Ramblings of a Friday

OK. I am open to admit that last week's weekend goals did not go over so well. The one thing I did accomplish was I started hanging stuff up in our living room. (Not that this was a listed goal) But it seriously looks sooo much better, even though we still have a ways to go.

(By the way, I promise I won’t torture you with my mundane weekend goals every week.)

For some reason (and I’m sure I’m alone on this ;)) when the weekend rolls around, I always get really excited about having a couple days off and possibly accomplishing things I haven’t been able to get around to during the week. And this motivates me to plan, in a belief that I just might fit in as much stuff as possible.

I’m not sure if this is something I’ve done for a while or if it’s a recent development stemming from a Sunday School lesson a couple weeks ago. (This is twice in like two weeks that I’ve mentioned stuff from church…weird.) I really like this particular teacher because he has a way to use the actual lesson as a base but to then really reach outside the box and derive how these things apply to our daily lives and things we can do to improve ourselves.

In one lesson, he talked about establishing daily goals and setting personal rewards and punishments for meeting or not meeting each goals. Now, this has always seemed somewhat useless to me, considering that I’m not exactly much of a self-discipline type. So maybe I say that I’m not going to eat out for a week and, if I succeed, I’ll let myself buy a new…pair of shoes. But, given that a new pair of shoes is probably something that I as a girl with a shoe fetish really need, I’d probably buy the new pair of shoes anyway. And just to spite my goal, I’d probably grab some food in the food court afterwards. Ha, take that.

I realize that personal goals have to be something that I do actually want to do. Proven by the previous example, I probably don’t really think it’s important for me to stop eating out, nor do I really think that I shouldn’t buy shoes. So naturally that goal wouldn’t last.

But I do like the idea of working towards or for certain objectives each day. I tried it for a couple days after the lesson and it was a pretty good experience. Naturally it would probably have been an even better experience had I actually continued. But I’m going to try to start again. I’m the kind of person who is pretty much always looking at the bigger picture. And I don’t think that’s really a good thing. I have a hard time focusing on just one simple task. For example—and I think I’ve shared this example before—when I think of cleaning my room, I can’t JUST clean it; I have to organize my closet, discard old clothes, find new storage containers to better fit my needs, sort through every stack of papers, find my insurance information, make dentist and eye appointments, organize receipts, start a budget, read a book, organize my e-mail and all files on my computer, and pretty much touch every single scrap, paper, clothing or possession I have. And that’s not just a once-in-a-while process; those are the kind of thoughts in my head EVERY time I need to simply tidy things up. Or, and this just happened to me in midst of writing this post: I think about sending my resume to a company and then go on to think that I should restart my portfolio Web site which also means I should upload new material and clips from more recent projects, and then I should also update my print portfolio which requires I sort though past magazines and cut, clip and paste. Oh, I should also finish starting my new site so I can use that. Oh, and try to create better Google results for Karianne Salisbury in case they decide to check up on me…and it goes on and on. Goodness, it gets really daunting.

So I think this daily goals things will really help me focus on one thing at a time. Even if a day’s goals are as simple as “check air in tires” or “organize bottom drawer,” those things can be accomplished so much more easily and, even as small tasks, feel like big accomplishments.

I’m excited for this weekend for several simple things I’m looking forward to. First, my Friday Zumba class! I found some videos on YouTube so I was just playing those in the background for music while I worked and I was getting really pumped. I truly had to resist the urge to get up and “shake it” here in my office….just kidding. If you are at all into Latin music or dancing and are OK with doing lots of hip shaking and booty popping, well, you will love Zumba. Try it out and just let go; plus, it’s not as risqué as it may sound.

Next? Institute dance!!!! I haven’t been to adance in forever and my Zumba classes don’t quite get the grooving out of my system. I’m still trying to scrape up a group to go and some may back out, so yes, I think you should also attend. Call me. :)

And finally? I just found out that I have this Monday off, so guess what? It’s a surprise three-day weekend! That’s so much better than a planned three-day weekend.

Awesome.