Done for the Week: Back to the Breath

A couple of sunny days, and increasingly balmier temperatures last week left me smiling.  Spring may come, after all--with humid summer close on its heels, no doubt.

It was a fairly productive week, in any event.

Done for the Week:  May 16 - 22, 2011

1. Continued training for triathlon; biked once, swam once, ran twice
2. Ran twice with my training partner 
   
3. Finished Espresso Tales, by Alexander McCall Smith
4. Attended Issues Night meeting
   
5. Attended special jobs meeting
6. Convened meeting to plan jobs action
   
7. Called my mother
8. Continued to work my two part-time jobs 
9. Met with website client
   
10. Published 5 blog posts 
11. Wrote 3 gratitude journal entries 
12. Weathered my husband's end-of-semester collapse
    
13. Got my husband to the gym with me once
    
14. Attended 1 yoga class
15. Meditated 5 times
    
16. Kept my new garden flowers alive, and planted more
17. Mounted attack on garlic mustard
18. Contacted estimator for bathroom electrical work
19. Completed layout on three ads for annual adbook fundraiser
20. Had lunch date with my husband
21. Resumed reading In Pursuit of the Proper Sinner aloud with my husband
    
22. Cooked twice
23. Shopped for groceries
24. Caught up on laundry
25. Watched three playoff basketball games with my sons and husband
26. Went out driving with learning teenager several times 
27. Entered negotiations with my husband, concerning upgrading of his heavily trafficked website
    
28. Self-diagnosed radial nerve injury, and began do-it-yourself healing program
29. Began daily long-distance support of my mother, during my sister's vacation
30. Participated in driving my newly re-employed son to his job
31. Spent extra day with my grandson during my daughter's illness
32. Got the lawn mower started for the first time this season (no small feat!)
33. Paid our monthly bills
34. Made tentative plans for family vacation in July--our first in several years to someplace other than New Orleans
    

Last week's focus goal was to "find a regular time to meditate, and to build a habit by meditating at that time every day." While I didn't manage every day, five times is a notable improvement over no times.  I am challenged finding a time that works every day, since my schedule changes from day to day, and from week to week.  But most days I can arrange to sit for twenty minutes around the time that I stop for lunch.  If I am having lunch out, as I did three days this week--once with a co-worker, once with my son, and once with my husband--I can meditate either before or after, keeping to a mid-day time frame.  This is more difficult on the weekends, when more people seem to be needing more of my time.  I still need to work on keeping myself on my own list, and somewhere higher than the phone solicitors and Jehovah's Witnesses.  And so, the saga continues.

Last week's most important accomplishment, I believe, was convening a meeting to plan a jobs action.  This item trumps others on a relatively lengthy list for two reasons.  One is the potential significance of changes we intend to effect in how jobs are being allocated in our city.  The second is my own desire to graduate from being seen primarily as a techie with secretarial skills in an organization in which I contribute ideas, knowledge and skills outside that narrow realm.  The action is one that I devised, which was picked up by my committee.  And we met to put it in motion the next day.  It will be gratifying to see it happen this coming week.


The week ahead will present the usual amount of scheduling twists and turns, and then some.  I'll focus on hanging on, and on continuing to meditate, and on breathing while I do both.