Sticktoitiveness

I have goals. I make lists. I have several New Year resolutions, my OneWord for the year, a couple of DoOvers, and a 30 day Hustle. I have lists, calendars, journals, post-it notes, and smart phone apps. I have friends, accountability partners, a great online network and all the physical things I need to start and maintain my goals (established blog sites, awesome new running shoes, P90 on order, and more time than l had last year).

Awesome new running shoes.

But I wonder, will I do this? Will I carry out even one of my realistic, needed, HAVE-TO goals?

I ask myself, because I’m not the best at follow-through. I’ve practically perfected the art of procrastination, hate early mornings, and find LOTS of reasons to put a thing off. I start strong and peter out when it doesn’t FEEL good, or gets boring, or something else more attractive catches my time and attention. My mom used to say that I have no “sticktoitiveness.” She’s right.

This year is different, though, and here is why:

1. I found an awesome group of motivating friends online, including a new workout coach and fellow writers who are challenging me to keep going.
2. I believe my goals are God-centered, realistic, achievable and much-needed.
3. I am changing the way I think about goals, not as an end but as systematic. (Check out this article for a good explanation of systems vs. goals.)

So if you are like me and have awesome and important goals but “sticktoitiveness” issues, get connected with motivating folks who will hold you accountable and put a system in place that will maximize your success.

Go for it and don’t quit!

Mayonnaise & Jesus

One of my best friends and I have little more in common than a love of mayonnaise and Jesus. Well, we also think alike and have a similar sense of humor. But we rarely get to see each other, have different jobs, different schedules, different churches. We both have daughters, but hers is three and mine is 26. But when our schedules finally align and we catch up on the phone or take a nice long walk, it’s like we were just together yesterday.

We met a few years ago and clicked immediately. We met at a women’s brunch and quickly learned we shared a childhood love of mayonnaise and white bread sandwiches. Something little brought us together and something big keeps us friends through all kinds of seasons.

In today’s society where people drive down their street, into their garage and never emerge until their next trip to work, not knowing their next door neighbor or the one over the backyard fence, it’s something to say when friends are formed and held in spite of much greater obstacles. A shared faith is one of the few glues that provides that bond.

I hope you have some of those special friendships. If you don’t, go introduce yourself to your neighbor. Better, yet, find a good church and make some lasting (eternal!) friendships. It’s so worth it!

Hallmark Guy

My husband looks for and buys me THE BEST cards… then he writes in them (as if the card didn’t already get the eyes blinking back tears) SUCH amazing verse for an introverted geek kinda guy. Then I carry it around for a week, and ultimately tuck it away in a big round can full of cards just like it.

On down days there are two ways to life my chin: Reading God’s word, and reading Jay’s cards.

True Friendship = Dill Pickle Potato Chips

True friendship is when your daughter drives 30 minutes each way to come hang out and make dinner and take care of you on her only days off a very stressful job.

True friendship is when your girlfriend who doesn’t cook, comes over and makes you lunch. Twice.

True friendship is your when husband brings you the flowers he knows you love even though he hates getting flowers, cooks every night, even though he hates cooking, and lets your dog out in the middle of the night and picks up her presents before he mows, even though it’s your dog and poop-scooping is your job. And he doesn’t complain about any of it.

True friendship is when your girlfriend who is having health issues of her own takes time daily to text you about your own well-being.

True friendship is when your dog immediately slows her pace to match yours, sits at your door or at your feet and doesn’t let you leave her sight until she’s sure you’re not going to fall on your face.

True friendship is when your girlfriend who likes sweet pickles remembers you like dill pickles and all-things-salty-crunchy, makes a special trip to buy and bring over Pringles Extreme Screamin’ Dill Pickle flavored potato chips. And because she knows it will give you a laugh.

True friendship is what you get to experience when you can’t do much for yourself and are forced to let others do for you. It’s not so bad.  🙂

Busyness: Bah Humbug!

Who knew recovering from major surgery could be so enjoyable? I TOTALLY get “staycations” now!  This past week, even though a little painful and frustrating, has been a week of realization; Realization that the incredible busyness of my life as a professional working woman has really taken its toll. I am shocked and saddened at the insidious infestation of busyness that has choked out important things in my life over the last few short years. I am both grieving the loss but cheered by the reawakening.

My Top Ten Re-realizations of Things That Are Wonderful:

1. Other people. It’s not all about me and I am really unimportant.
2. The basic pleasure of simple observation, like watching the dog “make” her bed, catching the first blooms of my favorite garden flowers, really enjoying that first cup of coffee instead of inhaling it to kick-start my day, finding the incredible humor in people watching.
3. Listening. When SO much is going on, my mind is constantly racing, thinking of a hundred things to do or remember. I only half-listen, which causes me to half-forget (or more…). Really listening to someone else is a blessing and a joy.
4. Recognizing my husband’s and my daughter’s amazing and varied talents and wit and their incredible skill in so many areas. This is something I know full well, of course, but somewhere along the line stopped appreciating fully on a daily basis.
5. eCards are fun and cool and easy to send if you don’t have a ton of time, don’t have what you need on hand or don’t want to go out and spend $10 on a Hallmark card. There is no excuse for not remembering someone when eCards are so accessible.
6. Snail mail. Writing a short note, addressing and stamping and envelope, and walking to the mailbox really isn’t that time-consuming.
7. There are a LOT of really great blogs out there!
8. There are a LOT of really great unread books on my shelves and in my Kindle.
9. Playing Words with Friends with my daughter on our iPhones is a kick.
10. Real quiet time. Popcorn prayer and scripture scanning is really rude to God. He deserves a LOT more attention than that. (It doesn’t really do me that much good either.)

And those are just from my couch! There’s more, but you get the drift. I go back to work part-time next week. I hope I can learn to keep a better balance between doing a great job at work and not being a jerk of a friend, wife, mom, neighbor at home. I pray that toxic busyness does not once again blot out my rekindled re-realizations. I think that I will be a better person at home and at work if I keep first things first.

Quit yer bellyachin’!

My dad used to say that. I felt like saying that this week to a whiner but I heard about the whining second-hand, can only guess at the offender’s identity, and so couldn’t carry through. Blogging about it is the next best thing!

I don’t mind a complaint being registered now and then, especially when accompanied by thoughtful recommendations for a resolution. Complaining without offering solutions is whining. And whining is about as irritating as anything I can think of.

In the case at work last week, I learned of a vendor who complained of an “unlevel playing field,” supposedly because I have connections with other vendors on the LinkedIn professional networking site. Now I know what you are thinking: “Um, aren’t you SUPPOSED to have connections with other folks in your industry on LinkedIn??” And, of course, the answer is, YES!

I love my job and I make certain accommodations towards it, but I most certainly draw the line at who I will be friends with on FaceBook and connected to on LinkedIn. If you’re a supplier bent out of shape because I am connected to other suppliers on social networking sites, then send me an invitation on LinkIn or ‘friend me’ on FaceBook.

Otherwise: Quit yer bellyachin’!

Stealing My Sister’s Friends

I’ve stolen some of my sister’s friends.

Well, not in the sense that she doesn’t have them anymore; I just mean that I would not have known them if it weren’t for her, and I still have never met some of them face-to-face; But yet now they are my friends too, and she’s not in the immediate picture with regard to the new friendships.

I think it’s a new kind of virtual friendship-sharing, facilitated by social networking sites like FaceBook. It means I can actually make meaningful connections with people who I am sure I really want to know, because the people  with whom they already have deep connections already have deep connections with me. (Follow that, and you should follow me on Twitter.)

Said a simpler way: I know and love and trust my best friend and sister; I trust her choices in the friendships she maintains. Therefore I trust that her friends are people I want to know, and those friends give new and exciting relationships that exist differently and separately from my sister’s, yet enrich that sisterly bond. And me.

It’s hard to explain, but it’s real. And it’s cool. And I wouldn’t trade it, and them, for the world.

I love my sister. I love her friends. I love that she’s OK with me ‘stealing’ them.

Life is good.