I've been making some changes to the way I order my days, and as a result, the blog has fallen by the wayside. That's not what I intended at all; it's just the way it happened.

It took me a while after moving from Iowa to begin putting down new roots here in Indiana. Additionally, while living in the apartment and waiting to find a home, I felt like I was dangling in a limbo zone where I could not get involved in a whole lot. In fact, Jeremy asked me not to get involved in much because he felt that he could not handle much more juggling or family responsibilities until he felt more settled.

But now: now we've moved, and not only have we moved into a wonderful house, we've also moved into a wonderful neighborhood. I feel like I am finally able to settle into life and get involved! A while ago, I began teaching the four and five year old Sunday School class at my church, then I started working on the ladies' newsletter, then my friend and I started planning an Easter Egg Hunt for our neighborhood, now we're starting a neighborhood mom's group together, and I've got plans in the works to begin a neighborhood events committee. Add onto that, the fact that I'm involved in a Wednesday night Ladies' Bible Study, a Thursday night mentoring relationship, a once-a-week soccer practice for Liberty, and a Saturday soccer game for Liberty. But you know the most wonderful part? I'm slowly making friends! Friends who want to get together, neighbors who come over just to chat with me during the day, people from church and the community who have gotten to know me and who ask me to participate in various activities, all while I'm trying to write and publish books, train my children to become Godly citizens, keep a clean house, be an awesomely sexy wife, and the list goes on.

Oh, yeah, I forgot to mention that this new healthy life-style I'm trying to maintain requires that I get enough sleep at night. Can you imagine? No more getting extra work done after the kids go to bed. No more reading and writing blog posts until the wee hours of the morning. Now THAT is sad! (By the way, I've lost fourteen pounds in three months, so there's definitely an upside. But I'm still very sad about not blogging, and I'm missing out on the lives of my online friends. Do you know that I regularly compose blog posts in my mind during the day for you guys [but really for me, because I just can't help it], but I have no time at night to get those thoughts onto the computer before my bedtime? 'Tis a sad, sad thing!)

Suddenly, my plate is very full, and my life is overflowing with life! My days are filled to the fullest with activity of many kinds, so full in fact, that I began feeling very down about my ability to accomplish simple tasks and to meet deadlines as they come up. I told my mentor, "I'm a failure as a person. I'm not getting anything done! What is wrong with me?"

She suggested that I keep a running log of my daily activities so that I might be able to identify a pattern and make some appropriate changes. I took her advise this week, and that is when I realized: I am not a failure! The difference between these past few months and last year is the fact that I'm finally living! The reason I am exhausted at the end of the day and unable to summon the energy to remember my post (let alone type a post) is because I am no longer sitting on my rear end all day long wishing I could get involved.

I'm so grateful for this daily logging exercise that Sherry has suggested to me, because it helped me discover the surprising fullness in my life. Of course, I can find room for improvement in how I spend my time. Writing down what I'm doing from minute to minute has helped me cut my tendency to hop from task to task without actually finishing anything - that has been a huge improvement! Now, when I get interrupted from doing the dishes by my children or my neighbors or the telephone, instead of returning to the room and starting an entirely different task, I now look at my notebook where I wrote down what time I began washing dishes, and my brain says, "Oh yeah, I was washing dishes. I need to finish that."

Can you say, "BREAK-THROUGH!"

Or maybe you should say, "There's nothing shiny over here."