Friday, June 4, 2010

June: Boundaries and Balance

Okay, so May was...lacking focus. Or rather, I was focused. On work. But not really being particularly low-tech, or being mindful or anything like that. But that's okay. I'm moving on. What else can I do? It's a new month already. An alarming four days into June, and I haven't even committed to a June focus yet. Because, realistically, I know that the last week of school will be a nightmare (well, actually, the last two weeks have been too) in terms of workload, and then I'm in Arizona for a few days with my sister's family and Alexis (yay!). So even though June was supposed to be cooking and cleaning, I know that's just a set-up for failure. Again. I need something that I can feel accomplished with even in just the last two weeks of the month that I'll realistically have to focus. Here's what I've done so far:

1) De-cluttering & organizing
2) Intimacy and connections
3) Learning Danish
4) Exercise and Meditation (sort of--need more meditation)
5) Low-tech and Meditation (except it turned out to be just that one time)

and the ones that are still to do:
August) Writing
June) Cooking, eating healthy & cleaning
3) Volunteering & helping
July) Creating (glass, wedding video, print pictures, marriage year photobook)
5) Money: Saving, Budgeting and Investing 101
November?) Being joyful/"me" time
7) Boundaries and Balance (recognizing choices)

I'm thinking that last one looks appealing for a few reasons. 1) I can work on it despite being desperately drowning in work...in fact that's a GOOD time to work on it. 2) I can fit in some other stuff I want to such as working on Danish (headed to Denmark next month, after all), and meditation (seriously this time) on planes and in those last two weeks.

My first task for this month: Getting these FREAKING nice lists done before Sunday without imploding from frustration and stress. Given that I CHOSE to do this, I need to make it work and try to enjoy it and learn how to cut corners. The girls will be happy with whatever they get, even if they are not all miniature masterpieces.

My printer has been freaking out lately (oh how I hate that epson artisan and long for my old canon) so my first step in finding balance was realizing that there was no way I could tolerate trying to feed it 30 pages of nice lists. Instead, I lined up a color printer on campus that will quickly spit them all out, one by one.

Go me.

Off to a good start, aren't I?

I have 16 nice lists left to do. It's 4:30. Figuring in a dinner break, I should be able to do...6? Realistically, I get pretty tired of it after 4. And for some reason my eyes have been killing me today. But tomorrow is the Boston Urban Race--my Boston outing for June--and that's going to take most of the day. And then Sunday is when I'm supposed to deliver these damn things.

So, yeah. Maybe I better shoot for at least 6 after all.