gaiagranolaranger

Today I feel gratitude for …
- D’s forgiving heart
- Craig’s many talents
- sponge painting tools
- rubber chemical gloves, especially that they are warm as well as dry
- good raingear
- persistent fall colors

The day didn’t start out very playfully: up early and off to work. And when I was done with that, I immediately changed into my painting clothes and spent the next 5 hours breathing stain fumes! But I had something fun to look forward to: an adult evening out! We met two other couples in town for cajun dinner and conversation. It’s been AGES since we did something like this, and it felt great. We were back by 9 and now I’m ready for beddy (what a party animal!) It reminded me how fun it is to get out once in a while, and that it doesn’t have to be complicated.

Kind of fell apart on this goal today … worked all day and then went home and worked on home projects. Not a bad day, but no conscious effort at this goal …

I spent most of the day driving. To make it more fun/less serious, I only listened to podcasts 1/2 the time and sang the rest of the time. Good hormones!

We made apple cider with our neighbors tonight! It’s become a tradition over the past four years. Back then, we invited them to join us and it became our 4H club activity. We still say it’s a club activity, but really, we’d do it even if we didn’t have a club, just because it is FUN and it TASTES GOOD!

- The beautiful, still evening for picking apples in the woods
- D’s willingness to walk to the grocery w/me rather than drive
- V’s friendliness and agreeability
- a productive day, even if it was spent completing a tedious task
- the ability to focus, even when a task is tedious

Busy day, this Tuesday! But I still managed to do a couple fun things during the day:
- took a walk during lunch
- stopped at a furniture store to browse for 10 minutes
- went applepicking with D&C after work. We plan to make a little apple cider tomorrow evening with friends :-)

Here’s my updated list of countries and #of loans in each:
azerbaijan
bolivia-3
cabodia-3
mali
pakistan
peru
senegal
togo
uganda
vietnam

My loan went to Aramata Gomis, who is 45 years old, married and responsible for two children. She has been a member of the Niafor Village Bank for the last 5 and a half years. She has taken out eleven loans and has duly repaid each without difficulty. With these loans she has built a peanut business. The profits earned through this business has allowed her to help with the household expenses, improve the family’s living conditions and provided for the education of her children.

Today I did the following:
- stayed in town longer than I wanted to in order to allow C to do something she really wanted to do
- and I made the most of it by window shopping at a favorite shop. These things are not necessarily easy for me to do, as once I reach my mental limit with shopping, I am really DONE and want nothing to do with it. So I’m not sure this sounds like being less serious, but it certainly required self-discipline to chill out.
- I wore a bright outfit with pink and green and my wild rolled paper earrings … just for fun!

- cheerful coworkers
- flexibility to deal with appointments
- C and Q’s laughter last night
- D’s patience
- A lovely day with sunshine and no wind …

Off to a pretty good start:
- smiley-face pancakes
- arranged to spend some time with my sweetie BEFORE doing chores
- invited our friend A. for dessert and tea tonight. It was the first time we’ve gotten together in months. Felt great!
- didn’t get the checkbook balanced—that’ll have to wait until tomorrow morning!

Today, my daughter and I spent about 5 hours staining our first batch of the cedar siding. We took a lunch break midstream—in part because we were hungry, but it was also especially nice to get some fresh air away from the stain!

Here she is showing off the boards of our labor!

as recently as yesterday. I am a fun-loving person, yet I am also motivated by responsibility. And I see that this makes me more serious than some. Even though it was really a rough week and I felt awful and tired last night, I made myself stay up and watch a “funny” movie w/my husband and son, even though it really was dumb (they agreed), simply because I felt I should make an effort to “play” with them.

Then, just today, my daughter and were working together on some staining for the house project. It’s fun working with her, as she is vivacious and very talkative—really fun to be around. And in the course of conversation she said something like, “Well you’ve got to admit that you are a fairly serious person, Mom.” I had to agree.

This confirms my feeling, though, that while I appreciate my serious side, there’s been way to much serious crap to deal with the past 4 or 5 years, and I would like to make a conscious effort to focus on fun and funny for a while.

So, I’m not sure what I’ll do exactly to make this happen, but I’m going to try to focus on it for one month and see how much progress I can make!

Here goes!

It was a slow week for a couple reasons including weather and availability of contractors and our own personal commitments. However, we did see some progress including installation of most of the electrical and plumbing as well as the woodstove. It feels good!

- our children
- the glimmer of hope for improved future relations
- the positive approach the court seems to be adopting
- my dear husband
- relative calm

Today I am thankful for the beautiful autumn color, especially the moment near sunset when the light was on the hillside east of town … lovely. I am thankful for decisions made about purchases for the house project; always good to get those things behind me, as sometimes the seemingly simplest choices can take more energy than one would think. I am thankful that D’s flight home was safe. I am thankful for time with C & Q and their love. And I am thankful for tomorrow’s holiday!

I did a partial make-over tonight. There are additional goals I considered postponing. And there are lots of “little tasks” (mostly related to the house project) that I considered adding. But for now, I think this pared down version is as far as I’d like to go. I’ll re-visit this goal again and again, no doubt.

gives me great hope for this goal. I must confess to a frustration, though. I feel dedicated to this goal. But I am not the only person who will be living in the house. I’m estimating that I am the only one of the four of us who is really excited about this opportunity. It’s a little discouraging.

What I’m telling myself, however, is that if I am courageous enough to be as drastic with my self-discipline as will be required to achieve the goal with my own possessions, then perhaps others will be inspired, at least to some degree?! Maybe they will notice how beautiful the spaces that are essentially “mine” to manage have become? I am trying to be hopeful! I will not give up. But I may have to accept that others do not share my goal in their spaces.

to prioritize how I spend my evening time. My initial thought is that it should look something like this (in this order):

- Dinner for family & dishes
- Exercise (60 minutes)
- Urgent tasks
- Write
- Computer time
- Bed by 9:15 pm (week nights)

I haven’t worked on this in so long, and my goal was to have it ready for the Holidays …

I want to keep this goal. Also, want to finish the book I designed for D’s mama.

I’m going to set this goal aside for now. When that job is nearing completion, I will come back to this goal and decide if it’s ripe.