What a busy week....definately a bit of something for everyone. A full day of meetings with a client on Wednesday. A full afternoon of having an open door for helping others yesterday. At one point I was babysitting a friend's newborn so that she could nap downstairs, had a homeless man showering upstairs -- he's a member of our church heading down the Kenai for a job next week who needs access to a shower while he sleeps at the church building, and was helping out Brooke with Ellianna while she took her son to the doctor for a medical emergency -- oh and did I mention, my client called to catch up on work plans during the midst of all this? Today, the kids and I spent the morning volunteering at Christopher's school and then working at the Soup Kitchen together. Tomorrow morning, I work a Pancake Feed fundraiser at Cate's school. Whew! I think Moose's Tooth or Chili's is in my future for tomorrow night...all I know is that I am not cooking!

All the busy-ness has me thinking about time and my use of it. I'm terribly fortunate to have choices with how I spend my time -- very few people have such a liberty. I want to use it wisely and try to balance helping others, my work, getting some exercise (I guess that's where I spend my "me" time these days) and caring for kids & a household. But I sometimes wish for an hour on the couch with a good book -- a different side of "me time" I suppose.

I like my work (most of the time) and love having the opportunity to think outside of my own self and help others. In general, I'm happiest when I'm thinking outside myself about how I can help somebody else. I'm praying these days for some guidance, though, in knowing when to say "yes" and when to say "no." It's finding that balance...



And exciting news, we finally have a plan for our trip to Japan! I was going with the flow with having few concrete plans for the trip, but we just got news from Yuji that he has things pretty well planned out. We know where we're sleeping every night! Yeah! It's becoming more real. We're reading books about Japanese culture, art, history, and sights with the kids. Christopher is all about learning about the Samurai and ninja and Cate's a little more interested in the tea ceremony and kimonos.