Remembering the Important Things

It's been quite a week in our household. My husband recently began a job as a film teacher at a local high school, working with at-risk youth, or truthfully, many kids who are already involved in many risky behaviors. After the first day of working with them, my husband admitted that there were definitely some walls that would have to be broken down to connect to many of these kids. No surprise there.

It got me thinking. I find that since I've been in the early education industry, I relate a lot of things in life to what I've learned about children. When I see adults engaging in childish behaviors, I think like a preschool teacher on what would be helpful to this person to regain self-control (let's try holding hands and doing a breathing exercies... ok let's count down from ten...). See, the things that work for kids, often times works for us. I've learned that often times what causes young kids to lose control or have an apathetic or fearful disposition towards new situations often comes from their lack of basic needs being met. I mean, how are you at work in the mornings after less than 5 hours of sleep, no breakfast, and a couple cups of coffee to jumpstart your day? Probably not at your best. You probably aren't as patient on the road as you could be. Or as great a listener as you should be.

Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs portrays what we need to get by before we can succeed in the higher levels. If you are fearful for your safety, you probably wouldn't  be concerned with much else. As educators, we are challenged with doing our best to guide and educate children, with their home life circumstances being out of our control, and often times knowing that students may not have those basic needs met. Some teachers may simply treat every child "fairly" by teaching them all the exact same way, thinking all students should learn the same way. But there is more to that child's life than the hours they're with you in your care or your classroom. Trying to be more aware and sensitive to the special challenges many kids face on a daily basis might help us teach with more grace, and may possibly change how we approach teaching in general. Yes, it's challenging to offer individualized education. Yes, it's impossible to meet every child's every need. Yes, there are SO many things simply out of your control. But there is at least one thing you can control - letting them know that you care.

Because above those basic needs of food, water, shelter, safety, it's love. It's being valued. Being valued by someone, or even by oneself. And everyone needs that.

So to all my friends in education, keep loving your students. They may not love you back, but you do make a tremendous difference. To those of you who do, thank you for doing what is often times a thankless job. You're changing the world, one starfish at a time.

So what does any of this have to do with my new year's resolution of becoming organized? Not too much, besides the importance of pausing and remembering the important things, and what really matters. We can't forget that, even in all the business of life, because what is life if we forget our purpose?

My tip for the day, is take the time to read the "Starfish Story." I'm sure most of you have read this many times, but reread it just to remind yourself. :) Each one counts.

http://www.cityyear.org/about-us/culture-values/founding-stories/starfish-story

Go Ahead. Drop the Ball.

It's Tuesday, and in the spirit of my resolution of becoming organized, here is my 2nd weekly blog post on this topic - on time! This week, I thought I'd share a bit as to what brought me to where I am now, and to this resolution for 2015. As I grow older, I become more aware of who I am and how I function. In fact, I’ve created a visual in my mind of how my brain works in comparison to other people, at least from my perspective. If you can imagine that a typical person's capacity for awareness of various things at once can be represented by a bucket, you can turn over to me and see that I got gypped with a teacup. How do I know this? Well, I am blessed and cursed to be married to someone who got a semi-truck of awareness. So the one thing I’m most painstakingly aware of is how unaware I am.

Introducing my wonderful husband, Orlando, business owner and filmmaker extraordinaire. Our relationship is truly proof that opposites attract. Sure we have a lot in common – we both are musicians, love God, agree in politics – but personality-wise, we are so different. I’m very free spirited, whereas he’s more reserved and structured. I’m outgoing, he’s introverted. I’m naturally an impulsive, spur of the moment gal. He’s naturally strategic and calculated in his decisions. In our differences, we balance each other out. It’s really a great thing. In fact, it’s pretty awesome. In the words of Jerry Maguire,

The only “curse” part is that I am constantly reminded of where I am lacking. And when it comes to organization (and basically remembering things in general), that’s possibly our biggest difference. He remembers everything, while I forget everything.

Orlando has this superhuman ability where he could watch a movie once, and can practically recite the whole movie by heart (how does he do that?!). I, on the other hand, am the one who enters a rooms and forgets what I’m doing there, or makes a call only to forget why I’m calling (or who!). I’ve been known to make 5 separate U-turns going to a place I’ve been to a million times before. I once started to drive away from a gas station – with the gas pump still attached to my car.

People say men have a one-track mind, whereas women are multi-taskers, able to handle the impossible. Women have eyes in the back of their heads, they say. Well, I missed that memo. God skipped me on the creation assembly line when handing out those extra sets of eyes. Instead, I can only focus, truly, on one thing at a time if I want to do it well. If we’re having conversation at a restaurant, don’t place me near a television. My eyes will inevitably drift – even if it’s an infomercial for a Barack Obama chia head (yes, they exist). It’s very difficult for me to be aware of things without being painfully intentional to do so.

A couple years ago, I decided I had enough with it. I was convinced there was something wrong with me, perhaps some sort of attention deficit disorder. I did research. I took quizzes. I read articles. I even began visiting a psychologist at my university, who was surprised at what I was juggling at the time – a full-time management job, a masters program in the evenings, two kids (one infant and one toddler), and some heavy involvement in the leadership at my church. She did suggest I be tested for ADD and wrote me a referral. A year later, I finally took her up on it (Did I mention I’m a procrastinator?). Sure that I would get some answers, I sat with my husband in what felt like an AA meeting with others who also were being tested. “My name is Adriana Gomez and I forgot why I’m here.”

I came to various appointments over the course of a few months, was formally tested, and finally, got the report back. Here was the answer to my prayers. I would get a magic recipe to rid myself of my distractedness and forgetfulness. My results? NEGATIVE. Nothing. No sign of ADD. In fact, I actually did quite well on the test. Surely this couldn’t be right. I asked for an explanation. It was simple – I had too much on my plate, and needed to find a way to balance my life. I needed to find ways to cope with stress and focus past the millions of things cluttering my mind.

A part of me was relieved. But then I was frustrated. And borderline depressed. I wasn’t sure how to take it. Maybe there was no answer for me, and my husband would have to just accept me for this awfully forgetful person that I am (which he already did).

But then I realized, I didn’t want to accept this. I didn’t want to accept that this was how I had to live my life. I would find the tools to help me cope, ways to work around my inabilities. I had Outlook organizing my every email at work, as well as keeping my tasks on a timetable and my appointments scheduled. Everything was synced to my cell phone, and Siri would set my appointments. I even let go of some volunteering commitments. At home, however, things weren’t the same. Laundry was piling, bills were going unpaid, library books were collecting late fees, kids’ hair went uncombed, and we were late to everything (correction: I made us late to everything).

Then, through a turn of events, I came to start a family child care program out of my own home. Now, I thought, surely everything would start to come together. I would finally be able to catch up and get my life in order. I would have all the time in the world for my family, and we’d have home cooked meals every night. Not so. I was struck with the same reality. Though things changed dramatically (in positive ways) and many new opportunities opened up for me at home, this path of putting myself back together would not be as easy as I thought. I chipped away one day at a time, trying to do more each day. I felt I was getting nowhere.

Now fast forward to December, 2014. My now-kindergartner got off on winter break, and we all got to spend a gorgeous amount of time together. And we baked. A lot! We flipped through cookbooks, recipe cards, picked our favorites, and went for it! We watched cooking shows on TV and actually made the stuff! I was reminded of how much I enjoyed baking, and so much more now with my girls.

Then, New Year’s Day, I found myself looking around my kitchen. I wanted to bake more, and with the new baking supplies we got our girls for Christmas, I needed to find room. But I had clutter everywhere. Well, I was motivated and determined! I would organize this kitchen once and for all!

My husband awoke from our late night celebrations the night before, and came in the kitchen to see me climbed up on a chair, taking everything down from all the cabinets around my kitchen, stuff everywhere. He maneuvered through my obstacle course to say hi to my self-entertained daughters, wished me luck, and left the room. I don’t blame him. I stopped to look around myself. Now I was committed. I kept going, and that night I finished! I completed a task! Since then, we have cooked and baked more than ever before in our home. I even had my daughters’ friends over to bake cookies!

I caught myself thinking, what if the rest of my house were so organized? What if the rest of my life were so organized! I had tried taking home organization as seriously as I took my scheduling and organization my last office job, but after failed attempts at typical calendars and tons of organization phone apps, I knew the same tools just wouldn’t work for me. I was ready to try something new. Then I found it. That same evening, someone on Facebook shared a link for something called the Passion Planner. Could this be the answer? I clicked, got a free digital copy (hooray for free!), economy printed it and got it bound (for free. Again! Jesus does love me!). I began reading the introduction (more like instructions) and experienced one of those rare “Ah, ha!” moments.

In the introduction, the Passion Planner gives the example of how we juggle things in life. If we have too many balls in the air, we will never get a handle on them. The planner went on to further explain how each ball has different values, and how we need to put down the ones with lesser value to make sure we can juggle and take care of the very valuable ones. This was me. I had every ball in the air at all times, never putting any of them down. Along with my natural proclivities towards being more “unstructured,” it’s as though I were doing all of that with a broken arm.

Now I was ready. I was ready to put down some of those balls. Even if I only had one ball up at a time (which is more doable with a broken arm!). This brings me to today. I’ve laid down all the balls I was juggling - this burden - before God, and committed to letting them stay there until I could pick them back up, one up at a time. And to do less. And I’m ok with that. Hey you know what, that could be a bumper sticker: Less More, and More Less.

So this week, go ahead. Drop the ball. Drop a few of them. Figure out how much each is worth to you, and be willing to lay down some of the ones that just aren’t as valuable. Let God juggle them for a while. His hands are bigger anyway.

Resource of the week:

The first ball I'm juggling is meal planning. I wanted to tackle other things as well, but this became my focus because we aren't in a position to afford eating out all the time, and I'd prefer to reserve it as a last resort. The biggest reason we typically haven't eaten at home is because of lack of planning. And those last minute trips to the grocery store have really added up. I'll blog more about this later on I'm sure, but here is my "beta version" of my menu planner. Feel free to give it a try and let me know if it works for you! Here's the link for more info, as well as the links to download the PDF or Excel versions.
http://adri-333.wix.com/garlandofgrace#!menuplanning/cjk0

New Year's Resolution: Getting Organized

When we think of New Year's Resolutions, we often hear the same ones: losing weight, exercising (oddly enough, these first two don't always go together), spending more time with family... and one of the ones that tends to make it to the top ten every year is getting organized. In fact, for 2014, getting organized was 2nd only to losing weight. We live in a society where we want to have more, more, more. And when do we want it? NOW! And we wonder why we live in such a chronic state of stress. I think people get that there's something amiss in their lifestyle. So maybe if they ate healthier, they would feel better. Maybe if they got out more, exercised more, did more of this, more of that. Are we seeing a pattern here?

So let me suggest something... what if we did *gulp* less? Okay, before you dismiss what I just said thinking I'm crazy, just hear me out. What if we did less of all this stuff? Maybe we weren't created to live such a crammed lifestyle. Kids in schools these days are far more stressed than they were before because of all the MORE they have to do. MORE homework, MORE practices, MORE activities, and unfortunately less of, well, nothing. The good kind of nothing. The nothing where you lay on your bed and dream about what you want to be when you grow up. The time to play.

So what does any of this have to do with organization? Well, we focus so much on the more, and we don't realize where our time goes. Seeing it in an organized fashion and planning it all out helps you see where you have too much, and something needs to change. This is where I found myself, having far too much to do, and not knowing how or where to start. Not just work related goals, but I found myself longing to build a home - homecooked meals (and healther ones!), organizing chores lists for my kids to teach them to be independent, finding time for myself, finding time for my spouse. I began to prioritize - what are the things that are truly the most important to me, and is my time being designated accordingly?

 
Maybe you chose getting organized as your new years' resolution for 2015. Maybe you (like me) have tried getting organized many times before, and have found yourself back at square one, hoping to find a better way. If so, follow me! I'll be sharing my organization adventures to build a healthier home...and healthier me! Isn't there a saying: "When Mom's happy..."

So, I commit this to you: I will blog once a week on this topic of organization. I need accountability. Although I am blessed to have an accountability partner, this is another way to keep me motivated to keep moving forward. I'll share resources I find and share any I create myself. Don't reinvent the wheel. Wish me luck, as I wish you luck as well! See you next week!

Tip of the week:

I have begun using the Passion Planner, which is a calendar planner / journal / sketchbook that does so much more than just keeping you on track. It helps you turn your dreams into attainable goals by setting milestones on a timeline, creating reasonable and achievable tasks, which will ultimately turn those dreams into reality. It's been a couple weeks (since the 1st), and I've mostly spent my time doing the task planning and have barely touched the actual calendar section itself. However, it's been an amazing tool to help unload all the clutter in my brain and finally get it all on paper so I can do something with it. I've probably re-sketched my goals 3 times as I'm learning more and more what my real priorities are in the now. It's bringing me down to reality and placing my feet on solid ground. So, check it out if this is something you might be interested in:

www.passionplanner.com