Having Fun is Hard Work!

Indulging.

It's practically a foreign word to me. Oh, sure...I indulge in junk food (too much, really) and in playing time-wasting games on the computer.

For the most part, though, I indulge the other people in my life. I indulge my son by voicing his Minnie Mouse doll and digging for buried treasure in the dining room...over and over and over again.

I indulge my husband by, in many ways, being the antiquated housewife who does all the cooking and cleaning...and by listening to him ramble on about musical things that I don't really understand.

It's hard-wired into my nature to indulge the people around me, but it's not in my nature to indulge myself. It makes me feel guilty. And selfish. Two feelings that leave me with a gnawing feeling in my gut.

And it shouldn't be that way. You can't care for others when you have not cared for yourself. If you give away every piece of yourself, there is nothing left...and nothing can't care for anyone!

So I must be more attentive...to me. To my needs. Not selfishly so. But I need to figure out what I need to feel full (and not just another handful of popcorn, thank you very much). I need to fill my reserve tanks for myself so that I can continue to empty my existing tanks on those I love and adore.

I think I'll start by following my friend's plan. Laura is going to set weekly creativity goals for herself and put them out there in the blogosphere for all the world to see. You can't stick to goals without accountability (and positive reinforcement and praise), so I'm going to follow her lead.

In the meantime, I'm sticking to one current goal: posting one image per day on my Flickr photostream. Here's today's image: a shot of the House of the Seven Gables in Salem, Massachusetts.