Half-way through, how's it going?

I thought I would take a moment to assess 2019, seeing that we have reached the half-way point.

Family-wise, things are as busy as ever. We have been using most weekends and many evenings during the week to clean out my husband's family home to get it ready to sell. For me, this has been a labor of love, a way to try to honor and respect the life his parents had together. We could have gotten a dumpster and had the job done in a few weeks at most, and, in fact, some people thought that was the way to go. We felt, though, that because we didn't want the items (who needs yet another set of dishes, anyone?), it didn't make them trash. To be good stewards of the earth, reducing the amount of stuff going into landfills, and also to benefit other people who would be able to use the items, we opted to separate everything; keep, donate, trash. Truck-loads of items have gone toward each of those categories, and we unearthed some treasures, like my mother-in-law's wedding gown that had been hiding in a plastic grocery bag at the bottom of a closet. Hopefully, we have done a good job of the house clearing, but it has taken its toll on our energies, our time, and our emotions. We are nearing the end of this portion - the house was put on the market, we received several offers, and we are moving forward with one. Other than the house, we've donated hours to the gremlins, devoted Sundays after church to visiting my mother-in-law and her sister, had several lovely holidays/gatherings with family, and done lots of regular family type of stuff. Oh yes, and we took a much needed vacation for a week, too!
Work-wise, things are okay. I work per-diem for several companies, but it seems that when one is slow, they are all slow - and when one is busy, they all pick up. We've learned to go with the flow, more or less. The flexibility of per-diem allows me to say no if I need to take my mother-in-law to an appointment or be there for other family, and the pay is nice. The downside, not knowing whether I will have work or not, or where, takes more getting used to but we're getting there.
Writing-wise, I'm trying very hard to carve out more time. The first two categories often take precedence because of the sticky little issue of urgency vs. importance. According to President Eisenhower, important items are things that contribute to your long-term goals or mission, while urgent items are things that have to be dealt with immediately. The issue is that important items frequently get trumped by urgent items - in my case, writing gets knocked aside because a gremlin is home sick and her mom needs to sleep so she can work overnight, or my husband comes up with an errand that needs doing. Or, let me be honest, I peek at Facebook for a couple of minutes and suddenly half of the afternoon I had blocked off to use for writing is gone and I haven't started dinner! I'm challenging myself to use writing sprints in the Pomodoro method (work for 25 minutes, take a 5 minute break) and timers to stay on track.

How about you - how is your 2019 shaping up? Are you where you hoped you would be? What can you do that will help you stay on track for the next six months?

Looking ahead, we picked our daughter up from the airport this month for some much anticipated face-to-face time during the summer, and we are planning a few weekend getaways to slow down and smell the pine trees. I'm covering several vacations over the next few months, so those work days are already scheduled. Also, on days I'm not working, I plan to drive to a little office space I'm keeping under wraps to better manage the boundaries around my writing time. I've got a writing conference scheduled in November (20Booksto50K) that I'm really looking forward to...and a book to get out! With that in mind, I'm off to write!