Time to Stop and Take It All In

New Year's Breaktime Life has been going...going...going without stop these last many months, and I've finally reached a place where I can pause to rest and reflect on the last year and the next two coming.

2007 The past year witnessed a lot of joy and heartache, and ultimately catapulted us into the next period of our lives. We nearly started a family (twice), which was devastating but spurred a perfect snowballing of events leading to our new home (and mortgage!)

In the beginning of 2007, I was newly pregnant, pretty happy with my job (with plans to move on), and bemoaning our small apartment. We were taking a close look at many options for places to live, places to start a business, businesses to start, and anything that would help us achieve our ideal visions for life with baby! By early Spring we'd actually decided to spend the baby's first couple years in our apartment and save, especially as I was enrolled in Integrative Nutrition and could work from home with a significant pay increase by June of 2008. Looking forward to the intervening months, we concocted creative schemes for managing time and space. By August however, when we were pregnant again (or so it seemed), we had learned that the apartment just wouldn't do. Also, the timing of the second pregnancy made taking classes impossible (I had to withdraw from the program) and we were again concocting all sorts of schemes for both moving and starting a business, for which on my days off I completed a fair amount of research.

Then came an even stronger whirlwind, as we put in God's hands the prospect of buying a home with my Mom. By Thanksgiving, we found ourselves still childless, but thanks to both my Mom and my awesome sister, living in a spacious new home in circumstances that lend themselves to the realization of our total vision for the next 5 to 10 years. The E.P. has a space to write, I have space for art and running a business, Mom has a much larger apartment close to family, and we have an extra room for a little someone, whenever the time comes. And, miraculously, even on our current unchanged incomes, we're still able to save (a little) money.

2008 The New Year is only six days old and still things continue to happen for us. My sister's boss has given me his old (HUGE!) desk, which once belonged to Paul Volcker (Alan Greenspan's predecessor at the Federal Reserve). My Mom gave me the gift of movers to get it from Floyd's office to our house. And now I have a HUGE surface area on which to work!!!

Add to that our changing job circumstances. The E.P. is set for a promotion later this year, and plans to have his book completed by June (and published by the end of this year!) My job had become almost unbearable, but on Friday some events occured which decrease the stress level enough to get by. Plus, I now have the opportunity to work on a project at my job which I have been researching as a business opportunity for myself -- such that I can gain valuable experience before I strike it on my own.

Although I won't really be on my own -- one of my colleagues has offered to go into business with me, providing the capital where I provide the research, knowledge, and probably the bulk of the manhours. How awesome is that!! I will probably do both though - have my own little biz (online) and the one we do together (brick and mortar). Both are many months from launch, there's a lot of work to be done, but I have the opportunity now to do that work and see it through.

And did I mention that I bought an elliptical machine, to be delivered this Tuesday?? This is the only machine I can use without boring myself to death, that actually works. I don't have access to a gym here nor, considering our long commute, the time to go -- so we're bringing the gym to us. Now I can get in shape in my own home and stay that way. =)

2009 A year from now, I see myself in a very different lifestyle. I see myself healthy, possibly pregnant, with at least one business going that I myself own. The E.P. will be published by then. We'll have a car by then. We'll have a cabinet in the dining room by then haha!!! And maybe I'll be enrolled in Integrative Nutrition for 2009. I feel that the time has come where things are finally coming together for me -- because I'm planning for them and allowing them too. The universe is doing all the hard work, I'm just letting it.