A New Website

It's been a while since my last post, but I've been busy on the new version of my website. I decided to try using a blog to keep it up to date. It seems to be working so far.

The new site has new features. It has links to my blogs and to my family's pages where appropriate.

I am slowly increasing the number of sections. Not only will it have photos as I used to have, but I plan to expand it to show my craft creatins, too. I make a range of greetings cards that I sell and I want to show them off. I also plan to include articles on photography and craft work.

There will be lots to see and do and, hopefully, a visitors' book, if I can work out how to include one!

See you there at MJ Montage.

A Celebration

Yes, I'm celebrating. It's exactly a year ago, today, that I started full-time work again after a five and a half year period of illness. I had got to the point where I never expected to work again.

So, I'm celebrating.

A Year in the Life of a Journal

I'm celebrating. It was exactly a year ago today that I started keeping a daily journal.

I started it to try to improve my creativity. It has worked. However, the biggest change has been in myself as a person. Within the first few weeks, I became aware of changes happening in myself. I used to have a reputation for my fiery personality. I became aware of a softening in my attitude.

About a week after starting to keep a journal, I had a phone call from an old friend. I had interviewed her about fourteen years ago, gave her a job, and helped train her. She is now Production Manager and wanted to know if, following five years of health problems, did I want a job? I accepted. Many people who had known me before I left the company didn't want me back! Yet, now, after a year of the new me, it's incredible to see the new people, who didn't know me, questioning our colleagues as to whether they are talking about the same person. Even those who knew me are having difficulty believing the change.

Yesterday, I read a blog about a British psychologist claiming that keeping a diary is bad for your health. Based on my own experience, I have to disagree. "Blog on!" is what I say. If it helps you like it's helped me, then you'll be a better person for it.

Haiku Mike

I was watching the effects of the wind at the lake, yesterday morning. A heron was standing on a pole about a quarter of the way into the lake, gently flapping its wings to keep its balance. A golden leaf floated past me and gave me a feeling of poetry.

So, I started a new blog. I set it up as a Haiku blog. I thought it would be good to express feelings in some form of poetry. I'm going to try to add a haiku every day.

The heron was there again this morning. There was no wind this time. It stood still; calm; peaceful.

A Few Days Later

It's been a while. Things have been happening at work and at home, but now I'm able to catch up a bit.

This week marks the end of my first full year of keeping a journal every day. I wasn't sure, when I began, if I could keep it going, but I have. I sat down, yesterday, to reflect on the changes I've made over the last year. I'm a totally different person. People have commented on it. At work, I was told that they had "heard rumours" about me. I left the company in 1998 and came back a week after starting my serious journal-keeping last September. Yet, I've been told by those who didn't know the old me that they cannot believe the rumours. And, even those who knew the old me are amazed by the changes.

That's why I keep a journal. It works. It allows me to rant and rave and generally keep calm by letting out my frustrations in private. It's not wrong. It just helps me to control my temper.

Overload

I haven't posted much, lately. Well, to be more precise, nothing for a few days. What with taking a holiday and being busy, it's been rather hectic.

I was reading, this morning, that we lead very busy lives. And, with an increased workload, it can only result in being overloaded. It's easy to burn out.

It's also easy to forget what's important. That's why we need a clear focus. We need to determine our priorities. As I once read, if we're going to climb the ladder, we'd better make sure it's against the right wall!

That's not as easy as it sounds. We fool ourselves into thinking that some things are vital to our existance. Yet, the very word vital comes from a Latin word meaning life. What? Would we die if we didn't have a widescreen plasma TV? Would our lives literally come to an end if we didn't have a car? Yet, all the time that we are spending on accumulating these things, we are losing our families.

What's most important to us?

That's where a journal can help. It helps us to sort through our priorities. It helps us to analyze ourselves to see where our priorities lie. It helps us to see what's important.

And it helps us to cope with the overload.