<h2>Meme Catch Up</h2>

I've been a bit behind on my memes. I've been tagged by Mihaela Lica of eWriting - Online Public Relations (I know, it's been a while, hasn't it, Mig?), and Laura Spencer of Writing Thoughts, only a week behind here, that's not too bad, is it?

Mihaela Lica's tag is about my goals, dreams, and ideals. This is relatively simple.

My goals are as follows:

(1) Publish two articles in a national magazine by January 2008.
(2) To become successful enough with my writing to be able stay home with my children until they are grown.
(3) Build up a steady clientèle for my freelance writing business.
(4) Write a novel.
(5) Submit more of my work to writing contests - you gotta play to win, you know!
(6) Find the perfect balance between writing and parenting.

Dreams and ideals are great. They motivate us to keep on doing what we do and they give us hope, but to be honest with you my professional dreams and ideals really fall in together with my goals. They mingle together as one. I really struggle to separate them.

As for my personal life, I am a simple person with simple wants and desires. I dream of having one more baby, and of growing old with my best friend - my husband. I want nothing more than to be able to watch my girls grow up and dance, and play sports, or do whatever they want with their lives. I want to be there cheering them on. I want to enjoy grandchildren and all the beautiful gifts God has given us in life.

Laura Spencer asked me about productivity and why I blog.

I left a comment in Laura's blog some time ago about why I blog. I'm just going to cheat a little bit and reproduce that comment. For me, my blog is an opportunity to share whatever I feel like sharing at a particular moment with a community of fellow bloggers. It is a place to help others, as well as find support and feedback from people who care and have opinions of their own.

My blog is a very intimate and creative expression of who I am. I want to share it with all my family and loved ones who care to know who I really am. I express myself on a much more candid level than I ever do in real life. My blog is about what I am most passionate about in life. For more on why I blog see my post Am I Talking to You?

Three Productivity Tips

(1) Get good at multitasking. Work on dinner and laundry at the same time. Clean your bathroom while your little ones bathe. Find little things that you can combine to save time and make more room for your writing.
(2) Put your laptop at the table when your older children are doing their homework. This way, you can both work on writing projects while being right there to help your children if they have questions.
(3) Pamper yourself. You deserve it! We are writers, mothers, wives, friends, daughters - we are many things to many people, and we work hard at all those roles. Don't get so bogged down in your writing goals that you aren't taking time to do the little things you enjoy in your life. It will truly make writing that much more enjoyable for you.