A Wonderful Christmas Wonderland.....

.........though not a Winter Wonderland....

We had an absolutely wonderful (though mostly snowless) Christmas this year. We celebrated over four days, visiting friends and family, sharing gifts and holiday joy. My favorite day of course was December 25th. We spent a fantastic day at home simply enjoying our children and keeping our family and new traditions the center of the day as opposed to commercialism, others expectations, or busyness. It was a wonderful day watching our babies unwrap Christmas in a whole new way!

The boys had a blast decorating our tree a couple weeks back and mama dear even let go of her perfectionism and didn't micro-manage the ornament placement. I was even the proponate of purchasing a "fake tree" and actually enjoyed it immensely (no pine needles in the carpet fa lalalala la la lala!). After the boys decorated the tree, Alan declared it ready for the "perfect star" to be placed on top. Roger picked him up, Alan placed the star, and.....flop! The tree top was too weak to hold up the vintage star topper that I like so much. Well, a tree must have a star, so the boys and I created a "gingerbread star"from cardboard, lots and lots of glitter, buttons, and a little ribbon. (Again, mama is making positive strides and let go of her perfectionism-obvously something I'll be making goals to work on and conquer in 2011). I love the star, and as we were boxing up the ornaments and packing away the tree my four year old Alan declared that our star needed to be set on top of the mirror in the living room-so there it sits for now.

We even enjoyed a sticky evening building a tiny gingerbread village. Every year I declare to myself that the boys and I are going to make gingerbread, and design and build a wonderful gingerbread house decorated with perfect lil' gum drops and m&m's. Again, I pushed the foolish perfectionism aside and bought a kit for us to put together. The boys had a BLAST and I loved the wonderful silly time working with them, their childlike ideas, and goofy lil' sayings. They work together so interesting-like. I was a good girl and simply glued the pieces together, and put the gooey colored icing where the boys directed and they placed all the candies. They were so proud of their accomplishments and they did a fabulous job! Not sure if Alan stuck his hand in some icing or stole a piece of candy here. :P

I have completely enjoyed the past few days of mostly uninterupted time with my boys and fully intend to make this the norm. I am a stay at home, working mom but have discovered recently just how much I have allowed stuff, activities, and poor time management take away valuable, quality time with them and me personally. Another goal to tackle in 2011! This mama is ready to tackle some goals, new priorities, and habits this near year!

Decide!

I just recently came across the quote,

"Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work." -H.L. Hunt

It truly resonated with me as I'm heading off to FLING (my company's annual home conference in Pennsylvania). What is it that I want out of life, out of my business, out of my family, out of things around me? What are some of the things that really truly don't matter to me? That, right there, may be the bigger, actually, more important question!


What is taking the place of the things that I NEED to be doing? What is getting in the way of what I truly want and need? I do find myself so often doing things that are not a benefit to my business, are not positive for my family, and sometimes things I downright dislike. So many of us do this exact thing way too often. But why?

Because we lose focus, or we get focused on the wrong thing. A good friend once likened it to a child playing with a ball, the ball gets away and rolls into the the street and the child chases after with no attention to his surroundings, only the ball. Or another friend who campares it to being distracted by the next shiny bright thing....."ooooo, shiny!......"

What are ways that we can keep our focus and ensure we are focused on the proper things? First, write things down. Lists, journals, ambitions-keep track and reference back to them regularly. There is no better way to see where you are and where you are going than to look at a reference point, land mark, and/or map (list, journals, etc...). I love my dream board, love the ideas and goals that are portrayed there and as long as I'm looking at that dream board and keeping it in mind, along with my 30 minutes of developement a day, things happen! My focus is on track, sometimes the track changes, but it changes because I make the changes in light of where I am and where I need to go...all because I am observing and staying on top of things.

Second, 30 minutes of self/business developement every day. There is always a way to squeeze in 30 minutes of "reading" somewhere, sometime. There are days when I'm swamped and I'll pull up a few YouTubes of Zig Ziglar or another great motivational speaker and listen while I pay bills or make dinner...any way you get 30 minutes in works. And trust me, it truly does work. I've ridden the discouraging waves of "developement starvation" to amazing momentum on the wave of constant immersion.

And third, choose your mentors. Find people in your industry, workplace, surroundings, that you look up to, are where you want to be and stay in contact with them. Sign up for their newsletters, read their blogs, pop on their social media sites. Being surrounded by like minded people and excited people is a HUGE boost to keeping you solidly on your way.

And most importantly, if, or should I say, when, you do lose your focus for a time or realize that you've been focusing on the wrong target-there is no better time than RIGHT NOW to re-evaluate and get back on target! Get focused, "Decide what you want, decide what you are willing to exchange for it. Establish your priorities and go to work."

Happy Birthday!

Another 365 years have passed in the life of me.....what are the things I've accomplished? What are the things I missed? What are the goals I reached or failed to reach? I like to look back, and more importantly, forward on my birthday at what has occured, didn't occur, and why.

It's such a busy time right now with us being mid-move, but I've still been doing a lot of reflecting over my last 365 days. Did I complete everything I wanted to? Hmmm...unfortunately no. Did I reach every goal I strived for? Uhh, no. Did I reach some goals? OH YEAH! Did I accomplish things I wanted to? ABSOLUTELY! And most importantly I never let the things I missed shadow over the things I didn't miss.

It is tremendously better to see a "missed"opportunity as the beginning of another opportunity instead. So mid-summer has become my re-assessment time, to look back over my paths, roads, detours, jaunts, and flights and see where they have taken me and landed me and from there decide which direction to travel over the next 365 days.

My mind is a whir of thoughts and reflections this evening, but one of my goals for this new year is to be better "planned" day by day, even hour by hour. Someone I truly look up to in my company sits down and plans out her week once a week, she attacts her list of things to do, sticks to her schedule/calendar, ticks off goal after goal. That is one of my new goals for this "new year! :-D

Time, Time, Time....

Where on earth does time go? It's been three months since I last posted. Am I a busy person or simply don't think about blogging? Maybe a combination of both. :) It's been an intersting winter and start of a new year here in Pennsyltucky. Most of the big storms which have been crashing through the "south" have drifted by us with hardly a few flakes blowing by here. I've missed the big piles of snow but my husband has appreciated the "not plowing/worrying about snow removal" part of less snow.

My life as a mom/wife/business woman has become a whir of Thomas The Train, Potty Training, Candles, Roller Skates, learning to communicate and grow a marriage, powerpoint presentations, and house cleaning/organization....what is THE key to organization anyway!? It's my goal EVERY year as people are talking about "New Year's Resolutions" to become more/better organized, yet I seem to fail at it most every year. Here's hoping/praying/working at making this year a success at becoming organized and on top of things....which means doing away with procrastination, oye, procrastination-what a curse!

So, enough "blogging" for me already. :) Stop procrastinating and get your day moving already Bev! :)