A Fantastic Month!

Its been a while since I blogged. Not really for lack of trying…as I have started several blogs and then stopped as the words I was writing simply seemed trite.

I have promised blogs about my time in Africa and England, and I guess I’ll get to those when I finish processing what is mine and what is ok to share with the world of bloggers. But photos can now been seen here.

I think that is how I feel about a lot that is going on in my life right now. For the first time in many many years I like who I am. I am not pretending. I am not trying to be something for someone, or to act a certain way so that I will be liked by a certain group. I am simply myself. I am open, honest (probably to a fault) and unapologetic about myself. I LIKE me! This has been a very long time coming because for so long I tried so hard to please everyone else and not realizing that in the process I was losing parts of me.

I had the very best January I ever remember! In October of last year I started making some changes in my life. I started truly evaluating who I was, what I didn’t like about myself and what I was going to have to do change it. Some of that was written out in blogs along the way, and some was much more private and was just me and God one on one. The process is on going of course and has not been easy.

First, I had to sit down and do some serious evaluating of different relationships in my life…who did I want to be there and who did I not want. Purging oneself of others that weigh you down is not always easy. Why was I spending so much time, effort and emotion on people that were not bringing me more of Him? Was I going to spend my whole life being a rescuer? Or was I finally going to make the choices that needed to be made and be a mentor? This decision while easy enough on paper, was/is very difficult in real life and can be confusing and hurtful for both parties when “friendships” have to come to an end.

However, the happier side of that is I also made some choices about who I wanted to invest my life in! This meant actual planning. Funny how that works. I plan out the rest of my life, everything is on my calendar, even my time with God and my gym time. If I don’t plan for it, it just doesn’t happen. But somehow I was expecting friendships and the investment into them to just happen spontaneously. Phone calls always ended with “We’ve got to get together soon”, but never a plan on when “soon” was…resulting in another 6 months without seeing or spending quality time with each other. So when I returned from my holiday time overseas, I placed a series of phone calls, and put those that I love and desire to see on the calendar. I saw friends that I have been wanting to see for ages, caught up on their lives, laughed and cried, and took pictures!

I also sat down with each of them and put more dates on the calendar so that we already have our next time together planned. This resulted in a fantastic January full of friends and MUCH less time alone on the couch watching TV that will not improve my life one iota!

I also have worked very hard to get procrastination out of my life. I found a quote that said that “procrastination is a way for us to be satisfied with second-rate results.” What a wake up call! I procrastinate about silly things…the water bottles on my desk, in my car, and around my apartment are very good examples of this. Drink the water or use it for another purpose; do not leave it sitting for days on end. This should not be hard. But it is the little things that lead to the bigger things and so habits of procrastination are born and raised up strong. So I started making myself do things like “take my jacket out of my car and upstairs and hang it in the closet” AMAZING – car is cleaner and so is apartment. (and jacket is much easier to locate it when I need it). January became a much more discipline and organized month!

One other thing that I did that was different and fun for me this year was I spent my birthday money on what I wanted rather than on bills. I am really bad at spending money on myself. I just always think it will be so much better for my bottom line of school loans, etc if I put the money towards that. This has held true for years, but this year I had genuine wants/needs and that extra money came to good use! I finally bought the George Foreman Grill that I wanted …I am very much in love with it!

Plus after several trips to Ikea (where God blessed me with some GREAT sales) I am proud/happy to say my apartment finally looks more like a place where someone lives rather than a temporary dwelling.

January was indeed great! I am looking forward to a fantastic year, continual self discovery with God’s help, and spending lots and lots of time with those that I love!!!