Finances: Had to take the car in for new brakes (both front and rear). I regularly allocate a certain amount in each month's budget towards routine car maintenance and repairs, so the funds were there to cover the expense.

Whew that was lucky Bless. I need your financial brain!

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This week:
Spiritual: Still maintaining my prayer time. Also finally got back to church on Sunday after being a way a couple of weeks with my infection.

Financial: Getting some long needed work done around here, scheduled window washing, carpet cleaning, and some yard work.
Had taken out some savings to cover this. I cannot do some things any more.

Family/Friends: Went out to dinner with DB and DSIL last week, going to a craft show, dinner tomorrow, and a surprise bday party on Sunday.

Pets: Doing good again. Spotted a gray cat by the back porch yesterday. Don't know if it is a pet or stray.

House: In pretty good shape. Got my spring/summer decorations up, except for the shower curtain, and DS2 is suppose to help me with that today.

Becoming Me:
Finding more time to work on crafts, but of course, there are many of those. Happy dancing when I complete one.

Balance Update:

Spiritual: Daily devotions. Will be attending a prayer meeting on Sat. p.m.

Environment: Gave the house another "once over" last weekend. Furniture dusted, floors vacuumed, bathrooms cleaned. I am not able to get a lot done during the week, so, it has to be over the weekend.

DD: Had finals this week and is now done with her 2nd year of college. We plan to celebrate with a visit to a special exhibit at one of the museums, perhaps on Monday.

Family/Friends: Will be getting together with family and friends over the weekend, at the prayer meeting.

Career: Busy.

Finances: Need to make some short term and long term financial goals.

Time Management: Working on it!

Leisure: Borrowed some books from the library, to read for leisure. Now, need to make time to read!

Things moved along quickly this week.

Spiritual: Moved my meditation books out to the screened in from my bedroom. So much nicer to meditate and pray out there, listening to the water running and hearing the birds churping.

Family/Friends: Had a surprise party to attend on Sunday.
Took my DDIL out for her bday on Monday. Friend from HS and I had lunch together on Tues. Thurs, knitting/crochet group,
today luncheon and craft session with my needlefelting friends.
We did some punch quilting on precut foam. Came out cute and only done in over an hour.

Pets: Sylvester got his shots for the year, and license. Good report on his health also. Gypsy is loving all these people to bark at when they arrive!

House: Looking good. Window washers had to cancel, We will reschedule. Have carpet cleaners coming in next week. Finished changing out decorations, and had the alarm guy here today due to the alarm going off twice last night. Couldn't find anything wrong. At least it was checked out, and he taught me a couple of things about the system.

Finances: Planning on putting more money into savings once the CC bill gets closer to being paid off. Glad I use Debit cards mostly, but still there are some expenses that need to go on the CC. Want to get it where I can pay it off each month.

Leisure: Still working on crafts. Been sorting thru some cardmaking UFP, and plan on completing on each week. Wish me luck!

Happy first day of summer! Time to take a look to see how well balanced our lives are!

Here's my Balanced Life Update:

Spiritual: Attended the monthly prayer meeting on Saturday.

Environment: Trying to keep the house maintained. Dusted the family room, yesterday, and vacuumed the whole house. Did the laundry and watered the garden. I am trying to give a quick surface clean to the whole place and focus on one deep cleaning task, each week.

Child/DD: Is enjoying the start of her summer vacation; 2 of her friends are over at our house, this week, and they are sewing their costumes to wear to the annual anime convention.

Family: Met up with cousins, aunts and uncles at the prayer meeting. Should call my sister this week.

Friends: Met several friends at the same prayer meeting.

Community/Neighbors: Spoke to 2 neighbors on the phone and sent them some baked treats.

Health: Still haven't scheduled medical and dental appts. for myself.

Career: Going well.

Finances: Going well. Working on a longer term goal, right now.

Time Management: Hopefully, I'll become better at this over the summer. But I am coping, right now.

Leisure: Trying to fit some in, every day. I sewed a bit, yesterday, and read for 30 mins.

How is everyone else doing?

Checking in, which is rare, I know, but it does not mean that I do not have a daily thought about my GON support group! Summer indeed, is a time to think about how well balanced our lives have been as we hit the half way through yet another busy year and it will also be time to think about planning for the coming one starting after the summer break.

Spiritual : good - I have daily practice, and attend weekly services - study twice a week

Environment : bad - my house looks like a war zone with spots of real dirt that I am in denial of. Need to get all the outgrown clothing from the boys out of the home, some can be donated, most need to be simply trashed. Paper clutter has improved but still not in total control.

Children : getting ready for camp for the youngest, and a break of 2 weeks for the oldest. Planning for the next years to come is on the burner.

Family : planning on visiting is still on hold (see finances). Speaking with them on Skype several times a week.

Friends : not seen any in a long time. Only online contacts.

Community/neighbors : chatting everyday with one or the other, either at gym, or at the complex when I walk. Helping at the temple.

Health : an area of great improvement. Working on balance has been a priority. The use of online logging tools has been a huge help to monitor my progress towards my big goals. Going to the gym daily and walking 10,000 steps to keep me active is now a good habit. Still working on the mental issues. Recently hit a high anxiety episode with consequences on my behaviors.

Career : my new business is still getting me very excited and I work very hard for it. I also applied for a part time position and am waiting for an answer. Worrying on how I will manage timewise, but need the income.

Finances : very bad situation. Finished paying the summer camp bill last week. Nothing left for the summer. Had to spend a lot of new clothing (used to receive handme downs until last year, but now that they are young men, clothes are not their sizes anymore, because young men don't outgrow until the clothes can't be worn again by someone else! so the expense was huge for me). I have to rethink my budget completely, between the food, the clothing, the education savings, the new business, the car maintainance. I could not buy the plane tickets and did not receive the help I was counting on from outside sponsors. Applied for a part-time job that could bring some relief on that monthly budget but didn't hear back yet.

Time Management : pretty on top of it. Worried that it might get completely tipped off if I am hired, as this is a 90 minutes commute plus of course the 9-2 four times a week! Sleep deprivation is already a big issue, and I don't know where I will put the extra hours, but will worry later about that.

Leisure : none, zero. Very frustrating in fact.

Here is a quick update. I don't really know how to integrate GON in my daily routines. I sure love the interaction and the support, but I spend a lot of time working on my new business and the distraction is very detrimental, so I try to limit my online-social life to a minimum. But I miss it a lot to be honest! Craving feedbacks and not ashamed to say so.

Hadassah, thank you for checking in. I really appreciate you taking the time to do that. I hope you get the part-time job you applied for. As for the time factor, well, I guess you will juggle things if you have to. Time management is a huge problem area for me, because, often, when I have the time, I don't have the energy and when I have the energy, I don't always have the time!

I am an expert at time-management, I used to teach it in my previous life. The reality of it, is that it should not be function of our energy level (as you described it so well, it is no-win situation). The secret is in the planning.

It is also a process, so it takes time and practice, and there are steps to follow - in sequence - before we can actually manage the time that we have. The first step is to assess where it goes. You can choose to log in your time use for a week (ideally two weeks so that you can have a more typical picture of it, but it becomes very tedious, and generally we are very impatient to see stuff change in our lives, so one week is better than nothing, and even one day in the week, if your days are typically the same with work for instance).

The second step will be to identify the "time-stealers"...

Hadassah, my problem is, I am at the office for 9 hrs. and drive for 4 hrs. on a typical day. Altogether, I am away from the house for 13 hrs. a day during the work week.

My day starts at 5:30 a.m. when I wake up. I leave the house at 6:30 a.m., drive 1 hr. to drop DD off on campus, drive another 1 hr. to get to work, am at the office from 8:30 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., then, drive 1 hr. to pick up DD from campus, and drive another 1 hr. to get home at 7:30 p.m. On the days DD works late at her part time job on campus, we get home even later.

You certainly have come a long way Hadassah! I am very proud of you.

Bless:
I use to threaten the family with getting a camper stove, frig, and blankets and just move the house into the station wagon when I was working and taking the kids all over! Fortunately I could take the summers off of work (did temping for a number of years)
and be home with them.

I wouldn't feel the least bit guilty or sad Bless, You accomplish so much in one day! I am impressed (but not enough to not keep watching you trying to overthrow the Goddess!) with all you do and how you support your lovely DD!