Clarity, competence, and concentration
Good morning. It’s me. We’ve been sorta up, but sorta sleepy by the computer too. It’s been going on for a couple of hours. Ahh there we go … we took our medicine. Good thing too, cuz its already just after 8 am. Kinda waited too long and that adds to our strangeness.We had a very nice dream last night … it didn’t start out that way, but turned it. Over the years we’ve been dreaming of our big house, except it has taken on a shape of its own …There are rooms I remember explicitly, but in reality there were never really those rooms. The dream recurs though so I’ve taken ownership. Last night’s dream was about needing to sell the house. That thought reoccurs too, because in reality we had to sell our big Victorian and there are parts of us that may never handle that change. Last night’s dream included showing two ladies the house … one was a realtor and the other her client. At first they were only noticing the problem parts of the house and they were talking about what they would need to do each room. But, as we moved from room to room the rooms multiplied and became more beautiful. There were tenants in each section of the house, but after a while it appeared some big money was going into the house to fix her up. There was also the memories that my ex was involved in the house and some remnants of his work. One of his painting customers came by and we told her we’d make sure he got a contract that she’d handed over to us after we signed for it. I told her we would be seeing our boys soon and they would give it to their father. In my older dreams of the house the upper floors circled a very wonderful circular staircase with deep brown railings and wide stairs. There was originally a very big foyer you could see from the center and there were rooms around the exterior of the stairs. Many fireplaces and tin ceilings and parquet floors and layers of different heights. At one point we’d wandered into a room where it became clear there was a big crane working on an upper exterior balcony and at another location they were doing a television program. The last room we wanted to show the ladies although by this time the client was sure she couldn’t afford the home (so my sense of personal worth was irreplaceably “proven”) was the basketball court through a mysterious exchange of doors. Always on this house in the dream there is a basketball court. This time there were two mid-size orchestra’s playing while being televised. Maybe that feeling of being produced has something to do with our thoughts going out “in public” via the blogs. It’s a far stretch, but what comes to mind now. During parts of the dream there were children about some with family members some not. And, toward the end was in trying to find the car, which seemed farther away now that the house property had become so big and comely. I don’t remember though the final end. That’s about it.
I think what I liked most of the dream was the sense of pride I was getting from being affiliated to something that was so nice. I was also increasingly more happy that although we couldn’t own or live in the house again that so many were taking very good care of it. That part pleased us to no end.
Ok, that’s as far as we’re going to go with this one for now. I don’t want to break the charm and grace we are feeling in our slight connection to it. It’s like lace.
So other than that … How are you?? Good? Good?? We never get into your dreams and problems and in that manner we sometimes feel guilt, but not much, because we figure you too have opportunities to spread your thoughts, concerns, and worries in a place as equally elaborated in your own blog. Just think you can do this too. Just gotta start!
I’m not sure how much I want to write of the week, although it is a beautiful Saturday morning with just myself to worry about. Our friend said that he will be coming over, but it won’t be until about 6 pm tonight. So there are quite a few hours to fill up between here and then. I think there were some definite good things that happened … I guess the basics are that we focused the early part of the week on finishing up some data gathering and analyzing for the Performance Analysis report. We made progress. We didn’t make sister’s deadline, and she sent in the first part of the report without the data, but that’s on her not me. Neither of us seemed too worried, because we knew the numbers would back up the report and that first preliminary effort was completed. That gave us a couple of days to get other things done as well as worry about the reports validity. We took up a great amount of our Dr. Marvin time going over how the numbers worked together and if it did or did not make valid stands. I loved the feeling of working with Dr. Marvin and he paid a compliment in that he said that it was a hard thing to think through and not everyone thinks like this. I questioned even his interns probably do some pretty good thinking, but he said … you would be surprised. Hehehe we left it at that. There was back and forth banter in that we’d tease him when he made comments that weren’t hitting our mark. We asked him at times whether he was going to make us do ALL the hard thinking!?? We get soooo silly. *Silly grin*
Back at work, we laid off the report long enough to get some desk straightening things going on. We had the staff meeting as scheduled on Thursday, and we had the first aid CPR meeting with the staff on Friday afternoon. A good part of the rest of the time was spent going through the client files. It is something that gets done at the beginning of the year and just prior to state inspections. You want to make sure that there is nothing in the file that doesn’t belong there. In most instances it means culling out the 2005 data and anything that might have still been in there for before. We only keep one year of data out. That’s a pretty easy task though time consuming and the stack of papers at the end is about 3/4 a foot. It is a wonderful feeling when you lift the files and they are that much lighter. Toward the end of the year, you are really pushing to get extra papers filed.
I know this is a job I could have given to the new Q (her status has changed from Intern to full Q!!!), BUT there are some things I want to have done just right and I really want a sense of feel for the files. I use the time to look for any small problems there may be, such as missing documents, things not signed, or something we may have missed acting upon. There is a big sense of completion when it is done, and you say to yourself … the files are in pretty good shape. We still have some things to collect – usually doctor or dentist forms, but that is under the control right now of the new Q. We left her a reminder to make it a priority on Monday when we are not there, so we’re hoping in that privacy she feels more comfortable in calling the parents for those missing forms. If she doesn’t get any results this time (there’s about 6 families who are not complying … then we’ll ask Sister if we can do anything different to get their attention. In most cases, there is nothing stopping the families from “cooperating”. We’ve sent out by now over the last quarter – 2 letters to them and after the new Q calls there will have been 2 calls that went out to them too. It’s about time they take responsibility for their part. State requires compliancy and we’re just doing our part to make sure it happens.
We had some extra time last night because our Sweetie Pie was doing basketball games to get a little more straightening up done. I can tell when we are off-course, because we get a stack of paperwork on the top of our folders that has not yet made it to its proper place. There was about an inch and a half of that, so we stayed two hours after putting it all away. We got everything taken care of, but had to leave a small stack of things to be filed in the CARF files. We’ll take care of that on Monday.
The other thing that we did was to clear the client folders we established during the annual process. That is about a half inch of papers to sort through and you want to make sure everything is complete. Early in the week we had the new Q go through things to make sure who needed what to complete the annual process. She then typed up the list and we split the work. I knew if a I could complete what we did of CARF that all our attention would have to be focused on helping get that part done … HOPEFULLY, before the end of December. The last week of December we all have off for break, so it is important that over the next two weeks we get things done. The state can come at any time, but we’re hoping and praying they’ll be too busy to get here before Christmas.
There is a lot of work to be done for two weeks. There are still about 3 reports to be made from 2005 that I will do. The intern is finishing the last 3 or so long goals left to be worked though. That takes some time to figure out and she’s doing a great job with it. We took care of all the extra papers like we said, but the majority of the next part is getting done with the 06 annual reports. I think we have almost a dozen to do. We really lost track of all that in the process. The other part that she needed to concentrate on was spending time getting the Qnotes done. She’s almost done with getting the numbers arranged. She had saved up so there was two months to get done and she’s feeling the pressure from that now. I’d say she has about 4-5 days to do that part alone. Hopefully by then we’ll have gotten a good start on getting through the hard parts of the 06 annual report and between the two of us we can scramble the second week to finish up those reports. It sure would make the Christmas break feel easier on our nerves.
Then for us its back to CARF. We’ve still got a good amount of 4 months to put into it before we’re half way comfortable. One of the other things we advanced this week was to make sure that staff training was going along as it should be. We have two new staff and a third coming up that has to be finished. A couple of weeks ago we finished the work of getting new schedules in place, but we also had to finish up the 40 hours of meetings and 80 hours on-the-job training. We completed most of the paperwork for that, but still have things to tidy up. We took care of getting the new Q ready for a 9 week series of courses across town that should start in January or February. I think she is going to like them. They are only for four hours each week, so it will be questionable whether she comes back to the center or just takes the rest of the day off … I know there is some homework, so maybe we can manage to do without her so she gets good time to reinforce herself on the material. I would like to see her during the remainder of the day going over the materials from the training session. I want her to feel very confident in her role.
There will be some other time needing to be filled up too since there aren’t any more annual meetings until July. I think sister has in mind that she learn to work more with the clients in their room with their goals. I could really see here becoming very strong in goal maintenance. We still have our own issue in that we want her to take over our whole client load so that I have more time to develop programs, train staff, and do CARF … the right way. I really do want to lead a premier program. Maybe we could go over things during the Christmas holiday and come up with an outline that we can impress Sister with in that it would take our full time and attention. We are very solidly aware that the new Q is capable of taking over the caseload. Just have to make our case solid.
We got the go-ahead yesterday to make a preliminary purchase of a new program for sexual or boundary issues. It is called circles and is going to cost sister about $1,200. I will work that into our plans as to programming for the clients. I would like to take on some of the teaching myself with the staff present, but I’m really not sure what it is all going to involve. I will need to study programming more thoroughly. I’d like not to put too much into it until after CARF is done AND I would like to do what is necessary to get back into school.
I also have that $1,500 to worry over. I would like to give it I think at this time over to our friend. I don’t think I can be responsible for it. I would like him to save it toward car down the line. It be nice to pay off more dentist now with it, but then I don’t have emergency money. If I spend it toward just what I want then it won’t be there for the other. We’re making payments on money we owe the school too and in an emergency we would need that money. I also have to concern myself about writing the final report due for the last course if they will take it. And, I have to hope that they give me more money for a school loan … Because I may have messed up with our grade point average if I can’t count on that class as having passed. We’ll have to see.
The bottom line though is that I’m not ready for school. I am still having problems keeping up with everything that I need to do. Getting this client annual thing over is going to help, as well as getting CARF done. But, there has to be more consistency with fitness, weight, and household along with work. We’re still having inconsistent periods like this last week on diet and exercise where nothing is happening. Pretty close to that as well with Flylady. Something that we took not of yesterday was an old program we’d worked on on-line several years ago called “My goals.com” I might pull that up in just a moment, because I didn’t have time to work through it yesterday while at work. It seems to be more elaborate now than it had been, but in general it was a lot of information and assistance in establishing goals and following through. That might seem to work with our thoughts on self-regulation. I still need to spend time with that … and I have to remember a commitment we’ve made toward collecting on-line our Gramma’s story. There’s a lot of things to be doing.
It seems like writing in this blog though is top of the line concerns. If I’m not communicating here, something is ajar. Somehow we need to take down the time, but in reality I write as much as I see a need to write … I wish I could be more consistent at it too. I don’t know where exactly my concerns lie with the other multiples as well. Seems like community service to be thinking along that line. We’ve been reading a group this last couple of weeks and they seem far away from where we are right now. I don’t know if I won’t have to join some other groups, or whether I should just spend more time working through self-regulation and routines in my own group. Not too much attention has been spent here this last week. Always we start something and then something else comes up that needs our attention. Maybe just a switch in parts interests. Maybe if we go through the goal program we can list out some of these needs formally so everyone’s needs are going to be considered and met. Good thing to gain cooperation of our whole system.
Ok, let’s go over there for a few minutes.
Wooo HOOO … small break. I have so far created a front page … that’s now going to be my home page … I can link to my blog, groups, news from there with priorty going to goals. I have completed an initial handful of mission statements in various areas. And, when asked specific questions, we’ve written about 50 specific goals pertaining again to various aspects of our life. It was a good projective list of our ideals … even though some we’re very far reaching. I’m not so sure we can obtain the goal of a secondary home in Norway, but … shoot that’s what goals are all about. Hehehehe. I LOVE OSLO!!!
Ok, now we’re going to need moving on to our goal plans. We haven’t tried that out yet so don’t know how difficult it will be. The last part went pretty smoothly though. Let’s check that out. The time is now quarter to 11. Hmm, we need to read something first on requirements for successful goal setting and achievement. They say to “be SMART,” which is along the lines of specific, measurable, action-oriented, realistic, and tangible. Ok ok … let’s roll up the sleeves and get started.
This is what they say in those directions. We are going to print it out here … but don’t plagiarize! This next section all belongs to MyGoalManager.com. Hopefully by printing it here, we’ll have look-up ability into what this is all about. Two screens are more helpful than one.
Requirements for Successful Goal Setting and Achievement
by MyGoalManager.com
Goal Setting is an extremely powerful technique for accomplishment, but for Goal Setting to really be effective requires more than just writing a list of dreams and filing it away. This article will present important steps that will help to define and achieve goals with more success.
Benefits of Goal Setting
Goal setting helps us determine our priorities, get organized, make big decisions, and realize our dreams. The act of merely setting a goal brings about positive change for many people. When you set a goal you are creating an exciting challenge for yourself. Almost all motivational experts incorporate goal setting as an important part of their programs. The effectiveness of Goal Setting can be seen in the incredible accomplishments of people such as: Henry Ford who wanted to make cars affordable for everyone, Bill Gates whose goal was to have a computer in every household, and John F. Kennedy who set out to put a man on the moon within a decade. There is a famous story about Jim Carrey who, while struggling as an actor in 1987, drove his car up on Mulholland Drive in the Hollywood hills to think about the future. While sitting there overlooking the city of Los Angeles he wrote a check made out to himself for "acting services rendered" in the amount of $10 million. He dated the check for Thanksgiving of 1995. Jim's Goal turned out to be conservative because by the time 1995 rolled around he was making $20 million a movie.
The objective of MyGoalManager.com is to direct the user through the entire Goal process from definition to achievement. This Goal Achievement process entails the following requirements:
1. Well formed Goal Statements
2. Breaking goals down into manageable Steps
3. Motivation and Commitment
4. Reminders and Keeping on track
5. Frequent Review and Re-assessment
1. Well formed Goal Statements
The Goal Statement forms the basis for the entire process so careful attention should be placed on formulating a clear and accurate goal statement. A good way to remember how a goal statement should be defined is the old S.M.A.R.T. acronym used by many experts in goal setting. SMART stands for:
Specific
Measurable
Action-Oriented
Realistic
Tangible
The Goal should be specific enough so that we know exactly what we are striving for, measurable so we know exactly what is to be accomplished and when it has been reached, action-oriented declaring positive activity that will produce results, realistic in that it is practical and can be achieved given the limited availability of resources, and tangible meaning concrete and not vague. The goal statement “Increase sales 25% by the end of the fiscal year without increasing advertising spending” is an example that follows these rules.
2. Breaking down Goals into manageable Steps
Once we have a well-formed Goal Statement we need some direction to follow to achieve this Goal. While the goal “Increase sales 25% by the end of the fiscal year without increasing advertising spending” is a great goal statement, this is a monumental task without being broken down into smaller detailed steps. The creation of Goal Steps gives us an "Action Plan" that when completed will lead to Goal Achievement. Steps also allow for tracking of progress towards the goal. Goal Steps should be positive and not used to list obstacles that must be overcome which focuses on the negative. Negativity can kill motivation but there is power in positive thinking.
3. Motivation and Commitment
Motivation and commitment are what make us strive to achievement. They give us the push, desire, and resolve to complete all of the other steps in the Goal process. This motivation can be obtained by developing a personal statement that creates a high level of emotion and energy that guarantees achievement. One self help expert said that as a child he was kicked out of his local country club pool because he was not a member, in response he later made a goal that he would one day have a pool that is one foot bigger than that country club's pool. The motivation of being asked to leave the pool provided the necessary fuel for him to achieve this goal. Commitment creates more accountability and is what sets us on direct course to reach our goals. It may create costly negative consequences upon failure to attain a goal. Making a commitment might be something like having invested your savings in your new business which you will lose if it fails. Motivation and commitment are specific to your situation and life and only you can form statements that will ensure you reach your goal the quickest. The more personal you make your motivation and commitment statements for each goal, the more motivated you will be to accomplish your goal.
4. Reminders and Keeping on Track
Reaching our goals requires persistence and regular attention. We need some sort of system to keep us reminded and accountable. MyGoalManager.com uses a combination reminder emails, calendars, and reports to keep users organized and on track. Sharing goals with others who can give you help and support is a highly effective way to increase your chances for success. If some accountability system is not used then we are likely to lose sight and fail.
5. Frequent Review and Re-assessment
When we first sit down and start to define goals it can seem like a difficult and daunting task but over time it begins to get much easier. Patience is required. Goal Setting is definitely an ongoing process that is accomplished over time. Any goals program that defines goals and then ignores them will fail. All goals due in the next year should be reviewed at least once a week and daily if possible. The great thing about frequent review is that this forces us to make big decisions and determine priorities in our life. We should keep watch for goals that are not being achieved on time or for goals on which we keep extending the deadline.
MyGoalManager.com's Online Goal Achievement System will quickly and easily direct you through the Goal Setting Processes described in this article. Click here to get started on your goals now!
MyGoalManager.com is an easy to use Online Goal Setting and Achievement System that directs you step-by-step through prioritized goal definition, plan of action formulation, motivation, reminders, and guidance reviews. MyGoalManager.com is owned and operated by Gruve International (http://www.gruveintl.com).
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Oh Lordy … one of our goal steps was to look at our bank account. We looked and it appears we have $27.83 in our account. Great start you! Better figure this out … I had gone into it thinking we could open a savings account. I’m thinking that the estate money is there. Maybe we’ll just put $1,200 of money into a savings account and $300-400 in our regular account. I think I want the savings account that takes out a certain amount of money each month. We don’t have this in control yet. So maybe we should start at $50. AND STOP EATING OUT!!!
Shoot check hasn’t come in yet. Better now wait until Monday.
clarity, competence, and concentration says our Goal Manager
I would like to be in control of my life.
posted by Ann Marie @ 12/10/2006 03:50:00 AM
Comments: 1
