What's Working and What's Not

I've learned, in weeks when I'm particularly tired and overwhelmed or stressed, to take a minute, pause and ask myself two questions:

1. What's working this week?
2. What's not working this week?

Here are some things that are working this week:

• dinner with Kari
• baths with lovely scented bath salts from the Rocky Mountain Soap Company and a really good novel
• going to bed early last night
• tea lights in the living room as prayers
• burning incense just before bed to fill my room with a spicy scent last night
• long johns
• leaving my shoes at work instead of carrying them back and forth
• wool socks
• emails with a few friends
• good news from my brother
• dinner with mom and dad and a few others the other night

These are some things that are not working this week:

• taking the train home several days in a row instead of the bus
• having something scheduled every night, and well into next week
• the wait and see stress level at my office right now
• eating on a scattered schedule and a rather unbalanced diet
• being the fallout person for every problem someone has with an office machine, or every question they just don't quite know how to answer

The big thing that stands out to me from these two lists is the "taking the train home" one. I've missed climbing on the bus, and settling in for the next hour and a half to read, think, listen to my ipod, or just stare out the window. That space has become "sabbath" space for me, and on the weeks when my schedule doesn't permit me to make my commute home longer, I feel the pressure. I've compensated with taking hot baths, but it doesn't help as much - it doesn't separate my workday from my evening the way the bus ride does.

So, next week, I'm going to try and take the bus a little more often!