Checking in

I'm looking at my new year's resolutions again, one third of the way through 2008:
(In no particular order, it’s just how they were set out in an earlier blog post.)

1. gardening and composting again, even just on my little balcony
2. disciplining myself to carve out time for writing
3. finding paid work that I respect and that respects me
4. organizing my papers/files
5. communicating with my husband
6. living "as if" in the kingdom of God

I can see progress on all of these.

1. Check! Herbs and flowers growing nicely on the balcony. Even with the decrease in humidity, my houseplants reacted favorably to repotting in February, growing like crazy. Our new worm bin is more of a feel good item than actually useful for waste management – it can only take a small proportion of our compostable waste. But it’s fun to see the worms in the bin and a little bit of composting is better than none.

2. Discipline and writing – this was going well over the winter, but was much more difficult in the last month of so much traveling. My backlog of ‘things to write about’ is huge. This contributes to a vague sense of confusion in my brain – too many ideas floating around, getting lost while waiting to come out. The discipline I instituted around sleep hygiene over the last month has been helpful though.

3. Finding paid work. Well, I have my resume together and my LinkedIn profile up and running, and I’ve entered the “telling everyone I know I’m looking for work” stage. Lord, have mercy on me.

4. Organizing papers: I put most of this off in anticipation of a major reorganization of my home office that isn’t going to happen now. So I am looking at it in a different light. I have everything in one place now; the next phase will be another round of paper purging, and then a redistribution of reference materials, archives, working files, and tools. No real hurry, but as my mentor Kay Sprinkel Grace says, “Systems liberate.”

5. Communicating with my husband. This is a personal matter but I’ll just say things are good. It’s interesting (and healthy, I think) to both be doing personal inventory and vision work at the same time in different ways. Through the ups and downs and roundabouts of this year, we’re pulling together. It’s good to be here, sixteen years into our relationship.

6. Living “as if” the Kingdom is here and now. I’m working on discipline in some small areas, like only eating fair trade chocolate, and discernment in some big areas, like how to earn my income. This is not one of those resolutions that I expect to reach completion in this year, or this lifetime, but it helps me keep my sense of perspective and set priorities.

I am trying to hold "what's next?" lightly.