"Time is the coin of your life.  It is the only coin you have, and only you can determine how it will be spent.  Be careful lest you let other people spend it for you."  ~Carl Sandberg
 I carry a day timer that is probably seen as old fashioned but is something I desperately need. It is the kind that I can open up to a week at a glance, or tab to the month and look at it with ease. Each day has neat rows and hours on it where I could place appointments and dates and important things. That is where I draw the line on organized. I can put a plan on a day, and definitely in the month or the week, but I have yet to place something on it's appropriate line by the time it is supposed to occur. The day's in my day timer look a lot like they actually happen, written willy nilly in all directions and ways, some sideways and slant ways and in the margins. These are how my days go, sideways, slant ways and back ways and sometimes there are extra things in the margins that i didn't bank on. Once something has occurred or been completed, I cross it out, always in pencil just in case I have to take back the finality of it all. At the end of a week or a month, when I look back at all that has occurred, my calendar looks as if a homicide has taken place.
 It became blatantly clear to me this past week that I have failed to manage my time effectively. I am efficient and I am a super volunteer like most military wives are, but I had broken the cardinal rule of time management. I forgot to block out time on the calendar for myself. This type of management will work for awhile, but sooner or later the lack of personal time will wear a person out. That is where I found myself this weekend. I was crabby, I was unmotivated, I didn't want to be around people (never mind myself) and I had nothing left to give. My children spent the weekend looking at me as if I had become an alien who had abducted their real mom. With nobody but myself to blame, I constructed a plan to get back on track.
 It is easy to see where I went astray. Between moving to a new home, putting kids into schools where the curriculum is aggressive and trying to learn the area I jumped in to our new community with both feet. Add to that the responsibility of keeping everyone on track, managing a house, and a few volunteer jobs and my time quickly filled up. A new job and the desire to do my very best in that arena coupled by a longer temporary duty for my husband sent me over the deep end. The deep end isn't a pretty place. That is where you'll find me eating cookies for meals and drinking coffee all day as well as counting the trip to the end of the driveway for the paper or the mailbox for the mail as cardio activity.
 This story ends well. We joined a gym and began working out again as well as eating better. Today as I stepped on the treadmill with Bon Jovi playing as my soundtrack, I reconnected with a dear friend ~ myself. The quickest thirty minutes I've spent all week were on that treadmill as I finally processed things that I haven't given myself time to think about. I disconnected from email and phone and computer and just spent time doing something that is important for me. At the end of it all, I was rejuvenated, refocused and refreshed. I am sure I am better able to handle anything that may come my way tomorrow because today I gave myself the time I needed today.
 As for the weeks to come, I've already blocked out an important reoccuring event, time for myself. Time on the calendar for the person who knows me the best. Time that I'm sure will be well spent.