Tag: priorities

hanging out with awesome people, having more fun

Plan #12 – Make time for friends

by Lori2 Comments on Plan #12 – Make time for friends

I’ve become something of a hermit over the past few years.

This is entirely my own fault. I have been spending the bulk of my time doing two things, both seemingly worthwhile: getting rest when I need it, and catching up on all the chores I ought to have done when I’ve been resting. This makes for a pretty monotonous and stressful life.

My health is a reason for not getting out more, but it should not be an excuse. I can choose – anytime I want – to use my energy to see people and have fun. Yes, the chores will pile up a bit, but they are piling up anyway, and I’m not getting any enjoyment out of it!

So today, on my day off, I didn’t clean my house. I didn’t sort all the piles of stuff in my bedroom that need to be sorted. I didn’t pay a single bill. I didn’t take a nap, and I didn’t go in to work for the day as I was tempted to do since I was home sick on Tuesday. (Disclaimer: I actually did go in to work, but that was only because Ina called to tell me that someone sent me flowers. I couldn’t let them sit there until next Tuesday!)

What did I do instead? Continue reading “Plan #12 – Make time for friends” →

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Time won’t give me time…

by Lori2 Comments on Time won’t give me time…

What do you wish you had more time to do each day?

There are so many things I would do if I had more time. What those things might be, however, would vary depending on what kind of time it might be. Oh, yes, different times of day are very different in my book.

If it was energetic, just-got-up-on-a-weekend morning time, I would spend it cleaning and decluttering my house. There is so much of that to do – and so little of that very special time – that I would love to have more of it. Days more! Weeks more! Months more! In fact, there were many times when we were on our once-in-a-lifetime trip to Europe last year that I wished I had the same kind of downtime at home, just to deal with my stuff.

Additional after-work time, on the other hand, might be spent reading or hanging out with my family. I know that both David and Quinland wish I would play with them more. David would love it if I played more board games and watched more Battlestar Galactica. Quinland would love it if I just hung out with her and watched more Scrubs or Sherlock. I’ve been working long hours and trying to do house chores when I get home, so my playtime has kind of gone by the wayside.

If I had extra time at night… oh, how I would sleep! Sleep, sleep, and sleep some more. I am tired all the time and never seem to feel well-rested. It doesn’t seem to matter how many hours of sleep I get, either. (This is the kind of thing that frustrates me about MS. Is this the “MS fatigue” you hear about? Low-quality sleep? Iron-deficiency anemia? None of the above? Argh. I hate the unknown.)

I’d also like a whole extra day a week, thank you very much, just to do things with my friends. We could scrapbook, and go to lunch, and visit, and go out to dinner, and drink wine, and visit some more… I’d get all caught up with everyone and not feel so out of the loop. I have awesome friends and I don’t see them nearly enough.

What about you? If you had some extra time in your day, how would you spend it? Who would you spend it with? (Pick me! Pick me!)

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Spending my $1,000,000

by Lori3 Comments on Spending my $1,000,000

Hello, and welcome to November! I’m Lori, and I’ll be your tour guide through a post a day. I have decided to do NaBloPoMo (or National Blog Posting Month), a spinoff of the better-known NaNoWriMo (National Novel Writing Month), which I hope to do someday as well.

I’ve decided to follow the NaBloPoMo writing prompts given on BlogHer; they post them all in advance, which is really helpful for me since my writing energy goes in spurts. This way, I can plan ahead and make the most of my time.

NaBloPoMo November 2013

NaBloPoMo Day 1:
If you found one million dollars in the morning and had to spend it by nightfall, what would you do with the money?

Well, by “found,” I hope they mean “found in my bank account,” so that I don’t have to spend the whole day trying to figure out to whom I need to return the money. But if we have established that the money is mine to spend, then here we go!

Of course, the first thing to consider is where I want to make an impact. Do I use the money for my little family of three? My slightly-larger extended family (parents and siblings)? My community? The world at large? Hmm… let’s think of how I’d spend it on each.

  • If I had to spend the money on my little family of three, I’d buy a piece of land in a cool, walkable area of Portland and hire a builder – I guess I’d have to pay the builder up front since I have to spend the money by nightfall – to build a one-level house for us to my exact specifications. (MS makes me worry about my future mobility in a three-level house.) It would have high ceilings for David, a flat yard for gardening (and a party deck), lots of parking space, and a soundproof studio where Q could bang on the drums all day. (Musical reference definitely intended.) Then I’d pay a landscaper (I’d have sprinklers!) and buy some furniture (I’d have a sectional for TV-watching fun!). I’d look at my balance at that point and start spending on vacation fun. I’d put all my well-honed European traveler skills to work and book apartments, rental cars, and airfare. I get excited just thinking about it. (I’d like to fly friends over from Europe, but if that wasn’t allowed, we’d just have to fly over to see them.)
  • If I had to spend the money on my parents and siblings, I’d give $100,000 to each of the adults with one stipulation: the money would have to be used on something that would reduce their stress, whether that was a second car, a safety net in the bank, some assistance with home or yard or bills. My niece and nephews would each get $100,000 for college tuition or room and board.
  • If I had to spend the money on my community, it gets trickier! There are so many people in need, so much that one could do, that a million dollars seems like a drop in the bucket.  I think I would use it to open a school. That way David and I could both work doing something we loved in an environment that supported our ideas about what is best in education. (That would be a month of posts in and of itself, so I won’t go into detail at this point!)
  • If I had to spend the money on the world at large, it gets more difficult still. The sheer number of people who don’t have the bare necessities of life puts my fancy house-building ideas to shame. I think I would give the money to a charity that provides shelter to those who are living in sub-standard housing (a definition that varies depending on the location and culture). Habitat for Humanity does amazing work around the world, for instance. Perhaps I would give it to them.

I see a bit of a theme here: HOME. I think that shelter is stressful for many people, whether it’s figuring out how to navigate one’s surroundings with a disability, how to make a monthly house payment in a tough economy, or even where to lay one’s head down for the night. I’d love to have the chance to relieve any of those issues with my million dollars. What would you do?

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