Status

So I want to have a different kind of life. Today I find myself - again - under a deadline that I wasn't anticipating with all the normal work I had previously lined up for today.

I don't want to end up working all night. I'd love to stop at 5, work on the yard, play with the kids and go to bed at a decent hour. Right now, though - as I look forward onto my day - I don't see a way to make that happen.

Our lives are a sum total of the individual days we live. Today is only one day, but it looks a lot like many other days in my life, and the accumulated result is a mess. So I need to try and live today like I want to live every day - as best I can - and change this pattern.

Lord help me.

Therapy

So here's my latest blog idea: self-help.

I have things I want to do differently. More to the point I want my life to be different. The bottom line with changing your life (in my opinion) is making a decision then sticking to it.

So here's how I hope blogging will help me. I will work through the process of making the decisions here, then use this as a space to sort of hold me accountable to my decisions.

I want my life to look more like list A and less like list B

List A
Play with the kids
Spend time with Nancy
Fish and camp
play music
draw/paint
Take photos
rest
take time off
invest in friendships
be frugal
read

List B
Work all the time
Worry about money
Deal with poor planning
Stay up all night, or most of the night
Surf mindlessly when I get stuck
Over commit

I want to thank Steffen for his comment on my last post. Very nice photos Steffen. Let me know how you, Frank and Meike are all doing and tell them I said hello.

Wishing

I have been (and this will come as a HUGE surprise) really busy lately.

Taxes rocked our world this year. It sucked. I'm trying some things that should help next year.

I went to drawing class tonight after missing a week. The model was great, she goes to church and we had an interesting conversation about church. It was interesting mostly because while we were talking I was drawing with the rest of the class and she was modeling. 'Interesting' is a good word in those situations.

I want to paint and draw almost all the time. Life doesn't allow that though, so I take what I can get.

I find myself wishing I had some close "confide in" friends. I have a lot of people around me that I care a great deal about, but I think that close friends are missing.

I need to get back to work. If you read this leave a comment so I know this didn't disappear into the black hole of the internet.