Several months ago I started writing an article for Kristen's Guide. The article was about the importance of prioritizing your values, doing the most important things first, and living life the way you truly want to live it.

While writing the article, I realized that I had lots of priorities that had been neglected. Quite frankly, finishing the article and writing an update every week for Kristen's Guide wasn't on that list of "if I died tomorrow" priorities, so I set such tasks aside and focused on the big stuff.

I've been playing more with my kids.

I've been making time to exercise nearly every day.

I've been having more fun with my husband and laughing more. (We were starting to become a bit too serious, a bit too "gotta check this and that off the to-do list.")

I painted a pink and purple castle on the wall of my daughters' bedroom. (The room is covered by an every-growing mural, which, I must say, also acts as a record of the improvements I've made when it comes to painting artistically.)

I started transfering all of my old VHS home movies to DVD (the VHS are deteriorating) and have even been working on making a fancy-schmancy compilation, with all the boring bits edited out.

I started reading fiction and poetry again. I've been so focused on non-fiction during the last decade that I almost forgot how important fiction is.

I started writing fiction and poetry again.

I started spending more time working on Corla Kids, a website I'm putting together for my kids. (It has a long way to go, but all good things are built up a little at a time.)

I started standing up for myself, putting my foot down, saying "no," and being honest about how I feel. (The responses that the people I've said "no" to hasn't always been wonderful in this area, but I don't really care anymore, a very nice feeling indeed.)

I've been traveling. (Crater Lake is beautiful.)

I've started volunteering again and am continuing to support causes that are important to me.

And, of course, I've been spending time figuring out what else is really important to me.

So Kristen's Guide has been a bit neglected. But then again, I started Kristen's Guide because I wanted a handy guide to a better life (for me and for anyone else who happened to read it, but mostly for me). And it so far has worked. Kristen's Guide has improved my life so much that I don't have as much time for the website as I used to. Oh the irony.

Labels: Blogging and Websites, My Life