***Non official reflections on 2017 ***

I started 2017 with a long list of goals, precise and dry, resembling a shopping list more than a beautifully worded list of resolutions.

The Universe though always has its way to stir up things without warning, and so it did this time. After some brief eye blinking and face palming, I realized that the two major goals I had for 2017 that involved cooperation/help from other people would need to be pushed back. Until the time I figure out a way to do this on my own, or get help from my Fairy Godmother (the former is more likely). But yep, losing to myself, falling behind on what matters to me now - still sucks and is hard to accept 😃

As to what depended on me to the most part - I've spent a great first year at a new workplace, survived a full-time tax season with topping off my billable hours at night and daily 2 hour commute. Maintaining a schedule of constant pick ups and drop offs (kids - to and from daycare, myself - to and from work 😃, groceries, library books, kids' toothpaste) was easy but left little room for errors/delays. Besides, being grounded in the triangle of home-work-daycare for months is irritating.

At the same time, I did not give up on level of life for our family (priorities....), so no man of our family (regardless of age) has to dig into the laundry basket for a "relatively fresh" shirt when he runs out of shirts, the walls of our house are not covered in mold and our fridge does not echo. I call it success.

I do know now that in the remaining time I can listen to complete works of Shakespeare, although I did have a good start here. In addition to Faust, and going through audio courses of Slovenian and some Latin. Yep, that has a lot to do with my commute time.
I now know that my brain absolutely refuses to follow by ear and memorize Latin declensions and conjugations.

I do know that I can get back to good physical shape within a few months (it only requires to prioritize work outs to sleep during, say, tax season).

I pulled my bottom to Taekwondo, and it loves it I love it. I could not come to classes as often as I wanted to, hence - I did not get the belt I was aiming for, but plan to fix it next year.
I've never been involved into a physical activity that required - actually - learning control over my body (as in professional sports or dancing), so this is completely new experience to me. And the circumstances where I can't get by with just good memory and quick thinking, but have to MOVE and DO stuff. I'm intrigued.

I somehow managed to illustrate the short story for my Chinchillas I wrote last year, and on some drawings you can even tell a moose from a raven. At least by colour.

I'm genuinely happy with all the things that happened this year. Some of them were due to be completed or started a while ago, others were unpleasant, unexpected and probably unnecessary - but pointed at my personal security breaches as well as weaknesses.

For 2018 I'm planning to boil down all my moves, thoughts and ideas to 3 areas only. And while I'll be working on bringing them to life, Dear Universe, please be on my side!

Suddenly.

I know what I will be doing next summer.
And what I'll do to get there.
And a specific way to arrange my life around it, and what to ask in the first place, and how to play the potential benefits.


Seems that any time it looks like there can be no less time or energy whatsoever to fit in anything else in my day - the Universe casually gives me a hint on how to put together all pieces of puzzle.
Thanks, Universe. I'm on it. B-)

I think it is safe to say this little stubborn bunny has accomplished goal #4 for 2017

And has come back to running! Apart from stubbornness it took of course:

•  change of speed to 5.7 mi/hr,
• wearing compression socks 3 days a week (under suit trousers),
• taking my time stretching before and after running,
• including more of various stretches in the "before and after" routine,
• changing trainers.

Next stop from here - booking the 10K Harmonie Geneve pour UNICEF for 2018!

Only late in the evening did I start to realize the whole meaning of the news.

No more exams. No more tedious studies for the exams. No studies through Tax season! No stress of missing the deadline for credit expiration. No more of living hell of being stuck in uncertainty.

Freedom. Empowerment. Ability to move on in life. Ability to chose what to next.

I've counted 900 more work hours I need at the firm; the interesting thing here being - my old hours from 3 years ago expiring for licensing purposes and I am gaining new ones. In any case, I estimate 6 months as the latest I will need to wait before the official application process.

I already went to my goal page to cross off the goal on passing the last exam this year, but then I realized the goal actually read "to have the license in hand". Well then, just a little more time...

By the way, when I was going through my books - to give them to a next potential candidate - I found a sheet of paper folded and stuck between pages. In FAR book.

5 days till the New Year

I do well getting through sleep deprivation (for the past 12 years), and only hope I do memorize the parts of the Audit course that I believe I memorize well with all the time I keep putting in.
My car is perfectly clean, but I still back out of the madness of the parking lots cautiously, praying I do not hit anything or anyone.

I juggle  so many things at home that I keep my toes crossed that while I am finishing up something urgent at one part of the house, the mess the Chinchillas Bros create at another part of the house will not be dangerous to them.
I have a signed contract in hand and a start date - and being back on the track brings me more relief than anything else in the world now.

I have mastered all 3 blocks and get a much better feeling of my body during the movements. I fool around and while only my partner can hear me instead of "Kiap" yell "Namaste!". "Yes, right, - grins my partner, - the vengeance in me...."

I have wrapped up 3 pile of gifts for 3 toddlers and shipped back the laptop whose CD-rom sounded like the entire thing was going to take off into the air and fly out of the window every time I was going to install QuickBooks. And I do need a functioning laptop with Quick Books, Office, Tax and Engagement for next year.

I have written 4 articles on productivity and time management in the past 6 months. I have challenged my own productivity and time management skills as I know them and - only the coming year will show what other tricks I have up my sleeve.

I have a couple of travel projects existing as dry plans. "Just add water" - that is, just add some money for the actual booking and time for the travel and follow the directions for locations, transportation and itinerary.

I have patiently introduced Arthur to swimming and he is doing great, which means I can't pull him out now, but also need to find a way to bring Adrian  to classes.

Von Zobel has booked a spring-summer trip to Europe, and the anticipation has already started for both of us. Just need to decide on a destinations for a few short trips within our vacation.

I think about all the things I want in New Year, all the new goals I need to set for myself now - and nothing comes to mind, apart from balancing all the things I am rushing into 2017 with and not letting a single thing drop out of my hands. I feel like I am already running at full speed and might need several months to get adjusted to new life style where I finally have what I wanted before I want... start to want anything else.

But then I still pencil down a couple of things  - just so I don't forget. And then two more - in case an opportunity emerges. And before I know it I have 10 specific things I want to do next year. And in the next 5 days, I'm sure I will come up with even more ideas.

29

To tell the truth, every year the mere thought of how quickly time flies by becomes more and more scary to me. I have a feeling I don't have time to do anything - anything at all - substantial! Just as I accomplish something - I mentally move is from the category of "Oh, if only!.." to "Well, that wasn't too bad. Can't believe I  wasted so much time on this!" and continue to gnaw myself on the idea of not accomplishing enough. Again.

 Nevertheless... Since this time a year ago I improved my life by:

1. Having Chinchilla Jr! That's by far the most significant event of the past year. My little-little one is such a darling, smart, kind, curious boy, and we all couldn't love him more and be more grateful for such a wonderful new member of our family!
   The 12 hours (or so) it took to deliver Dr.Chill Jr was a whole different story and an experience worth living through to later make it fall under Ce qui ne nous tue pas nous rend plus fort(c). Making a birth plan is indeed a waste of time (that's why I never had any this time), whenever I go to the hospital "for a quick check" might mean I will return home in 2 days and with a baby(happened both times), and... I am a very lucky person indeed! (a statement proved by my life over and over again).
2. Completing all necessary education requirements for the licensing and passing FAR.
3. Building up experience on tax and valuation prep. Helps a lot in defining my direction further on...
4. Maintaining good relationship with Chinchilla Sr. and Von Zobel. One of my goals for 2015 was to organize monthly date nights out with Von Zobel. To my great surprise, we were able to make this happen (God bless younger sisters!), even around the birth day of Chinchilla Jr. - a few days before, and end of the following month.
5. Having read 30 new books. Not quite 50, as initially planned, but - still acceptable, given how little time I had for leisure reading and little-side-project reading. Oh, and yes, - most of those books were actually audiobooks I listen to in my car while driving.
6. Following through the Grand-Maintenance project of the roof, window screens, some window replacement, stucco replacement, garage and entrance door repainting, as well as Grand-Remodeling of the master bathroom and floor replacement in the Jack-and-Jill and Liz's bathrooms. The latter cannot even be counted as one of my big projects as I had to coordinate it about 3 hours after delivering Dr Chill Jr  and miss the first couple of days of work as I was still in the hospital. Bottom line - done with house remodeling and refurbishing projects for now. For a while.
7. Getting back into shape after having 2nd child, and on the whole - have a healthy and fit 2nd pregnancy. Took hell lot of time, energy, money and effort on my part, but was well worth it.
8. Having completed my first online course in Universite de Geneve. Studying right at this  university gave my some... unexplainable feeling :)
9. Meeting a few great new people. Some of them are cool to hang around with, others must have entered my life to give me a magic kick to move forward faster :) I guess keeping all old connections and not losing any friends could also go under this line item.
10. Beginning of Life Coach studies - as coming from another goals of 2015. Definitely was not a priority for the year, however a start was put.

2/3 of summer 2015 is gone.

If I had to describe what the past 2 months looked like for the most part, I'd say, something like this:

Despite completing a Master level course with a solid A, enjoying the course, and staying alive and sane in the progress, this was an experience I could not have recommended to any new mom!

The Ethics class starts August 18th. Then I will be done with the education part for good.
Sooner than this, on August 10th, starts my online class in International Organizations. Can't believe it all worked out well and I actually got access to it!

The first draft of the Business Plan calculations is done. There is much more to it than I expected, so it will require a couple of updates.

Early July Von Zobel and I managed to get out for next-to-last Kurious performance in Denver. First and foremost, God bless sisters as good as mine! Second, it's amazing how once you put a goal to go out/ have a date every month, you actually come up with opportunities and ideas to do so, and are less afraid of leaving your kids for several hours (less afraid for the person babysitting that is! :) ).

The reading goal is 50% complete - 25 books read, and 25 more to go. So many more interesting books on my list, and I have absolutely no idea if going through them at the same speed I'm going now will help me cover them all before year end.

Did some home improvement, changing the carpet in boys' and guest bathrooms to tile. No more carpet drowning, Dr. Chill Sr! The funniest thing was - the tile installation started right when I was in the hospital with Dr. Chill Jr. Having disappeared for a couple of weeks after receiving the payment from me, the company called me a few hours right after giving birth saying the team can be at our place to start working on the floor the next day, and that it is important I agree on this as they are not sure when the next availability would come up. Drugged and exhausted as I was, I was still able to understand what they meant and coordinate the installation with Liz and Nanny, instead of using my right of a woman who just gave birth to lose it and yell at them to pull their shit together, which once again proves I'm a Wonder Woman. 

Traveling still does not look realistic until end of this year, International travel for sure.

How I can most effectively combine studying and taking an exam with the rest of the goal on my list, and still spending as much time with my family as possible still remains a mystery. But I'll sure find a way.

Adding to the agenda - finding a new good nanny; putting together a new Fall schedule.

In the uneasy battle of mind over purchasing tickets

to Infected Mushroom or Apocalyptica (same place, 2 days apart!) - Apocalyptica prevailed! You never know when they'll be here again; and during my first pregnancy I missed Rammstein's concert who then got retired   are not even touring US now. Life just got better :)

***And then Dr. Chill Jr. earned an extra generous scoop of grilled chicken on our salad, and I started to remember how mommy-to-be's belly occasionally draws nice random perks and life got even a little bit better.

Of other little steps up this March:

•  I got at least 1 good remote class option for this Fall; 
• read 4 new books; 
• had 3 date nights with Von Zobel. Helga's restaurant is definitely the discovery of the month, a place so great it made us feel nostalgic like hell about Bavaria and try to remember all the Apfelstrudel we ate in Vienna. 
• Registered as, basically, a volunteer for the practical part of my side projects. Found a handful of good education books. Added up the prices and decided to shuffle them into a wishlist for now. 
• Did a little improvement of our backyard's feng shui by chopping down all dry and dead grass, shrubs and bushes. Now, at the end of the month feel very happy I did that as the backyard looks green, not desert yellow and grey.
• As a side effect of the backyard cleaning, Dr. Chill learned to pick up pieces of debris and take them to the trash bags. On his own initiative, yep.And help vacuum and clean the garage. 
• Did a little improvement of our house's feng shui by getting rid of some old meaningless dust collectors, buying 2 new great blankets and washing the spare guest blankets (could be considered a whole separate project). Now I'm craving a green plant with white flowers in our bedroom :)
• Created a new schedule for the next few months and surprisingly, was able to keep pretty close to it for the first 3 days. 

If I had to set one time management goal to set for April though, - or one mind set to keep, or to ask Universe to align stars for - it would be to focus on only studies, work and family. Pregnancy workouts, as well as walk, learn and play time with Dr. Chill would fall under "family" here. I'd dare to even throw in enough sleep into "family", as it's definitely something the baby wants :) The bottom line though would be - to spend less time on running errands, doing work around the house, deal with any unexpected problems as they come up or any issues that consume amount of time disproportionate to the value of the result. Dear Universe, what do you say? You do your part, I do mine?

I had a feeling there would be something crazy about this week

when I found myself dancing at Bistro Al Vino around midnight on Saturday, shocking the clubbers around with the mere looks of my 3-rd trimester belly (at least I think this time it was the looks of belly at the dancefloor that widened the eyes of those around).

In the next 4 days I managed to cover the Litigation section of REG (to those who find themselves having an urge to do the same - don't even attempt!); survive the last week of Dr. Chill's daycare; take a Friday exam and while running errands all day after that - to get a huge screw in my rear tyre and to actually discover I have one - by the hissing sound I heard while unloading my truck. Some things just need to happen 1.5 hours before you need to pick up your kid from the daycare, and on the day when you need to also get ALL his things out of there, so you DO need the car! Thank God, miracles do still happen to me :) and the car shop across the road from the daycare fixed the hole in less than an hour!

Next day I assembled Dr. Chill's new furniture in his new room. Never again! - the skin on the palms is rubbed and hurts like crazy. I was lucky to get help from Dr. Chill though - he does an amazing job putting the screws in the proper wholes, bringing and holding parts and pieces. And once he got a hold of the screwdriver - he immediately personalized his table by punching a dozen of holes in his brand new table top, before I could reach out and take away the screwdriver. What a sweet cutie, aaaargh...

Sunday, after brunch with friends - the annual pregnancy and baby-wear swap took place. Now there are a few minor things to get, and I'm ready for enhancement of my motherhood experience :)

Little project of the week  - Dr. Chill allowed to brush his teeth every single day of this week. Another little victory, given his gums are full of bumps, and the teeth are not showing yet!..

On a larger - scale - in the month of February -  the trip to the 2nd new place to visit this year has been booked.  The date of the month has been arranged, but not taken care of, for health reasons. Still counts though :) 

5 new books read in February. Plans for the on-going education modified slightly. Plans for the education for the side-project - are moving forward. 

I wonder now, how do you take an international trip with a 4-5 month old baby and a 2 year old toddler? Say, to even Canada? And how do you find time to study for 3 different areas all at once? And what comes first in my side project - education or experience? :)

On the account of year 2014:

 At times it was hard, stressful and nerve-wrecking, but yet to the most part - interesting, successful and enjoyable. I am endlessly grateful for:

- my family's and my health,

- for the great work and study opportunities that presented and those that I grabbed after careful consideration (if only it was possible to be cloned and try more! :) ),

- for trips to Utah, Slovenia, Italy and California we took as a family of 3. For a crazy trip to Vegas that we took together just like in the good old times;

- for my wise, kind and amazing husband who tolerated me all these times when I did something insane again, opened my big mouth when I should not have, and never suggested to get divorced when I talked about plans for our future,

- for most wonderful Dr. Chill, who is incredibly bright, handsome, wit and has been our home's Sunshine for a year and 4 months now. He's a whole Universe and a miracle of his own; I could just watch him doing something new, hear him sing or say "mamamamammaaa" or "papapapaaaa" for minutes. At the same time, when I'm with him,  I always hear a countdown in my head - he's getting older, and this is irreversible, so hurry to by his mommy NOW.

- my family who helped and supported me, with Dr. Chill and in trips. A part of the family was around most of the year and had to bear with me more, a part of the family could now cross the Atlantics to see their grandson, and a part of the family simply kept their health stable this year - and I do appreciate all of it;

- all those few dozens of books I've read, and all the movies I've seen, all the museums and exhibitions I've been to. The more I discover about this world the more I realize how tiny, insignificant and immaterial I am :) And that is one of the things that pushes me forward.
And yes, I did enjoy re-discovering books by Strugatskie this year, as well as The Outliers - the latter confirmed I have been moving in the right direction all along.

Not every line item out of 20 of my 2014 Real Plans was fulfilled, but most important - were completed. I've also decided to never state a goal in a form that would include a 3rd party in an active voice. That is, to set a goal about something that is out of my control( even looking at friends or family). My list of goals for 2015 thus looks more... achievable though not easier.
16 new items - completely new and not overlapping with 2014 list, except, perhaps, new books to be read :)

And when I look at it I have a dual feeling of, from one hand, headbanging upon the wall - because I have no idea how to fill in all of this stuff into 365 days and keeping my sanity and health, and realizing I do not have enough resources for all of it,  or - that it has to either be a 2nd child or trips outside of town.
But from the other hand - I feel  that all these 16 goals, if achieved, will create the right pivoting point in my life, especially since it seems that my old life is cracking and falling apart, starting on the material level and now spreading on to people. And if I know myself well enough...