Hello and happy weekend! I had a busy, but amazing week. I hope you did too. I got the best compliment this week, which got me thinking about a blog post. A kid, that is a year older than me in school, asked me how I managed to stay on top of everything, that I am involved in. I answered him with a very intelligent comment. I said, “I don’t know”.
At the time, that was the truth. I couldn’t come up with an easy explanation of how I get things done. I wasn’t sure if I should tell him about my schedule, or how I make calendars. It wasn’t until I thought about it for awhile, that I realized I could have answered him with one word, Mindfulness.
Mindfulness can be defined as the state or quality of being aware. I like to just think of mindfulness as staying on top of things. I try to look at my schedule every weekend and plan for what is coming up. I highlight the days I know I will not have a lot of time to work on homework, or music, or my website, because I have activities going on. Then, I try to plan my week schedule around my schedule. Hah! Let me give you an example, of what I mean. I have the privilege of playing saxophone for a local Wind Ensemble. This Wind Ensemble practices every Tuesday evening in a neighboring city. My mom picks me up from school on Tuesdays and we head straight over to the city where practice is, grab a quick bite to eat, then go to practice. I know that on Tuesdays, I do not get home until pretty late. I know that I am not going to be able to get a whole lot of homework done, so I try to get as much homework done as I can, on the weekend and on Monday.
You may be wondering where I learned such an advanced skill from. I will tell you the secret source of this wisdom. I learned to stay on top of things that are important, from my cat. 
Source: Bock, K. (2018). Chena On Top of Homework. [digital image] CC BY-VB
This is my cat Chena. In this picture, she is sitting on my brother’s AP European History short answer essay paper. Chena always sits on anything she thinks, we think, is important. It is kind of a joke in my house, if my mom asks if we have our homework done, we tell her not to worry, Chena is on top of it. 😊
Honestly though, Aristotle said “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit”. From experience, I can tell you that is not always easy to practice mindfulness, but when you do, your life becomes a lot easier. So, this week I give you this challenge. See if you can be like Chena, and stay on top of what is important!
Have a great week! Go play acalympics.com 😉
Acalympics.com 
Ah yes, prioritizing. Something we all have to learn in life, and you so early out of necessity in your busy life. I like the quote from Aristotle. Sometimes there’s something I really want to do & improve at but put it off & fill time with other trivial things I procrastinate usually due to fear of failure because success means a lot to me in that endeavor. I grew up with a very demanding, perfectionistic father. I wanted so much to gain his approval & feared I would not measure up. I’ve not overcome those feelings even now in my 70th decade. So I have to screw up my courage, work on my skills with mindfulness, & thru meeting new goals I gain self-confidence. Some say “what do you want to be when you grow up?” I think we never do. There are so many levels of ‘grownupness’ and we reach one after another thru our experiences in life.
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Oh, forgot the cat part. Yeah, your great gramma’s cat Cally did the same thing. She was jealous we weren’t paying attention to her & would sprawl her very large body across whatever it was we were working on. I inherited Cally when Mom was no longer able to care for her & she lived to 20 years old dying last fall. She was quite the character!
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