyed her pictures and her theme for May–pictures and Scriptures–FABULOUS combination!)

Lea (her 5th year of this challenge, I stole it from her, she’s crazy busy, the MOST creative person EVER, a God’s girl through and through and after all these years of knowing her I finally figured out how she gets it all done.  She doesn’t sleep.  Which is why I’ll never capture her cape!  I love sleep too much.)