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This year I’m struggling a bit with how to express my goals. It’s not that I don’t know what I want to accomplish, it’s how do I say it in a blog post? I’m feeling more focused, and yet ambitious, this year. I plan to hit a six figure income and that requires focus. But it is also ambitious, since I barely cracked at five figure income last year.

Anyway, I’ve finally decided not to go it alone and have hired a business coach. It was the best investment, and I’ve only been working with her for a couple of months. She’s really helped me narrow down the scope of what I want to accomplish, thus reducing some of the overwhelm I’ve experienced in the past few years.

Also, since it was time to get a new phone contract, I got a new music phone. I load it up with all the teleseminars I download from various sources and listen to them when I walk the dog. This, too, has greatly improved my business sense.

So, on with the goals. This time, I’m going to break it down into broad areas of my life. You might consider this, too. It really helps compartmentalize things and makes goals easier to digest. The 10 major areas of life are:
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Something I am learning about my annual goals process is that they are a lot more fluid than I thought. Life changes so much in a year that those things you set to accomplish for the year can cease to have meaning just a few months later and new goals take their place.

A case in point. For 2007, one of my goals was to update my wardrobe. Although I did buy a new pair of pants, not much was done toward this goal until this month. Since I moved back to Phoenix, I could, again, take advantage of the 50% off everything sale and buy some new cloths for cheap. Of course, this wouldn’t have been much of an issue if I hadn’t gotten laid off in April and injured in May, making my job search a bit difficult.
GOAL GRADE: C+

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Last night I caught up on some old The Simpsons episodes recorded by our Tivo. One of them was “Rosebud” where Mr. Burns longs for his childhood teddy bear, Bobo. It made me think of something that happened during our recent move out to Phoenix, Az.

The day the movers drove our stuff from California to Arizona it poured rain — the entire day for the entire drive. Unknown to the driver, the moving truck had a leak and a lot of our boxes got wet. We keep original boxes when we can, so our electronic and kitchen appliances were saved by the foam they were packed in. However, I kept a plastic bin with all my precious items in it
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This thought ran across my mind the other day as I was walking the dog. I currently live in a neighborhood with a high percentage of Mexicans and they love to have family parties with the music blaring and the bounce tent set up in the front yard for the kids.

This weekend was no exception. As Sprocket and I approached the party’s location, I could hear the familiar oom pa pa oom pa pa rhythm of the Mexican music. And it struck me, if it weren’t for the song being sung in Spanish, this music could easily be heard at a German pub!

Isn’t it amazing how two cultures so different in flavor and so geographically separated evolved music that is almost the same? I wonder what the history on that is. Is is something like cardamom, which is used in both Indian and Swedish cooking because they used to trade with each other?

I don’t know. If you do, please post a comment. I’d love to read about it!

I had the most amazing experience today.

I’ve been feeding the birds on my patio for a few weeks now. Today, one flew into the window, knocking the wind out of its sails. I found it lying on its back breathing heavily.

I went outside and picked it up. It just sat there in the palm of my hand looking at me, occasionally closing its eyes. I tried to get it to fly, but it just wasn’t ready for that.

So I called my mom for advice — she’s really good with birds. She told me to protect it and put it someplace warm. So I found a box, lined it with washrags and put the bird inside. I covered the box with a cloth and put it on the counter in the kitchen. I heated up a lulu (a back of beads for applying heat to sore backs) and set that next to the box to keep it warm.

I checked in on the bird every once in awhile. After about two hours, it looked like it was feeling better — it peeped at me when I looked in on it and spread its wings.

I picked up the box and took it to the sliding glass door. I took the cloth off the box and opened the door. Without encouragement, the bird flew out of the box, across the street and toward a tree in a neighbor’s back yard.

That bird was so precious. And weighed next to nothing. And it would look at me as I held in with the same expression my dog does when I lay her on her back to groom her belly. It didn’t seem frightened. In fact, it almost looked like it was just going to trust me.

Mom said it probably just like the heat from hand. But I still like to think that, at least for a moment, I had a connection with a wild bird.