Reinventing the Wheel

Trying to make your 2008 Resolutions?

You could use the old stand-bys of "Lose weight, make more money" and the like. Or...you could resolve to make changes where they'll really matter to you.

One of my favorite People Who Don't Know I Exist, Kimberly Wilson of Hip Tranquil Chick fame, had this as a suggestion in her book, Hip Tranquil Chick. It's easy and eye-opening all at once.

Take this life wheel (or draw your own) and color in each section in relation to how satisfied you are with each element. For example, if you are partially satisfied with your career, partially fill up the section labeled "career." (I told you it was easy!)

Do it right now. I'll wait.

Mine looked like this:


I'm pretty well satisfied with my home life. There's always room for improvement in any situation, but as a whole, I am happy. Same goes for relationships, though I know I need more close relationships in my life.

My health, finances, creativity and spirituality all fall at about 50%. I haven't been eating very well or getting any exercise but I'm pretty healthy besides that. My finances need some work. And though an easy answer would be "MORE MONEY!" I know that if I really worked hard at it, I could arrange my finances better - but again, I'm not poor or even really hurting badly for money. My creativity. Hmm...has anyone else noticed a little dry spell around here lately? Though I love to blame lack of time for not posting, a lot of it was that I didn't have any of those "OMG! I have to write about this!" moments - the kind of moments that drive me to be creative despite my lacking time. And finally, Spirituality; I've talked about this before. I struggle with finding a place to call 'my own' that shares my ideals. No big surprise there.

Now those little measly green ones: Career and Self-Care. Obviously the areas that need the most improvement, they actually fell a spot from when I did the wheel the first time. I can't give them a zero, because my job is somewhat fulfilling. It's fulfilling my bank account, anyhow, and that's more than a lot of people have. And I do small things to make myself happy. Though this mostly includes eating cookies and that drags down Health.


Step two is to think of a few things you could do to improve your most low-rated areas. I'll be honest, this is not as easy as coloring. But it is the important part. They have to be things you can do RIGHT NOW. Unlike my rationalization that "Once I lose weight...then I can buy a nice dress...THEN I can start going to church." (I know! My way of thinking surprises even me sometimes.)


So, starting with those little green guys, here are my steps:
SELF CARE -
1. Get a hair cut. I've longed for a nice cut for over a year. I finally got a gift card (I guess that makes it only partially "Self" Care) to my favorite salon, so this will be easily accomplished. I know it will give me a better attitude when it comes to getting myself ready every day.
2. Practice Yoga more frequently. I'm always saying I'm going to do this and don't. But it always gets put off because I ENJOY IT and things enjoyed are always pushed behind things that are NOT enjoyed. The Rule Of Mommies, no?

Completing these steps would put SELF CARE at least to 50%.

CAREER -
1. Keep resume polished and keep looking for jobs - I've applied a couple places, but haven't put forth a full effort. Part of me is very scared to leave this job - I've taken it on as a large part of my identity. But the other part of me is scared to stay and just be "used to" being unhappy with my days.
2. Keep a happier attitude at work - Change your mind and change the world, right? You are only as unhappy as you tell yourself you are. Since I told myself this a few weeks back, I've made a big effort to deflect people's bad attitudes instead of absorbing them. It's working pretty well. And for the time being, it makes this job a whole heck of a lot better.

I can't guess how happy I'll be if and when I leave this job. The main part is going to be keeping up with #2 - despite my employer.

HEALTH -
1. Eat healthier
2. Exercise more (Big DUH's, eh?)

FINANCES -
1. Plan grocery list better so I'm not spending so much unnecessary money (geez, I can't believe the place I blow all my money is the GROCERY STORE! Blech! What kind of woman am I!?!?)
2. Pay bills on time. Avoid fees. Keep happy creditors. Win-Win.

CREATIVITY -
1. Carry a notepad again so I can write down ideas when they strike
2. Follow through with crafty ideas. (In other words, instead of saving all that fabric, actually MAKE SOMETHING. Oooh. Bright Idea!)

SPIRITUALITY -
1. Attend service at a church. Just one. To see how it goes. If it doesn't work out...
2. Attend service at another church.


Looks like Mid-February or so, I should have one magenta-filled Life Wheel! Or, maybe a tad longer.


I'm really anxious to find out what ratings your Life Wheel got. And...what you plan to do to raise them up.

The Proverbial Glass

How do you look at life? Are you a ‘glass is still half full” kind of person? A “glass is half empty” person? Or are you a “Who the hell drank my water again?” kind of person?

I’ve always considered myself a realist. I don’t look for ways to improve things. I try not to dwell on the bad. I look at What Is and deal with it appropriately.

Or, at least, I used to.

I’ve really been having a tough time lately. I don’t know if I’m MORE depressed now than I have been in the past…or if it just feels less justified now. It has been a year and nine months. I should be getting back to *normal* by now. Not that I’m always sad – I have plenty of good days. But sometimes, it just doesn’t take much to send me into my dark mood. For example, someone who used to read my blog, I’m not sure if she still does, lost her baby. I didn’t know it for a month. When I found out, I cried. And then when I got home, I cried some more. I have to ask myself “Why?” Why do I feel so involved in the sorrow of someone whom I’ve never met? I think a lot of it has to do with knowing how much it hurts. Knowing how she must feel. And the feelings all come flooding back. I can’t work. I can’t interact with my family. I think that I crossed a line somewhere between empathy and just plain unhealthiness. It’s completely normal to feel sorrow for someone – but not to stop your life because the pain seems like it’s too much to bear. It’s not even my pain, but a reminder of it.

I dwell on it. I let it consume me. I let it dictate my life. I let it define me. I let hover over me and take away my happiness. I get wrapped up in the sadness and let it envelope me and smother me. And I don’t want to anymore. I don’t want to be unhappy anymore.

I have to get the sadness out of my life. I have to stop inviting it into my home. Now, I don’t mean that I’m going to ignore when my friends (or acquaintances, co-workers, family) are in pain. I don’t mean that at all. That’s the NORMAL kind of sorrow that we really all need to be able to deal with.

But it’s time for some changes.

I already stopped watching horror movies a long time ago. I have seen so much REAL death in my life – I don’t ever want to see it again – Especially gratuitous death and gore.

But then, every night I watch the news and it makes me cry. Every night someone’s teenager is shot in the city or a baby is found in the river or a teacher is accused of sexual abuse. There’s a war in which people’s children are dying every day. EVERY DAMN DAY. I just can’t take it anymore. So news – as much as I love to yell at your weather people – you’re done for a while. No nightly news at all.

There are the indulgent websites. You know the ones. The addictive, scandalous kind. Where you hear about hundreds – if not thousands – of women hate their husbands. Or husbands who hate their wives. Or the worst – moms who hate their kids. I got involved for a while – but no more. No more entertaining myself with other people’s problems and shortcomings. These sites are fun for some, but they just have too much hate and sadness for my life right now.

Then there are the Internet Throw Downs. What actually spurred these changes (I’m slow) was an argument that ensued at Suburban Turmoil a while back. Lindsay said something to the effect of “I don’t think being a SAHM mom is as hard as being a WOHM mom.” That angered some SAHM’s who don’t think their job is very easy and they said some things. Things which I felt I needed to clarify for them – like the misconception that it’s fun for me to drive two hours a day to spend ten hours with people I really dislike doing a pretty thankless job. But in my “edjumakating” them – I ended up making it very personal and it got into a war of “Who’s life is harder?” Probably three days into it, someone made a comment to the effect of “Is this a contest or something?” And I opened my eyes. I’ve never thought that SAHM’s had it “easy” – I would sure like to be one – but only because I think I would enjoy that job much more than this one. (It does not, however, PAY as well as this one – monetarily, of course.) And there I was, trying to PROVE to these STRANGERS that my life is SOOOO hard. And I felt STUPID, because really, it isn’t. I may not LOVE my job and I may REALLY hate driving here – but that doesn’t mean my life sucks. I spend so much of my free time dwelling on what’s wrong that I don’t get to enjoy the good things.

I think about my mom at my age. When she was 25, she had three kids: 11, 9 and 8. She had to leave us home alone so she could work all day. She sometimes got food stamps to feed us. She was battling alcoholism. We rented all the time - she moved us from place to place – maybe because of money, maybe because of her own demons. A couple times, she bought houses only to have them foreclosed on when she could no longer afford them.

Her life must have been HARD. The Man and I make most of our bills on time. Sometimes things are tight. Sometimes we have a little extra cash to blow. The kids are healthy and we have stable jobs. Jobs, which I might add, that let us get away with a lot. I may not consider this job an ‘escape’ – as I often would like to escape from here – but it’s a pretty cushy job. And they leave me an awful lot of room for slack.

The Man is very guilty of missing the silver lining. He spends most of his time dreaming about what we don’t have and moaning about what we do. We had a long conversation last week and I brought it up to him. “What good is the future if you can’t be happy in the present?” And since that conversation, he’s been (just a little) less reluctant to get out of bed in the morning. He’s been trying hard to be happy with the time we get and stopped complaining (mostly) about the time we don’t get.

I realize this post is getting lengthy and losing focus, so let me reiterate: It’s time to get happy. It’s time to work when work needs to be done and play when the opportunity arises. It’s time to love going home instead of hating to come to work. It’s time to live it up on the weekends and work hard during the week. It’s time to get over the martyr syndrome and accept a little help. It’s time to stop inviting the sadness into my life and start spreading happiness to others. It’s time to stop bitching about everyone else drinking my water and just go fill the cup up myself.

It’s going to take practice, not inviting this stuff into my world, but I think I can do it. And I think it will do both my family and me a lot of good.

My So-Called Poverty

I've been very antsy lately, compulsively checking my bank account to see if my tax returns have been deposited yet.

You see, it's been at least a year since I bought myself a new piece of clothing.

Thankfully, I had my mom and SIL providing me with clothes while I lost thirty pounds. If I hadn't had them, I would have been wearing maternity jeans and The Man's shirts for a year.
I’ve also starting skimping on my beauty products. I’ve never been able to afford “fancy” products like Philosophy and even gave up using Olay. When we started needing to make budget cuts, I switched to Dove. The last time I bought moisturizer, we couldn’t even afford the $6.99.

I bought Equate Beauty Lotion:

“Beauty Lotion?“ More like cheap sunscreen in a tiny bottle. It smells medicinal, to say the least. But it was like two bucks and it does the trick.

I’ve used that as my argument on why The Man shouldn’t be allowed to eat fast food for lunch every day. I mean, I can’t spend $6.99 on something that will make me feel good (and will last months), but he can spend that on a value meal at Burger King? I’ve been very bitter about making my sacrifice. He never asked me not to spend the money, I did on my own, because I keep our bills organized and I know how tight our budget is.

But I realized something not too long ago. Here I am, always bitching about my life: I drive too far to get a job that sucks to sit through every day. Then it takes me forever to get home where I have to help with dinner, then clean it all up. I hurry to get the kids tucked into their beds, usually cursing about the house being such a damn mess all the time. Then head to my own bedroom and watch TV (SO not HD) until I pass out in my FULL size bed. And I have to use GENERIC moisturizer in the morning when I get up!

Have you ever taken the time to look at your life through the eyes of another - someone who doesn‘t have all the luxuries you do?

I have a car (three actually, in the household), I have a job - a GOOD job - with benefits and an understanding boss. I have a family waiting for me when I get home. I have a house - that I own (when I pay the bank off). With a garage. I have food in my kitchen. I have someone who makes me dinner and only wants a little help once in a while. I have running water, dish sets and a dishwasher. My kids have their own rooms and beds to sleep in. They have a multitude of blankets and so many clothes, they hang out of their dressers. I not only have a TV, I have multiple TV’s…even one in my bedroom. I share a bed with one of the greatest men in the world. Who tickles my back as I fall asleep. And when I wake up in the morning, I have beauty products and a working shower. I’m able to give my kids choices for their breakfast. I have insurance to help me pay for my son’s medication. I drop them off at a great daycare. Then I drive my car to my job.

I guess I don’t have it so bad, huh?

So the next time you feel like you're getting a crap deal, try imagining your life through the eyes of:

Or

Or

Or


It sure turns all your problems into blessings.