Time Constraints, Court Papers, Fate vs. Free Will

If you came here to see if I'd updated any info on my adventures in metal clay, I apologize. I probably won't be able to do that until tomorrow. Just a little bit of random rambling today...

JUST ME YAPPING ABOUT TIME CONSTRAINTS AGAIN
Yay! I get to go to Hadar's tonight. I haven't had any time to play with … well, anything for awhile now.

For those who don't know, I have a full time day job and am taking my children to hockey practices four out of the five weekday evenings. Weekends vary, but there are usually at LEAST three hockey events.

So my only times to do anything that isn't work or driving are Friday evenings and sporadically on the weekends.

If I list out just a FEW of the things I need/want to do:
Make jewelry
Experiment with metal clay
Experiment with soldering
Walk the dog
Prepare/Plan jewelry-making curriculum
Do laundry
Unpack boxes from the move
Clean the apartment
Exercise
Grocery shop and prepare food
Read
Paint/Mixed media projects
Photo my latest works
List my latest works
Edit my jewelry book
Write the children's book I sketched out
Blog
Make some tutorials
Finish the article on wire

… there's more but that's enough for now… anyway, I am trying to squeeze all THESE things into those very few free hours I have each week. See my dilemma? Maybe now some of you can understand my desire/need for early retirement from my day job so I can start my second "career".

In the meantime, I am making myself another mantra bracelet this weekend (my last one was for a different affirmation and it worked amazingly well). My affirmation this time will be: "Time is elastic to my needs". Since I know my mantra bracelets work, I feel relaxed in the knowledge that I will soon be finding time for everything I need to do.


COURT PAPERS

For those who know the saga of my children's desire to change the custody arrangements somewhat, I received the final papers in the mail this week. So lookie there, before Gabe actually turned 17, he is legally allowed to have a smidge of say-so in his own life. FYI, in Alameda county (don't know what other counties do), children are NOT allowed full say-so of where they want to be until they are… yes, 18 years old. So here are two wonderful (by which I mean: straight-A, non-problematic, athletic, responsible, mature, articulate, and compassionate) teenagers that are being treated like people with no autonomy what-so-ever. They are good kids and they deserve to play on their hockey teams whenever they want, go to their friends' houses whenever they want (which is VERY seldom anyway), and visit each of their parents' households whenever and for how long they want. In my opinion, anyway.

But, whatever we have to deal with in life is something we learn from.


FIGHTING FOR WHAT YOU WANT VERSUS GOING WITH THE FLOW OF THE UNIVERSE

Not sure (yet) if I believe in the whole "fate" thing… where, you are faced with things because it is your destiny to be faced with them and you can't avoid or change that. I still feel the world is a lot more random than that (but I have an open mind). I do, however, believe in the tenet of not trying too hard to swim upstream. If something is a real struggle, maybe it isn't the "right" path for you at that time.

This doesn't mean, though, that I believe you can attain anything you want without ever having to work for it.

Oh man, thinking can be so full of dichotomies!

Segue: Gabe and I are reading (listening to in the car) Randy Pausch's book "The Last Lecture". Early on in the book, Mr. Pausch mentions "the brick wall". The wall that is in front of some people at some times. The wall that separates those who will see the brick wall keeping them from their goal and resign themselves to not attaining the goal versus those who see the brick wall and battle it because that's how badly they want the goal that's on the other side.

I totally get that… but something in my (current) core beliefs also says: If it's meant to be, it's not going to be that much of a struggle.

Hm… that doesn't seem quite right either. Blah!

Did you know that in a thesaurus, one of the antonyms of "destiny" is "free will"?

(I couldn't draw the arrows, but you can imagine them, going in a downward motion)



And as a reminder for tomorrow's blog posting (yes, a reminder to myself), I want to talk about our recent trip to Arizona, Bear, and having faith in others... oh, along with the usual jewelry info.

TTYL!