As a new year is just around the corner, I, like many of you, am taking stock in my life. What I've done and what I'd like to do. How I've spent my time and how I want to use it going forward. I have goals for blogging, my Jamberry business, my health, homeschooling, and for my family. As I have pondered where I want things to go and how I can successfully make that happen, I have learned that I need to manage my time and energy differently in order to be successful in each area. The main obstacles standing in my way are, ironically, working from home and having my children with me 24/7. But, that was my choice and I'm sticking to it. My goal is to embrace these obstacles by approaching them in different ways. Work at Home Tips for Success Work at home tips can be implemented or not, depending on my needs. I am sure the same will be true for you. You may not need to get healthier or may not want to homeschool your children. So, your daily routine will be different from mine. However, I think these work at home tips can help any individual out there looking for more guidance. Work at Home Tip #1 Be productive. Well, duh! Of course that's what we would like to do, but have you ever worked all day and by the end of it, you have no idea what you really did? This likely means you are spending your time on things, but not on the most important things. For example, if your goal is to generate income, you want to be carving out time for income generating activities, not reorganizing a shelf or checking a facebook group for information. If your goal is to write a book, you want to be get ideas on paper or develop the plot, not have coffee to discuss your latest and greatest read with your bestie. how long did it take the author to come up with their goals? - several months - not enough information - several weeks - 1 week
several months

(Question)
The doctors told me I would be placed on a seventy-two hour hold for observation. Knowing this was the only way out, I obeyed and diligently signed all the papers. I hated my parents but still felt the inescapable drive to prove to them that I was worth something. I had to show them I wasn't crazy. As the hours passed, I was shown to a blank room with plastic sheets and plastic pillows, which caused me to wonder what kind of distant confused souls had been imprisoned in this sterile place. There were bars on the windows and the only door out of the unit was locked 24/7. I knew my only refuge for the time being would be through the hour a day art therapy class and the smoke breaks I could take at will. They had given me a legal pad after my parents had told them of my affinity for writing. With it I set to work on the flow of words and the river of thoughts, both dark and hopeful that careened through my tired mind. Instead of sleep, I would write. I expressed my vicious frustration for the place and thought constantly of the passing hours, counting them down as they went. Because of this I was thankful for the eight to ten I would use up easily in my escapes to the world behind my eyelids. There I was free and could experience a life unhindered by limitations of ethics or gravity. When I'd awake I'd write what I could remember of my escapes on the obtrusive legal pad. I had the suspicion that the attendants would come in and read my thoughts as I was eating meals or watching TV and I wondered if this was hindering my ability to get out. I wondered what kind of opinions and judgments they were forming about me. I had bared my soul on those pages explaining desperately how the thoughts would not leave even in this place, where it mattered most that they were gone. The fuckers would never leave. Maybe I was crazy. Why did the speaker use the legal pad? - for the art class - to express frustration - to write to his parents - not enough information
(Answer)
to express frustration

Jimbob Blakey wasn't so much given birth to as clambered right out of his mother himself. He weighed in at almost thirteen pounds, came ready-fitted with a shock of fat black hair and a couple of razor teeth. Jimbob's folks loved him like most folks love their little ones, maybe more. They'd been trying so hard for a child, suffered more mid-term miscarriages than the ewes they shuttled off to market most Thursdays. They dressed him in a one-year babygro and took him home to their hill farm. They fought to get up nights and give him his milk. His teeth made breast-feeding impossible. They sat hours gazing down in his cot. They dressed him fine and took him to their church and gave their thanks. Showed him off like the proud parents they were. Others cooed and smiled. But they never asked to hold. They gave thanks the Blakeys were happy, and that the monkey-baby had not been born to them. Jimbob's folks never gave a second thought that their boy might be different. The first Spring he walked, he stomped the moors in his welly-boots helping herd the pregnant ewes down in-by. He copied his father, kicking and cuffing at the stragglers, when the flock was returned to the hills in May. As Jimbob grew, his hair became thicker, his arms longer. His head shrunk down on his shoulders. At check-ups, nurses fixed smiles and pronounced him healthy. Doctors said, 'he'll make you a strapping lad.' His mother smiled, her heart swelled. When he was three, she sent him to nursery. She wanted him to mix with other kids. To taste life off the hard hills. She said, 'it'll do him the world of good.' Jimbob hated leaving the farm. He clung to his mother. She drove away, blinking tears. On the third day, she took a phone call. 'It's Jimbob,' they said. 'He's scaring the other kids.'The truth hit Jimbob's mother like a hammer. Jimbob scared the other kids: - not enough information - before he was one years olds - from the first day - After he was three years old
After he was three years old