Christmas

I love Christmas.

I love buying presents and wrapping them.

I love making fudge and eating wayy too much junk.

I love spending time with my friends and family.

This year, though, hasn't really felt much like Christmas.

I've spent waaaaay too much money on everyone, like normal. I have decorated my house and put all of the presents under the Christmas tree. But something is missing and I don't quite know what it is. It may be that there hasn't been snow on the ground for a month when there is usually 20 inches by now. It may be that I'm not sure when I'll get to Peoria to see my family, which also means I wont be attending Christmas Eve Mass at the Church I grew up in. It may be that I have only put my  Michael Buble Holiday Radio Pandora station on once. Or it may be that I haven't watched any Christmas movies yet and it's already Festivus. 

I don't know what it is, but I hope I figure it out in the next 12 hours or

I'm going to be like Cindy Lou Who singing "Where Are You Christmas?"

 

Below is a little video I made while decorating:

Schedules

Hello Internet!

I'm still on training at my new job and some of my coworkers and I were discussing our hours and who we were training with and stuff like that. I opened my folder to see that my schedule wasn't in there, and I had a mini heart attack. I didn't have it with me because it's currently sitting on my desk in my room next to me.  Luckily I have an electronic copy saved on my desktop, so I was able to look at my schedule.

That feeling of a mini-heart-attack over a schedule is new to me. 

I have never been one to be tied to schedules and planners. I want to live in the moment and be spontaneous. Schedules are something that hang on the fridge after you mom makes you print it out. 

Now, though, I seem to be looking at schedules and writing them down more and more. Yes, I still want to live in the moment, but I also want to manage my time more effectively and be organized. So after 21 years of life, I've decided that schedules are good. 

I've already been keeping track of my work schedules, so now I want to try a few more. 

First, I want to write more which means this blog is going to have a proper schedule. I don't want to say that I'm going to write in here once a week, that's too broad and it just means that the deadline is extended till the next day if I don't do it. So "Dancing Through Life" will have new posts every Tuesday. We are going to start off small, once a week, and see how that goes; then maybe it will be increased to two or three times a week. 

Secondly, my YouTube channel has been all over the place. Sometimes I'm too excited to put up my next video that I don't care if I upload two in one day or one every day. Then there are those weeks where nothing gets uploaded. I don't like that I want to be consistent in content I put out there and want to work on getting better at what I do. I do it because I love and I want to be proud of more of the things I put out into the world. So I'm going to shoot for a new video every Sunday. And again, we will see how it goes and then maybe the number will be increased. I want to work on sketches and things and hopefully having a projected idea of when I can put out what will make that easier. I have a whole notebook of things I haven't done yet so we will see where this takes us. 

Now, I have a question for you guys. Do you guys live by a schedule? & If so, how does it work out for you?

I'm just secretly hoping that if I set these scheduling goals for myself I can meet them, and if I can't I wont get down on myself & feel like a failure. 

Tell me what you guys think. I'd love to hear from you.

Life.

Life. 

We go about day in and day out living our lives. But are we actually living?

I ask this question because for the last couple weeks I've felt a definite hole in my life. At first I couldn't put my finger on what could possibly be missing. I live a pretty average life; I go to work, I hang out with my friends, I talk to my family on a semi-regular basis, and I spend way too much time on Social Media. So why would a 21 year old girl feel empty?!  

I'm always on the go. 

Plain and simple. Very rarely do you see me sitting on my bum doing nothing any more, and believe me it use to be a regular site. 

When the last time I went to the cinema? The week Gone Girl came out.

When is the last time I sat and home and watched a film? Couldn't tell you.

When is the last time I binge-watched a series on Netflix? No flippin' clue. 

When is the last time I did a photo shoot for fun? August

When did I last write a blog post? 1st of November

When was the last concert I went to? 8th of November

When did I last make a YouTube video? 1 week ago

These are things that I enjoy. These are things that I want to do on a regular basis. These are the things that have been lacking and in turn have made me feel empty.

I work close to 70 hours a week between two jobs. Yes, I know that's ridiculous. Add in the 56 hours that I spend sleeping, 4 hours I spend driving back and forth to work a week, the stops to get food, and the errands I have to run and you'll see that I don't have much time for fun. 

I don't like that. 

I want to have time to do the things I enjoy. When you do the math there are technically 189 hours in a week, take out the time I work (you're left with 119 hrs), the time I sleep (63 hrs), my commute (59 hours), and the estimated time on errands and stops (53). I'm left with 53 hours in a week or if you wanna look at it daily I'm left with 7.571 hours daily. Where does that time go? What am I doing with that time? I can't answer that. I have no idea where that time goes.

So that's my point with this little mini-rant. I have 53 hours during the week that I can fill with those fun activities, I just have to learn how to manage my time correctly.

My mom use to tell me,"If you want something bad enough, you'll find a way." And that's what I'm going to do. I'm going to manage my time more efficiently so I can spend more time with you guys. 

Watch out internet, here I come.