Choose 5 priorities and live by them.

I’m pretty stable in my priorities. I don’t see how I can try harder than I all ready am

1. Taking care of myself: I’m certainly trying pretty hard. I’ve been in therapy and working with my doc to get my meds right. I think we’re closer to getting me feeling better. I’m not feeling as suicidal as I was last summer. I do stay frustrated with family and friends but am trying to practice patience and compassion. For me exercise is the key and I haven’t the past week. The holiday threw my schedule off.
2. Husband: trying my best to be a good wife. he hasn’t felt well since September 13th as he tells me everyday. I’m trying to do his chores and mine. He pitches in sometimes but it’s still difficult. I lost my temper on him Saturday after listening patiently to hours of whining. I got so angry it gave me a headache. I got some space Sunday and now feel better. So now everyone knows that I’m not Saint Truthsayer. LOL
3. The job is going pretty well. I can’t complain or at least I shouldn’t. They aren’t working me to death.
4. I donate money here and there to causes but haven’t found a community project to put hands or time into yet. Most of my energy seems to be put into keeping various family afloat. Got a friend that I need to call.
5. Helping family and friends is in a maintenance mode. Trying to help mom get a car, internet and a cell phone. She’s going through some things and doesn’t have the credit to do it without some support. It seems like family and friends are dropping from the strain of life all around me. It’s difficult at times to be what they need me to be. I’ve been up to the challenge so far. I think pushing myself for others actually keeps me sane. I don’t need to think about myself too much. Lesson learned from last spring and summer.

1. Taking care of myself: I do a pretty good job with this. I get enough sleep and exercise. I need to add in more fun. I think if I laughed with my friends more that I would feel better psychologically. I need more to look forward to. Right now I dread this weekend because I have no plans except to clean the house. My husband will be gone most of the weekend. In order to take care of myself, I need to make weekend plans. I made a couple of calls to people I enjoyed doing volunteer work with. One wasn’t home but one enthusiastically wanted me to return to teaching writing classes. I can’t tell you how good it made me feel to be wanted.
2. Take care of my husband: I need to do my share of the housework. I haven’t done too well since I have been back to work.
3. I think the job is going better than expected. Part of my responsibilities were given to another person. Now I can get my job duties done. I am also standing up for myself with problems of noise and interruptions. I know I have a problem with divided attention. Now that I am dealing with it better the job is better.
4. Giving back to the community is in progress. The hooks have been thrown into the water. I just have to hold onto the pole.
5. I’m trying to do a better job of remembering birthdays. I haven’t heard from my mother in a week. I’ll try to call her tonight. I need to call my father this weekend, too. In fact, I have a whole list of people I need to call—lenn, tina, 2 lisas, and Carol. 7 people all together.

1. Taking care of myself. Instead of visiting my stepdaughter with my husband tonight, I opted to stay home, take a nap and doing the little things I like to do. Seeing her family really stresses me out at a time when it seems nothing sets me off. I feel so much more renewed than yesterday.
2. Take care of my husband. Somehow I feel like he has done more taking care of me lately. He’s so independent that I don’t always know what to do. Sometimes he expects me to support him emotionally when I disagree with something he does. It feels morally wrong to me to support him doing what I feel is wrong just because we are married. For example, drinking beer around the grandkids. I just can’t approve of it.
3. The job seems to be going okay right now. I’ve been a little bored but it is picking up steam. I just have to remember to keep to do lists and ask for help from our workstudy to keep from being overwhelmed.
4. I haven’t had any luck with giving back to the community yet. Perhaps when the Women’s club year starts back up. I want to find something to do meaningful that will make a difference.
5. I’m helping a dear friend with cope with her nephew’s illness and write a book. She’s such a good person that she gives back to me emotionally. We seem good friends to each other. Trying to help my mother deal with my sister has been an emotional drain and disaster. I just didn’t realize how mentally ill my sister is. My husband told me to stay out of it which does refer back to goal #1. I did help mama apply for Social Security so that was one good supportive thing that I did right.

so I think this will be trial and error first until I decide on 5 things that are important for me to focus on.

1. My health and that means physically and mentally. Eating the right things, exercising, and making daily choices where I have my best intentions at heart. This includes trying to keep things clean and organized because it helps my stress level. It also includes writing creatively for fun.
2. My husband since he is my life partner. We need to work together as a team for our life together to work.
3. career. I not sure if this one is really number 3 but we’ll start there. Career is where you get the resources to take care of necessities like food,transportation, and pay bills. Very important to do. Included in this is working on my MA in english and furthering my career chances.
4. give back to the community. It makes me feel good. It makes the world a better places.

5. My family and friends are very important. sometimes family causes problems but I think my friends help keep me sane. This includes activities that I do for fun.

All right, now I have something to start with. I’ll document how my focus is on each goal.