lifeinflux

2010 has started off with a bang.  When I look back six months ago and the level of unhappiness in my life verses today and the level of satisfaction and happiness I feel, I know that I am one lucky girl.   When I wrote my list of 101 things in 1001 days, I had no idea that my little company would explode, bringing in enough income to support myself and another developer along with the occasional freelancer.   Wow!   I am not complaining but I do find myself split between doing what I want work-wise and doing what I want life-wise.   The beauty of my overarching goal is that I do have 1001 days to accomplish all 101 things; however, 1001 days is a finite time and I want to make sure I 1) have a plan of attack to ensure I don’t lose sight of my goals and 2) accomplish them in a way that allows me to enjoy the process.   Life is a journey, not a destination and I don’t want this to become a checklist of things to do.   The purpose was to get me out of my comfort zone and to ensure I am LIVING and experiencing my life.    To lose the joy of the process means I miss the real point of creating this list in the first place.

That said, life is not linear and new opportunities came up recently that were not entirely unexpected – but certainly popped up sooner than expected – that may change what I do and when.   If you follow me on twitter (@lifeinflux) or Facebook, you know how much I love the west coast, particularly the Bay Area of California.    I took Drue out there a few weeks ago and she fell in love with it, too.  While I expected her to enjoy the climate, activities and people there, I did not expect her to embrace moving out there as quickly as she did and now she wants us to move out there this summer.   So not only am I building a company that is largely based on the east coast, but I need to determine how best to move my company west while supporting the bulk of my business on this coast.  But that is something I am confident I can do.   Rather, my concern is with preparing my family – including one Bear and Meemsy – for a move out west.   And that includes shopping for a school (Drue and I already know we want to live in the Berkeley area), shopping for a home, saving for the move, saving for the drive, selling and then buying a new car and then getting us OUT there.   And since we like having Drue’s dad around, Jason has the added pressure of finding a new job and a place to live in the Bay Area.   Big stuff.  Big plans.   And we have less than seven months to do it.

I could let it stress me out.   I could FREAK OUT about it.  But I’m not.  I figure things will move along organically and dictate whether we move out this summer or next summer.  But either way, I know that we’ll be settled out there no later than summer of 2011.

So what does this do to my 101 things to accomplish in 1001 days?   Not much, actually.   I decided not to make some elaborate plan.   I decided to relax until after Drue’s school’s Talent Show in early February before sitting down and plotting out an idea of when I’d like to get things done.   Some of it I started and put off – for example the daily snap was stressing me out since I had to use my point and click or iPhone only and was really unhappy with how my pictures turned out – so I decided to postpone it a year.   Others like the Daring Cooks/Daring Bakers, I recognize are not doable right now thanks to Drue’s interest in being vegan (and the fact that my two month post-medication diet has little to no animal products in the OKAY TO EAT list).     And that’s okay.  I have time.   So instead, I’ll learn how to juggle, learn how to ride a bike and continue working out our new eco-friendly lifestyle plan.

The one thing that may fall off the immediate radar is my trip to Europe.  I have not quite wrapped my head around how to head to Europe for an entire month, meet the needs of my new business, have money for my new camera, pay down the last of my debt AND save for a major move this summer.  So maybe Europe gets shuffled to the back burner for 2010.   That’s okay.  We’ll just go snowboarding more in February and March.   Or maybe I’ll take a week or so in April and head back to California to go school and home shopping and make Europe happen next fall or next spring.  I have time.

And most of all, I am enjoying the PROCESS of living my life.   And I have to say this is really new to me.  I don’t walk around hopped up on stress all the time.   I am not angry at well, anyone or anything, really.  Sure I get pissed off on occasion.  Just look at yesterday’s post.  I’m human.   I’m not one of those medicated people who are drug-induced happy all the time.   I don’t walk around with this massive smile on my face 24/7.    But I am content and satisfied and enjoy my life and the people in it almost every day.  I’m accomplishing things that are important to me and my family as opposed to spending time and energy accomplishing things that might be important to others but have no intrinsic value to my life.    And I can’t really ask for more than that.

Well I can… but that’s another post entirely.