I didn’t feel like I was doing anything extravagant… How could she, a working-mother-of-two, wonder how I could fit everything into a single-working-from-home-free-as-a-bird life? I have no obligation to anyone but my clients, the administration (once in a while) and myself. I don’t have anyone depending on me, and someone else is making my meals… How can I NOT fit it all in?

Well, if you noticed, I took a 10-days hiatus from blogging. Why? Because Y. was right to be doubtful. It appears that I’m no wonder woman and that I have to stop putting everything at the same level. Obviously, after taking a short break to visit my parents, I short-circuited. Was I drowning myself into work and all that good stuff to avoid looking at the reality: I have no idea where my life is going? One can think so. I don’t know. All I know is that if I want to keep my sanity and keep everyone happy: clients, friends, family… I’m going to have to do some serious prioritization.

Enters “the bucket theory”. It’s a classic from time management training and it’s time for me to use it. That’s how it goes: how do you fit big rocks, stones, sand and water in a bucket? You only can if you start from the bigger items. Fill your bucket with water first and you won’t be able to add anything else to it!

Same thing goes with my days; putting my bucket together would look like:

1. The Rocks:
Weekdays: my clients. Whether they’re French or American; whether it’s about working on projects or working on administrative stuff to get the business going, or even attending networking events. This is my #1 priority.
Weekends: my friends and family. Time with others is always time well spent.

2. The Stones:
Me, myself and I: doing the things that I like and the things that I need. Feeding my creative side by taking time for reading, writing, going to the movies or seeing an exhibit; taking care of my body by not skipping the gym – 10K here I come!

3. The Sand:
The not-so-fun stuff that needs to get done: grocery shopping, cleaning the house, running errands, doing all this administrative craziness…

4. The Water:
The fillers. Everything else.

If I can stick to that plan, I should be in good shape, right?

How do you manage your time? What’s in your bucket?

When I decided to move back to France, I was confident that thanks to today’s technology, I would keep in touch with my American friends pretty much the same way that I did while I was there. After all, we have Facebook to keep in touch with each others’ lives, we have emails to give news on a regular basis, we even have iMessages to chat about in the moment adventures (granted the time zones are in our favor).

I joked once to a friend: “We’re so lucky, what did we do before telephone & internet?” What we did: we wrote.

When I celebrated my departure a couple of weeks ago, my (lovely) friends, came armed with gifts and cards… It was my duty to properly thank them, and the least I could do was to pen a few thank you cards. Because of how crazy things were before I left, those cards had to wait for me to settle-down here and find a little bit of time. But what I did not realize until I did that was:

• I did not even have a physical address for most of my friends. Since we started hanging out on the “Inter Web”, did we forget that people live in actually houses, somewhere? Addresses can be so poetic… I always wanted to live in Loveland, CO, just to be able to get mail there.
• I enjoyed the feeling of the ink on the paper. Granted it was a ball pen and a simple white card. But the silence of it was nicer than the clic-clic of my keyboard.
• Writing those few cards gave me a stronger feeling of accomplishment (when I dropped them in the mailbox) than sending all the emails in the world.

Exercise was conclusive. There will be more cards written in my future.

The image on the left being a figurative way to communicate that life doesn’t always allow us to go straight to where we’d like to head and we might have to park diagonally for a bit before taking the road again.

Read more - Ahem… Not a brilliant start here. I certainly loaded my iPad with many books that I’m seriously planning on reading. I just wish there would be a couple more hours in my days. And, I know, it’s not an excuse, I should be able to find the time. Maybe I should put an hour a week, in a coffee shop, on my agenda to make my way through Coco Chanel. Let’s give that a shot…

Write more - Hey, look at that, March and I’m still (pretty) regular on the blog… Woo Hoo…

Let go - Back in January, I had a feeling I would have to do plenty of it, and I was right. Right now, I’m working on letting go of old grudges. There’s no bigger power than forgiveness, and believe me, it’s a deeply interesting journey.

Keep on moving - Guess who ran 5K for the first time in February… Yep! Big achievement… That I haven’t had the courage to reproduce since that, of course… But it felt really good that time. And now I know I can, which is half of the battle. I still feel the need for more workout. Since I stopped teaching ballroom dancing I don’t feel as active as I used to and I miss it very much.

Keep on going - The to-go places list is growing everyday… but (beside quicks in & out in Houston, TX and Harrisburg, PA) travel plans are postponed until April…

Call a place home - This is probably the longest journey of all but also the one that takes the biggest part in my daily life. The first step on my road to a “home of mine” is to leave the one I’m in right now. The process is long and not always fun, there’s a lot of let go to do but the boxes are piling up, the movers are booked and the plane ticket is purchased. I will do the next update from my home country, maybe even my home city.

What was on your 2012 horizon? How do you make it so far?

My friend A. sends me one, every year. And every year, I’m happy to find the card in my mailbox. Because, it’s fun to receive mail that is not credit card offers, bills or announcement that yet another friend is getting engaged/married/pregnant. None of those years I sent her one.

This year, I was prepared, at least on my business level. Thanks to Groupon, I got a set of greeting cards with envelops and cute little labels for return address from Vistaprint for $15. That was a steal. And it allowed me to get everything at once to G. for her to send them while I was in Europe. But on the personal level, that’s another story.

As a writer, I should be on top of those things. I’m not. I will shamefully admit that I ended-up recycling last year’s generic Holiday cards and replacing “holidays” by “New Year” for a couple people that I felt deserved to receive something back. But most of my greetings I did via social networks, text messages, phone, emails… Not cards.

As I mentioned in my post The Art of Writing, it is possible that we forgot what pen and paper feel like. But, again, there’s nothing like receiving something hand-written in the mail, so why shouldn’t I give that type of pleasure to the people around me? Plus, I’m a sucker for cool designs and vintage papers. So why not get a little shopping fun out of it!

It’s only January 8th, I guess it’s still time to add another 2012 objective, a “2.b.”: write more cards!

1. Read more
In 2011 I read 3 books. For someone who graduated in Languages & Literature, it’s a very shameful thing to admit. The funny thing is, I took me about eight months to read the first one, and I read two in the last quarter. I even found the time to write something up about that second one, Anatomy of a disappearance. The fact is: I love words. After reading those last two books and starting a third one, I think I realized how much I missed reading. So yes, 2012 will be the year of the book reading… and who knows, maybe 2013 will be the year of the book writing.

2. Write more
Dear readers – I have a plan. I have made many many lists about that blog. You’re stuck with me for a while. Love, Audrey.

3. Let go
“Courage is the power to let go of the familiar.” – Raymond Lindquist. I have a feeling I’m going to do plenty of that in 2012.

4. Keep on moving
When I traveled to Europe last month I didn’t do anything. My neck started hurting. My hip started hurting again. I, miserably, tried to workout in my grandmother’s basement a couple times; it was not enough. I still felt like a huge slug. Not a good feeling. It might take more lists, but I’m telling you, I’m not making that mistake again.

5. Keep on going
Guess who’s going to start packing on frequent flyers miles again… Of course, I have a list. Several lists of countries/cities/places I want to visit. And this time, I’m not letting anyone or anything be in my way. I’m free at last and I plan on making the most out of it.

6. Call a place home
It might be last on my list, but it’s first in my heart. It is very unsettling to realize you are a SDF – Sans Domicile Fixe – a homeless. I have a roof over my head, but it’s not my roof. It’s K’s roof. I want a place of my own. I want a place to call home. It will be warm and cosy in the winter, and open and airy in the summer; and there will always be an open couch for my friends to surf on. It will be my landing zone, my headquarter, my retreat.

2012, you and I have some work to do. How about we get started?

As I mentioned in my post Sing Out Loud, K., my roommate, convinced me, a few months ago, to follow with her The Artist Way program. One of the exercise of that program consists of “long hand-writing” first thing in the morning. That’s when I realized hand-writing was painful. My wrist hurt, my fingers couldn’t hold the pen for too long. I first thought that I was having a stroke or something, but I soon realized that my hands were not accustomed to writing anymore. All they are trained to do now is typing.

After several mornings of diligently filling pages with my random thoughts, my writing became clearer, and I could go longer without lifting the pen and shaking my arm. I hope I don’t forget that. As much as I love computers and technology, they will never be as personal as a hand-written note. Putting words on paper feels very different than putting words on screen.

I gave up half-way through the Artist Way, but the same way I’m keeping up with the singing, it is essential that I also keep up with the hand-writing. Just not every morning. There are a few instances when hand-written messages are a must, and when those moments occur, I want to be able to have a nice clear scripture. So in the meantime, I’m practicing with my favorite pen pal: my grandma!

Do you remember the last time you hand-wrote a full page? If not, I encourage you to do so. And why not, I also encourage you to find yourself a pen-pal and develop a correspondence that will go beyond Facebook-messaging! You’ll thank me later.