MIA

If it hasn't been one thing, it's been something else, but finally, I am back connected to the world from the comfort of my home! My last laptop called it kaput so I had to invest in a new one. And that took a while... Then I had trouble getting my network set up at home, but it looks like I am officially back in bidness!!! Man! I definitely missed this, and there has been so much I've wanted to express, so please, bear w/me as I get back into the groove of things...updating my page and catching up on my blog reading, lol. :oD

Holiday wrap-up:

I made a trip south to visit w/my family and friends, and it turned out to be quite a nice trip. There were a couple down sides to it, though: 1) it wasn't longer and 2) I couldn't get in touch w/a couple of my friends b/c I didn't have their numbers w/me. Other than that, it was nice to see some of my fam and spend time w/them. The best part about it for me was that I realized that I'm ready to close a bit of distance between myself and a few of them. While I love my family a lot, some of them can be pretty judgemental and pretentious at times. And sometimes downright disrespectful. It got to a point where I'd had enough and had to make myself scarce for a while. But now, I'm up for reaching out more on my own terms. To my family's credit, I will say that most of them aren't those things I mentioned. It's really only a small group I'm referring to, but it's all good.

New Year's was great! Even though I'm really not much of a church-goer, certainly not like I used to be, I wanted to bring in the new year there. I'd invited a friend of mine to go w/me so we had dinner and went to a church nearby for service. When we left, I felt so at peace. It was incredible. I didn't realize how chaotic I had allowed my life to become (inside and out) until I felt this stillness in my spirit. So, after service we'd walked and talked for a little while, then I went home. I had to relish the serenity I felt. It had just been too long since I'd had that. Last year was a rough year, lots of ups and downs and I'd been worn out by the whole experience. So, it was nice to feel rejeuvenated and refreshed at the start of a new year.

2006:

In keeping with seeking to maintain a peaceful spirit, I've been doing a personal inventory of the areas I want to work on this year and beyond. This is the year that I want to change my life, and I feel that it's going to happen. One of the things I've started working on is getting organized. I realized that too many areas of my life felt all out of sort and discombobulated because of how disorganized it was. The closer I looked into this, the more I realized what a difference something as "simple" as getting organized would make my life.

And as with so many things, you've got to start small and take baby steps so as not to become overwhelmed with the enormity of whatever task you undertake or change you want to make. I'm determined to stick to this and work on it a little at a time. My finances have gotten the initial re-vamp, I'm making plans for my home and work spaces, and in the process, getting a little better at managing my time overall. I was actually on time for work 4 out of 5 days last week, and was on time this morning. And that was a miracle!! LOL

Ya'll might get sick of hearing about this stuff, but it's only the beginning.

I have this one little story, so to speak, then I'm out.

I was at work looking for something I'd misplaced and was going through a drawer of mine for it. Anyone who has ever seen my cube knows that it's piled high with boxes of files, files stacked on each other and books and shoes everywhere else. So, basically, it looks like a hot mess of disarray, which it is...for now. Anyway, as I was going through this drawer, I found soooo much stuff that I didn't even realize I'd had. Straws, for example. There had been days where I would forget to pick up one from wherever I was and would be cursing when I'd get back to my desk and realize I'd forgotten it. Well, lo and behold, a sista had MAD straws up in her drawer when she really was convinced that she'd had NONE! lol

The moral to the story is this:

Stop looking everywhere else for the things you need before searching inside yourself. When you actually take the time to dig into who you are, you may be surprised to find that what you've spent so much time looking everywhere else for has already been there the whole time.