Lexical Light

Favorite Friday: Diaper Subscription

Diaper delivery day. Hooray! It's another Subscribe & Save item that simplifies my life. 2 days ago the diaper supply was low. Today we have plenty of bum covers. (Not to be confused with an album cover.)

Do Over

"Nothing ground-breaking, but a good thing to read if you need to revisit the easily-forgettable obvious."  - from Gen Falel's Amazon review of The Rhythm of Life

Apparently I do need to revisit the easily forgettable, so I'll download this book via Netlibrary. (Courtesy of the Friends of RRPL.)

Do we always need something new and ground-breaking? Have we applied all we've heard, read, seen prviously? What if my pastor didn't move on to another lesson until I had mastered the what he taught on last week? One thing is for sure - his sermon prep would be a lot easier.

I guess it's human nature to want something new. The Israelites spent a lot of time in the dessert because they didn't learn lessons well. Sounds familiar.

So why am I downloading a new audio book when I haven't gotten a handle on all the other stuff I've read in other books?  I don't have any audio books on the Sansa yet, that's why.

Hoo Whoo Who's a Night Owl?

I am, but just because I'm prone to something doesn't make it the best choice for me. Trying to find the balance between living within my bent and developing character to compensate for my tendencies is often a struggle for me.

Being in the midst of raising and education my 4 kiddos is definitely not conducive to being a night owl. However, I've had a hard time getting things done during the day for a few days now and the kitchen was scary, so I decided to take advantage of my get up and go and get some work done. I had quite a bit of fun w/my MP3 player doing laundry and cleaning. I even got a bit of a workout trying to choreograph some quicksteps to a Jody Watley song.

Instead of trying to get up for church, it's best just to stay up. Of course, I'll be napping tomorrow,this afternoon, but I feel I've put a dent in the housework. The trick will be to go to bed at a decent hour tonight.

I've done a little research into circadian rhythms before, but had never looked for blogs about them. A Technorati search uncovered a some posts. One was an article citing some research about a connection between certain circadian rhythms and obesity, depression, bipolar disorder and addiction. Sounds more harrowing than simply being someone who likes to stay up late. Maybe I'll take a vacation to Dr. McClung's lab to make sure I'm just a night owl...unless she only studies mice.

Thankfully I also found a helpful article and a blog post about how to cope.

One thing I need to do is get up at the same time every day. I'll get right on that, right after I get the TPS Reports done.

BTW, I also found a fun little page about the sounds different owls make. (I was trying to spell an owl noise correctly.)

Hey, I think I'm going to enjoy the sunrise now. :)

Lessons from a pastor and a billinoaire

What do my pastor and Mark Cuban have in common? God recently used both of them to teach me something similar.

In his December 11th blog post Cuban gave some pointers on being successful at business, a few of them are relevant to some of my challenges over the past few years.

"Win the Battles you are in before you take on new battles....To use a sports metaphor, get the fundamentals right and then add to your fundamental skills before you try to take on the trick shots."

That resonated with me because there are some basic life management skills I need to work on, things I want to put on auto pilot so I can enjoy other things. That's part of my focus this year. Of course, everything doesn't have to be perfect before I start something new,  (If that were true we would only have one kid!)  but there are core competencies I need to get a grip on.

As Cuban said, the next rule is an extension of the last one.

"You can drown in opportunity...Every entrepreneur's mind goes crazy with the new and exciting things they can do beyond the new and exciting things they are already doing. The risk is that you can drown in all these opportunities."

I think you could substitute "creative person" for entrepreneur. I want to learn to manage all the ideas moshing in my head. What do I do with them? For a while that aspect of my brain seemed dormant. (I'm sure birthing four kids in 4.5 years had something to do with it.) When I began blogging, my reignited creative brain cells brought different opportunities. I committed to too many and couldn't fulfill them all. Back in the fall, my strong handsome husband told me just because the opportunity was there, didn't mean I had to take it. Now, I've put myself on hiatus from any new  undertakings until at least June, maybe longer. 

Now for the "Pastor Rob" part.

On New Year's Eve morning, Pastor Rob preached on GPS - God's Positioning System. (Listen to the podcast here. GPS, Part 1 - The Power of Vision) Here are the points of his message that smacked me in the head:

Point 2 - Own it. When God asks what I did with the vision & resources He gave me, what will I say? What will He say? (This resonates with Matthew 25 being dropped in my heart last year.)

Point 3 - Live it.  Sounds obvious, but that has been a challenge for SHH & I. We're great planners, vision writers, etc., but get hung up on getting it done. This was just another reminder to actually do something with all the plans we have.

Point 4 - Share it. On this one it was the actually the qualifier P. Rob put on the point that convicted me. He asked us not to share our vision until we've actually owned it & lived it for a while. I'm so guilty of doing the other, probably because I'm a teacher. Of course, there are times we need to share the vision with others who are part of it, but for me, there are often things I need to own & live before I start yammering about them.

The quick recap:

fundamentals ~~ just say no ~~ own it ~~ live it.

(Truth in blogging disclosure: I didn't actually learn about this in church today, but last week. My take away from today's service was to look for ways to love on people. Again, sounds obvious, but that's how it goes.)

Freedom & Discipline

Discipline without freedom is tyranny;
freedom without discipline is chaos. --Cullen Hightower

How cool is that quote? As someone a bit more bent towards freedom (or is it chaos?), this quote lends a nice perspective. I found it while perusing the TOG site for Writing Resources.

BTW, I have no idea who Cullen Hightower is - wait - I'll google him.  Per conservativeforum.org he was born in 1923 and was a salesman & sales trainer. He was quite the quipster.

Bad Drafts in Life

Today while trying to plan for the upcoming school year, I was vahclimped vaclemped  verklempt about whether to use this binder or that binder to organize, yada, yada, yada. Hey! Why not give myself permission to have a bad draft in school organization. If it doesn't work, revise it!

That got me thinking about applying the bad draft idea to more things. Of course, even in a bad draft there are certain standards of language you must follow or you won't even be able to read your draft & use it later. So it is in life. There are certain standards to follow, (for me they're Biblical) but w/in those parameters there is much freedom - probably much more than us conservative Christian types allow ourselves.  Just a thought.

LWF Feature Match: H2 vs. W4

Conflict often fills my days. Most of it's in my head (surprise), but it's real nonetheless. Here are the most popular matches in the LWF (Lexical Wrasslin' Federation) Smackdown:

~have to do vs. wired to do     ~natural vs. spiritual
~tasks vs. relationships           ~temporal vs. eternal

If I wait until  the laundry is caught up to blog, I'll never post again. If I put off writing until the kids' rooms are in order, grocery lists will be my legacy.

On the other hand, if I I'm on the computer too much, dh will go comando and w/out socks. If I write & read until I'm saturated, my children will start calling the TV Mom.

So, what's a girl to do? Thankfully, there are resources, spiritually and practically, to help me. While doing the dishes this morning, I gave myself permission to do my W4s (things I'm wired for) in the midst of not having all my H2s (things I have to do) done. I do want to work before I play, but that doesn't mean ALL my work has to be done before I do anything fun. So, I'll work on ordering my days to include both.

Here is my "note to self" about how to do that:

Draw from Flylady:

• Establish Routines - Start with a shiny sink.
• You are not behind. Don't try to catch up. Jump in where we are.
• You can do antything for 15 minutes.
• Personal application: Focus on keeping the kitchen clean. Don't freak out about the rest of the house. Work on doing the routines I have. It's a process. Do 5 minute Room Rescues or 15 minutes in the areas that are bugging me. Don't let stressors dominate my day - or evening.

Draw from Time Management from the Inside Out, by Julie Morgenstern

• There are many ways to manage my days. Find what works for me.
• Look at my big picture goals. Make sure I'm not spending all my time on the "have to" area of my life.
• I wanted some specifics from the book. I found this underlined when I skimmed it. I quoted from the book because it's clarifies how I want to live. On p. 12 - Defining Good Time Management:
  • "Time Management from the Inside Out" is based on the belief that you have the power to make choices, take ownership, and influence the course of your days - instead of feeling victimized." (Blog post material there!)
  • "Good time management is not about buying a great calendar or planner. It is not about learning tricks to move faster, or about doing everything with mechanical efficiency. It's about creating days that are meaningful and rewarding to you, and feeling a sense of satisfaction in each and every one* of you tasks."
  • *Even laundry? Toilet cleaning? Some things you just have to do. p. 13 addresses my "have to" tasks: "Perspective makes it easier to do tasks you dislike because you understand how each task fits in with your higher life goals. Your big picture view gives meaning, motivation, and driection to your life."

Today's adventure in transferring those ideas from idea to action or how my big picture goals translate into daily acitvities, in order of appearance:

• Relationship goals: Got up this am & spent time w/God.
• Health goals: Excercised with both Denise Austin shows.
• W4 big picture goals: Listened to Traveling Mercies while excercising. (Hooray for audio books and hitting two goals at one time.)
• H2 big picture goals: Did dishes. (Learning to utilize mindless task time for W4 stuff.)
• W4 goals: Blogging.

Now, I have to go clean up the dog barf on the carpet. Well, I guess I don't really have to, but one of my big picture goals is having a safe, relatively clean home.  It's all about perspective.

Goal Setting w/Ben & Joey

Ahhh...the joy of making lists. Pen & pencil are nice, Excel spreadsheets even better, but this latest discovery is terrifically clever.  Joe's Goals tracker is a customizable on line tool that tracks goals and vices. (Do you really want to know how often you mess up?)  I haven't tried it yet because I'm trying to have a little self restraint.  (HT: Lifehacker)

Via Lifehacker I also found Benjamin Franklin's 13 Goals. From a founding father to a modern day Joe, people enjoy using lists, myself included.  Now I need to actually DO the things on my list. What a revolutionary idea.

Life Management Resources

Last night at church I shared* w/the women's Bible study groups what I've been learning about growing order in my life. I enjoyed it thoroughly. I hope everybody got at least a little bit of something to encourage them.

Here's a list of resources I mentioned that have planted and watered the seeds or order in my life. 

• The Holy Bible - the essential foundation
• Time Management from the Inside Out by Julie Morgenstern - My copy is dog eared, marked up from all the chewing I've been doing on it. Well worth the money.
  
• Flylady.net - Marla cheers you on through her e-mails, gives you practical tools through her routines, etc. A fabulous example of how one woman is using technology to benefit others.
  

A few months ago I started my own Lexical Babysteps blog to chronicle, albeit sporadically, my attempts to FLY. I haven't posted since March, but there are a few things on there that may encourage you. I hope to establish a routine of posting there once a week.

Enjoy your weekend.

*Thanks to those of you who attended last night. Thanks to Ms. C for giving me the opportunity.