Your Living Canvas Journaling and an announcement

The Living Canvas Workshop begins on Monday and I am just now posting my week 3 journal entry, which means I am 3 weeks behind but that's ok.  I want to take my time and make sure each one is well thought out.  This week Christy challenged us to choose 3 goals that we didn't have before and write them down.  Easy enough.  What I am worried about is that we will be held accountable for them!  haha!  These really are 3 things I am wanting to do better with on my journey.
Speaking of journey~I have a bit of news.  For those of you that know me well, you know that I am the Director of Education at our local museum, a job that I love and have been doing full time now for 4 years.  Prior to be a full time employee I was an art teacher there for a long time.  I have been thinking and praying about the stress the job puts me under that keeps me from being the best mom I can be and so after months of thought and prayer, I have decided to become part time at the museum.  The director and the staff have been totally supportive of me, what a blessings.  I will do this for June, July and August then the director will decide where to go from there with my position.  I might stay part time, I might just coordinate one program or I might become a full time stay at home mom, all of which I am ok with.  God has given me peace about the whole situation and I look forward to becoming more present as a mother.
I have always said that "change is good", well I am about to see first hand how much I believe that little saying. Another change will be the look of this blog.  i will still share paper crafting with you but as you may have already noticed, I am using it also for my art and my journey.  I hope you will travel this road with me, it's much more fun with friends and support.
Having said all of that...here is my journaling entry for week 3 of the Your Living Canvas Workshop hosted by Christy Tomlinson.

One of my goals is to save my money.  I will be making half the salary that I was making before so I need to be frugal and work on saving up for the things I want and to help build our savings.

 I can't pretend any of these goals will be easy.  I am quit nervous about reducing our income.  It will impact me the most because I have always seen my income as money to purchase things I want for my art, scrapbooking, crafting and also things for my girls like clothes, entertainment, camp tuition, etc.  There will be less money so less of those things.  It will be an adjustment that is necessary.

 One of the main reasons I chose to leave my full time job is that I realized one day that I spend more time working on developing wonderful programs for other people's children than I do learning to cook and eat healthy with my own.  My youngest daughter who is about to be 11 is overweight and very self-conscious about it and I feel to blame.  We are so busy and on the go that I don't take the time to plan our meals and shop so that we eat healthier.  WE also need to get back to sitting at the dinner table as a family.

More than the other two, which are certainly important, I need to be present for my family.  I work hard at everything I do, I have high expectations for my work ethic and want to do a good job at work which results in no energy left in the evenings for my girls or husband.  Hello!!! Talk about messed up priorities!  There are some women that do a great job of balancing everything, it can be done, I just feel like my balancing act made everything mediocre and that is not enough.  I need to scale down what I do and do those things much better and give my family what they deserve~a mother in the house.
I hope you take the time to think through what 3 goals you would like to set for yourself.  It's funny how often I have tried to re-prioritize my life to what I think God wants me to do only for Him to step in and say "Nice try, think again, this is not all about you!"  My new montra~"Be present, save wisely and eat healthy."  I can do it!
Blessings everyone,
Jana