I Should Probably Put Something Really Worthwhile Here

And this will be an attempt to do just that. Really I have not been thinking to clearly lately...maybe its the cold in my head, maybe its the cold outside (I have not felt completely warm from head to toe in about 2 months now), maybe it's the being cooped up with four children, 2-3 of them under the weather, on call 24 hours a day for the past week, but for whatever reason, my brain and thought patterns have been a bit off.

I came home from my conference energized, ready for routine and new life disciplines. The theme for me was "refocus"...I was going to refocus my goals, refocus my priorities, refocus my day-to-day interactions and reactions to things that come my way. You know all that easy stuff, breaking old habits and replacing them for better, more effective ones - figured I would punch that out in no time flat.

Then ka-powey, everyone got sick, everyone got grumpy, everyone got sleep deprived and here I sit back where I started again.

The conference was so very interesting. It kept hitting me over the head with the same message within different packaging session after session. I couldn't wait to get it home and unwrap it from my brain and start using it. Then I got home and it sat in the packaging and I've kind of forgotten the instructions so to speak. So I need a good 2 weeks - one week to sit down and write out a plan for different areas (not a plan as in by this day I'll do this and by this date I will have accomplished this - that doesn't work for me) but just take the time to look at my work on the home front, my work on the work front, my work on the personal front and refocus it all. I need to pull a good friend or two aside and talk it all through cause that's the best way that I solidify it in my head.

Then I need to take that second week and lay the groundwork - clean and organize my house, look at Isaiah's lesson plans, look at my goals for work and pull the resources I need to get the jobs done that much easier. Now doesn't that sound like a great idea? Starting everything off fresh with a new focus.

So here is the overall focus...long range planning. I heard this illustration made at the conference that really helped to put things in perspective for me - in the olden times, before the high tech farm machinery, a farmer would keep his rows of crops straight by looking in the horizon and fixing his eyes on a permanent object. Once that object was in his vision, as long as he kept his eyes fixed upon the unmovable as he plowed, the rows would be straight in the field. Reminds me of the often read verses, "Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight." (Proverbs 3:5-6) Let me share something with you dear reader (even if it be only myself) I am so attention deficit in almost every area of my life. Something shiny flickers and my eyes widen and I take my focus off of the unmovable. Then I think I am working out just fine and I look behind me at a sloppy zig-zaggy row that isn't fit for anything.

This I am sure is a message I have heard for many years, but it really fell upon me like a fresh spring rain last week. I have felt like I have just been spinning my wheels for so long and I have four little bodies that take me in so many different directions every. stinkin'. day. I want to be the leader - as long as I have my eyes fixed on that Rock.

And just as a side note - while I was trying to get these thoughts of mine laid out there my older boys decided to go into the laundry room (a no-no) and climb up to get the cleaners off the high shelf (no-no No. 2) and use them as guns to shoot at each other (a no-no-no-no-no)....and I didn't react - I kept my focus and then I let them have it :o)

I'll be sharing a little bit more about this refocus in some future posts - hopefully I will get that 2 weeks of work under my belt in record time so that I can feel a little more ready for action.