BulgingButtons

Not bad for a fat girl


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Go For It!

images.jpegIt sounds like a good idea, right? Identify your goal and hop to it. Go out there and grab hold of your dreams! That’s the American Way, isn’t it? Is it? I’m not sure.

I’m not sure of a lot of things. Like, for instance, what exactly my “goal” is at this particular point in my life.

I have goals, certainly. I have many of them, some large, some miniscule. So I suppose my question is how do I prioritize them? How do I decide WHICH goal is the “go out there and get it!” goal? Or are there multiples of those? In which case, the new question becomes, how on earth do I go out and conquer all that stuff????

Well, I’m a firm believer in divide and conquer, so there’s that. But then we go back to the prioritizing issue. What to tackle first?

When paying down debt there are two main schools of thought. The first states that you should allocate the majority of your efforts to eliminating the debt with the highest interest rate first, then tackle the next highest and so on. The second one suggests that you go after the smallest debt first, then the next smallest amount and so on, leaving the largest debt for last.

Both methods have their pros and cons, and both methods, if applied faithfully, will get you out of debt eventually. So what’s the right answer? I don’t know, but fortunately getting out of debt is one goal that I achieved several years ago, so I don’t have to worry about it. (By the way, I used the small amount first method, it helped me feel successful and empowered by the process).

Maybe I can use the same method with my goals. Maybe I should start with “baby steps” as Flylady says. Or, as my father used to put it, “Rome wasn’t built in a day.” For now I will keep stepping to get my daily fitbit steps, I will keep working at revising my novel, I will keep sharing my writing with you all and my writing partners, and I will keep working to tackle the clutter that’s been invading my home bit by bit. I will also keep being the best teacher, mother, daughter, and partner I can be. That’s not too many goals, is it? Wish me luck, and if you have any advice, I’d love to hear it.

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Procrastination Strikes Again

procrastinator.jpgHere it is, Sunday night, the night that teachers around the world (or at least my world) dread.

Once again the weekend slipped by too quickly and all the things I PLANNED to do are still undone. All the work things, anyway.

Oh, there isn’t that much, only a couple of hours worth.

What? You don’t have a couple of hours of work to do on the weekend? Lucky you.

No worries, though, I’ll get the most critical stuff done and work my way through the rest of it during the week. You see, I’m that kind of teacher. The kind that stays late most nights. The kind that stays up too late so I can enjoy my family. The kind that agonizes over exactly how much detail I’m going to require on a particular assignment. Basically, the average teacher.

This average teacher, however, is a terrible procrastinator, which is why I need to log off of here and go get my work done. After all, school starts in less than twelve hours! Have a good week, everyone.


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My Fifteen Minutes of Fame

A while back I wrote a back-to-school blogpost that was later modified and run by Scary Mommy. Scary Mommy is a huge website full of content for moms who may sometimes feel like they’re hanging on by the skin of their teeth. I can relate.

Well, that article generated quite a buzz, and it ended up being shared several times, on several different websites internationally. It was particularly popular in Greece, for some reason. I’m not really sure why, and I wouldn’t even know whom to ask.

The reason I bring it up is that someone visited the blog recently through the Scary Mommy link. Hooray! I was able to see what they saw, and came across my author page along with the article. I was so glad, because I thought I lost that link forever.

In case you’re interested, here it is: 10 Back to School Supplies Money Can’t Buy . I know it’s the wrong time of year, but what do you think? The article generated a huge positive response, but there were a few angry comments saying I had no business telling people what to do. My intent was never to scold or come across as all knowing. I know parenting is difficult. I also know, from years of experience working with hundreds (thousands?) of kids that so often what they need most from their parents are things money can’t buy.

It was nice to see that old article again. It reminded me of my fifteen minutes in the spotlight, and it gave me hope that maybe somewhere somebody was taking my words to heart and spending a little extra time loving on their kids.