I want my normal back

A year ago I started my first "real" (i.e. leaving the house for 8+ hours a day to work for someone else) job. As you might recall I was pretty excited about the prospect of actually having a job, at least in comparison to the prospect of not having one and I realized it would reduce the frequency of my blog posting. I didn't realize quite how much or how much it would change the feel of the rest of my life.

Taking last week off reminded me of just how nice it is to determine your own schedule and decide what you want to do when. It's nice even if you have so much to do you think your head might explode. The very first core value I wrote down when I began my work with a life coach was Self Determination. Living a life in which I can determine how I spend my time is very important to me.

Side note: I talk about my core values a lot but I've never laid them out in detail. That might be a fun set of posts or a good thing to talk about on my "About" page.

I'm going to make a point of taking an active role in deciding how my time will be spent this year. That probably sounds a little funny, but I sometime become a bit passive about my time. I let it pass without actively choosing to do so. Don't get me wrong. I don't mean I'm going to put every single minute of the next year to use. Or maybe I am if you subscribe to the philosophy that time you enjoy wasting is not wasted time. I'm just going to think about what I'm doing with my time and decide if this is how I want to be using it.

I spent a good 7 hours yesterday on the couch asleep or watching Peep Show (it's a British comedy you've probably never heard of) on Netflix with my husband.

The difference between that and my normal tendency to spend hours mindlessly staring at the television was that I CHOSE to do it. It didn't just happen because I didn't stop to think about it. I thought about doing other, "productive" things. Then I decided that snuggling on the couch for the remainder of my Sunday was a far better use of my time.

Unfortunately, you can't spend your whole life snuggling. Bump disagrees.

I like Bump's perspective, but I need to pay the mortgage and people keep telling me Bump is going to cost money to take care of so I think I'll have to get off the couch on a regular basis. Something tells me that selling the pieces I create and getting serious about my blog will help me have more Self Determination about my time even if I keep having a "real" job.

Since the Oz Mercantile is closed now that the holiday season is over, I'm going to work on making sure the things I create are displayed where they might actually be seen by someone who wants to buy them. Check out my Shop page to see the first piece I posted.I'll work on getting the page more streamlined and shopable in the near future. 

Today, I'm going to attempt to accomplish the things that need to get done to allow me to spend more time on those things I enjoy without stressing about the projects that aren't done.

First up: the Christmas decorating I never quite finished.