The Short List

 One of my favorite Christmas presents was really just a stocking stuffer.  I really do love this little green and pink jeweled tape measure.

Inspired by Marji's post  I thought I would post my plans for now.  Like Marji I am working on a type of "1 hour plan" and my goals sound a lot like Marji's. Basically I want to get away from a life that seems to revolve around to reacting to things out of my control and get back to some sense of doing the things I want and need to do.

To wit, every day I will:

*  exercise 1 hour.  I was doing this routinely from late July to early October.  Then my schedule got disrupted and I never got back on track.  I want to put that routine back in my life.  I don't believe it contributed that much to my weight loss (which was more diet) but it did help me firm and shape and it did wonders for my attitude and sense of self.  I am not here yet.  At this point I break out in a hacking cough walking the roughly 50 feet from my bedroom to the kitchen.  But the cold will end and I will work my way back up to exercise.

* spend one hour cleaning. I have a big house.  I don't like to clean, but I abhor mess.  There is no other solution to maintain sanity.

*  Knit 1 hour.  I have been basically doing this.  I usually knit in the evenings while I sit with G at the television.  But some evenings I have other things to do.  I don't tend to let myself knit during the day, but I am giving myself permission to do that as long as I get knitting time every day.

* Sew 1 hour.  I am not back in the sewing room yet either, and it still has the wrapping paper and christmas ornament boxes on my cutting table.  I never take my tree down before the 6th, and given how run down I still am, I doubt I will get this cleared up until everything is put away this coming weekend.  Then I sew.  I was making good progress with 1/2 hour a day in early December; an hour will be better and I will move forward from that.

* Read 1 hour.  I mean read something for myself that I want to read.   Not the mail.  Not bills.  Not the newspaper.  I finally accepted that I get really grumpy if I am not reading anything.  Yes it means less creative time.  It means more happy time though.  

I am very confident that I can do all this although I can't just start my day and set the clock and do each of these things, no matter how much I would like to.  It will probably take most of January to establish priorities and get settled into this kind of routine.  I can spend more time on whatever I want to do or need to do on any given day after I've put in my minimum commitments.    But I can't spend my time running from crisis to crisis anymore.