balance.

Having a little trouble with that right now. It seems blogging fell off the teeter-totter. I’m keeping up with most things. I think. I wonder what I’m forgetting.

Kids. Check. Everyone is currently home. I didn’t forget to pick anyone up from all the places I’ve driven them over the last few weeks.

Husband. Check. This year we’ll celebrate our 20th anniversary. Since November, we’ve been actively taking steps to strengthen our relationship. Since he’s already my best friend, this is proving to be . . . very rewarding.

Work. Well, kinda check. Got a problem to solve tomorrow. Unless anyone already knows which printer driver will successfully get an HP4300 to automatically print envelopes from an envelope feeder on a Windows 7 (64 bit) PC instead of sending them to the manual feed tray and forcing a prompt to load. arg.

Music. Check. Started voice lessons two weeks ago and it appears I will get worse before I get better. In trying to incorporate all I’m learning, I’m over thinking things, forgetting lyrics and sounding . . . well not sounding the way I want to sound. However, I am vocalizing to notes I haven’t hit in over 10 years. Maybe I should just lead scales on Sunday morning for praise team.

Speaking. Check. Spoke at a Prayer Retreat on January 17th. Finally got the youtube clips up:

(The intro had no audio, so I skipped it)
Part 1 – Dedicated Prayer
Part 2 – Journaling
Part 3 – Send Me
Part 4 – Practicing the Presence of God
Part 5 – Conclusion

Also FINALLY fixed the audio from another set of youtube videos I put up from October entitled “Blessings Require Change.”

Reading. Reading quite a bit actually. Currently, I have active bookmarks in:
“You Were Born for This” by Bruce Wilkinson, (FirstHusband and I are reading this together)
“The Esther Effect” by Dianna Booher,
“Prayer: Does It Make Any Difference?” by Philip Yancey,
“The Only Necessary Thing: Living a Prayerful Life” by Henri Houwen,
“Special Edition Using Microsoft Office 2007” by Ed Bott and Woody Leonhard, (I’m a freak, what can I say?)
“Couples Who Pray: The Most Intimate Act Between a Man and a Woman” by Squire Rushnell and Louise Duart and
“Eleven on Top” by Janet Evanovich (I’m forcing myself to read fiction at bedtime so I won’t try and think about anything.)

Spiritual Growth. All the reading and studying about prayer – and all the prayer – has been phenomenal. By the grace of God, I’m making time for dedicated prayer nearly every day. I’m praying that I continue. That I don’t forget him, and go back to trying to handle everything on my own. Cause I stink at it. And my world is way too small and self-involved when I leave the Lord out of it.

TV. Not so much. I admit freely. I have never seen an episode of “Lost.” I don’t even know what channel it is on or who’s on it. The only thing we are DVRing right now is American Idol (two weeks behind), Grey’s Anatomy (caught up) and Chopped.

Health. hmmm. Fighting a cold. Me and my buddies, Echinacea, Zinc and Vitamin C. Made the voice lesson and tonight’s praise team rehearsal a challenge. AND I don’t have any “sick pants” anymore. I threw them away because they were falling down. FirstHusband says that is a good thing. But. I miss them. They were giant. And flannel. I need my sick pants. Doesn’t everyone need sick pants every once in a while?

And it’s time for another mammogram. (Haven’t had one? Due for one? GET one!)

Exercise. Not doing too bad. I’m remembering to update my Exercise Log. Doing pretty good on the strength training. Not so great on the cardio. But it’s track season for FavoriteSon, so I’ll be walking while I wait on him like I did last year.

House. Still purging. We have too. much. stuff. The Red Cross picked up three big boxes and a bowling ball in January. Two more big bags are in the back of my van right now for Salvation Army drop off and I’ve been filling a box of clothes which a friend will be shipping directly to an orphanage in Haiti. I’ve signed up for DVDswap and shipped 3 DVDs within two days of listing them.

Stress. Forgot to take my Nexium for a few days and the resulting reflux flair up is causing me to sleep with my upper body elevated which caused a serious backache which I’ve been living with for days until today when I squeezed in a massage between FavoriteSon’s lunchtime haircut and PinkGirl’s after school pick-up. My back feels better but the pressure of lying face down for an hour gave me a sinus headache. Thankfully, we have some of the “real” Sudafed in the house. I took my Nexium yesterday and today. One more day and I should be back to normal. I hope I don’t forget tomorrow.

oh. and one of the cats ralphed on the seat of my office chair. neither one is claiming responsibility.