As a woman who dreams big, often it’s more than challenging for me to appreciate the little things, the baby steps essential in working toward the ultimate goal of full-fledged running. Yesterday, though, I experienced a string of small victories and, slowly but surely, I’m learning to accept, no, to understand their function: they are stakes in the railroad tracks, bolts in the bridge, bricks in the pyramid — how I need them, lest the whole huge thing crumble to the ground.

Hence, a few of my small victories:

My office. If you’ve been keeping up with me, you know that I often lament working from home and how difficult I find it to sit in isolation with virtually no contact to the outside world for hours on end. I also lament not having a dedicated workspace. Well my friends, I am happy to report that, yes, the photo to the left with the cheery yellow chair depicts a corner of my humble abode that has turned into an office of sorts. The bonus: I think my ever-so-gracious roommates get a bigger kick out of calling it “my office” than I do.

My schedule. Or, shall I say, the hairy beast that I am forever attempting to wrestle into submission? Frankly, I’d begun to think that there’s no such thing as a happy medium between working for money and working for passion. But — hark! Me thinks it be a glimmer of hope in the distance. Ahem. Er, I mean, for as much as I whine about how often my schedule changes and the inconsistency of it all, I guess you could say that every cloud has a silver lining, no? Despite the fact that this semester finds me teaching just one class at Sacramento City College (thus giving up 1/4 of the guaranteed monthly income I had last semester), I’ve parlayed the new teaching schedule into modified M-T-W hours at my part-time office gig. The bonus: Thursdays and Fridays are all jms ink all the time, baby. Oh yeah.

My work. The recently acquired office and schedule have been like a jolt of Red Bull to my working veins — just hook me up to an IV and we’ll be all set. In all seriousness, I’m revising the jms ink biz plan of attack, the coworking project proposal (more on that to come in future adventures of The Janna Monologues), implementing new strategies, setting new goals. In short, I’m completely reinvigorated. Can ya tell? The bonus: Ironically, in the last few days I’ve actually caught myself conjuring up excuses to go to the office. Who does that?

My celebration. What good would small victories be without small celebrations? Last night I had the distinct pleasure of hosting dinner for some dear friends. I toasted to small victories and we each shared a small victory from the day. In addition to what I’ve written here, we also celebrated an ESL student who clearly described the teacher she wanted to have for her next class, a 4-month-old baby who took a bottle from his daddy on the first try, and questions from coworkers that validated one friend’s new position at work. The bonus: Celebrating with friends makes small victories seem, well, not so small.

Anyone else celebrating small victories?

Last weekend, my roommate and I saw Nuclear Projects and Other Works at Verge Gallery during 2nd Sat. The cool thing about this show is that the artist, Stephen Kaltenbach, has a painting that is part of the permanent collection at the Crocker Art Museum. And even cooler (or at least to me) is that because I am training to be a docent at the Crocker, I recently acquired a good bit of knowledge about Kaltenbach and his painting Portrait of My Father, which is in the museum’s Tsakopoulos Gallery of Contemporary Art. Now for the cool part: Kaltenbach was there for the opening of his exhibit, and I even shook his hand.

Art enthusiasts looking for some exceptional art should absolutely see this show. Even better, attend Kaltenbach’s lecture on February 5.

This time last year (almost to the day), I came to terms with the fluctuating nature of life and have since been attempting to embrace that notion, failing along the way.

Several conversations lately have revolved around the New Year. Two questions presented to me in the last several weeks: “What are your goals for this year?” and “What word describes your outlook for 2009?”

My answer? I’m resolved to remain indefinitely unresolved. Sure, there’s an inkling trying to tell me that some of the seeds planted in 2008 will take root and maybe even sprout to see the light of 2009 days. Sure, I’m excited and somewhat expectant. But the realist in me (some may call it the pessimist) aims to temper that expectancy with a healthy dose of skepticism, or caution.

Hence, the list of items officially, and maybe indefinitely, unresolved for 2009:

Unresolved: My schedule. For the life of me, I cannot seem to maintain a consistent schedule – something vital to my productivity. Inconsistency aside, there’s also a Grand-Canyon-sized crater missing in the fluidity of my time (read: highly fragmented). Most days, I work an office gig in the mornings until noon, which leaves the rest of the day wide open for me to focus on my own myriad of projects, writing and otherwise. Sounds like an ideal situation, does it not? Problem is that, as I have bemoaned on this blog before, I don’t have a dedicated work space, which means that I usually head home, change clothes, eat lunch and maybe, if I’m lucky, end up at the dining room table in front of my laptop. Or at the Weatherstone in front of my laptop. Getting back into the groove of working, though, gets thwarted with little effort by things like laundry, dishes in the sink, litter box that hasn’t been cleaned for a week (yes, I admit it). Will I ever develop those ever-elusive writerly habits and/or the willpower to never check my email in the morning?

Unresolved: My teaching. As evidenced by a recent experience, I haven’t quite figured out if teaching is for me. I have a fairly keen sense of self-awareness that has taught me to be careful of high expectations – they only lead to disappointment. Admittedly, I probably expected way too much from teaching in terms of imagining myself whimsically guiding eager students down a path of enlightenment to their creative destiny. Most students I’ve encountered so far simply want to pass, a C being perfectly acceptable. What I’ve come to realize is that I get far more gratification from offering my feedback to peers – other writers who appreciate my comments because they value the time I put into evaluating their work, which is something I’m not sure that I’m going to find in the classroom.

Unresolved: My writing. I’m a writer. I’m a writer. I’m a writer. Maybe if I just keep telling myself that, it will sink in and stick. Some of my daily/weekly/monthly activities make me feel like a writer: I read and/or talk about writing almost every day; I teach writing this semester twice a week; I participate in a monthly writer’s group; and every so often (it was three times last year), I read some of my work in front of a large-ish audience. But the amount of actual, physical writing I do? That’s debatable. If you count email, I write every day. If you don’t count email, well, that’s where it gets tricky. See the whole “unresolved: my schedule” section above? Um, yeah, that kind of affects whether or not I’ve set aside dedicated writing time. I think what I need is a constant: one thing in my schedule that can be a regular appointment of sorts around which I can begin to build a more consistent routine.

Unresolved: My business. Er, so-called business. I did establish a business in 2008. Got a license and business checking account to boot. It’s called jms ink. I even had some steady business for a while. Imagine that, establish a business and actually get some. What a concept. That, however, has dwindled, along with my paychecks and meager income that I start with on a monthly basis. So before last semester ended, I sat down and wrote up a list of goals for winter break, which included actually finishing a business plan for jms ink and a strategy for drumming up some more, uh, business. Well, the bad news is that the business plan didn’t quite get finished yet (and spring semester starts in less than a week), and the strategy hasn’t quite been implemented. But the good news is that with spring semester comes a, shall we say, revised schedule that has me working for jms ink still part-time (amidst the myriad other things I do to eek out a living), but for a full two days a week.

Unresolved: My relationships. Not just dating/romantic relationships, but relationships with friends, family, roommates, colleagues and even peripheral acquaintances. Someone asked me recently if I “schedule my friends.” I was taken aback for a moment because I’d never really stopped to think about it that way. But, as strange as owning up to it sounded, I had to answer, yes. Then myself and I had to agree that maybe scheduling friends is a bit sterile, but it’s no more sterile than scheduling time for one’s self – and how many of us should do that, but don’t? People don’t often talk about how managing and maintaining relationships are hard things to do, and requires deliberate effort – we choose how much time to spend with whom and when. And if we don’t choose consciously to spend time with people that we actually want to spend time with, we still choose subconsciously because not choosing in and of itself is a choice. Maybe all that sounds esoteric, but what I am getting at is that my network is full of valuable contacts, with whom I don’t spend enough time maintaining relationships, and I’ve lost touch with a lot of folks that I wish I hadn’t.

Unresolved: My spirituality. A relatively new topic for this blogspace, but I must admit that it’s hardly new to the Life and Times of Janna Marlies Santoro. The thing is that I don’t want to be labeled a “religious” writer or a “Christian” writer, and so I tend to resist writing about faith and spirituality all together. At least in a public forum. But lately I am beginning to see how closely faith relates to every aspect of life – even for folks who say they don’t have any. The truth that I’m learning is that everything matters: a person’s spiritually, or lack thereof, affects the way she lives, her priorities, how she spends her time, the decisions she makes, how she treats others, how spends her money, what kind of food she buys. For what it’s worth, I grew up in a non-denomination Bible-believing Christian church. I do believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and the sinless human incarnation of God. But my journey over the past several years has brought me to a point of disillusionment with mainstream Christianity and especially with the contemporary church. I don’t like the negative connotation that the label “Christian” has earned in history because of those who claim it, and when people ask, I say that I am a follower of Jesus. Besides that, as a writer, I never warmed up to the idea of alienating a good chunk of readership by marketing the fact that, among other “religious” practices, I pray regularly. Still, figuring out how to write about all of this is a mystery that I may never solve. In the meantime, though, I plan to continue writing about real life experiences that I know other real life women (spiritual or not) can relate to. After all, I’m just one of many women in progress.

It’s not harder than I thought it would be, it’s just suckier than I thought it would be.

10 reasons why:

1. For the life of me, I cannot get any business out of one particular local publication that I desperately want to write for. Wonder if I actually sound as desperate as I really am. Maybe that’s the problem.
2. Teaching consumes me. Which means that while I’m teaching, there’s no time to drum up business or follow up with clients, neither potential or existing.
3. If there’s no time to drum up business, there’s definitely no time to drum up ideas, let alone pitch them.
4. Besides, my best ideas right now go straight into the classroom.
5. I lost my biggest client a few months ago.
6. For all intents and purposes, I’m still working in isolation, craving the creative community that I envisioned and described more than one year ago.
7. In order to supplement the income, I’m also the part-time admin assistant for two local church communities. Which means that my days are so fragmented that I usually don’t know if I’m coming or going. By the time I get home, eat lunch and change clothes, getting back into a working grove is a challenge.
8. Web 2.0 is the biggest time-suck ever — how does anyone have time to maintain her online personality and still generate revenue? I sure as heck have no frickin’ clue.
9. Twitter. Should I or shouldn’t I?
10. Blogging. Does anyone even read this blog??

Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed. Overwhelmed.

To do list. Business plan. Goals. Resolutions (shmesolutions). Lesson planning. Online tool learning. Prep for class reading. Professional development reading. Networking. Social networking. News reading. Keeping in touch. Visiting new babies. Watching movies. Relaxing? Socializing? Turning 30 (later this year). Eeek.

Yeah. It’s safe to say that I’m overwhelmed. Here I am, with still a week and a half left of winter break before teaching starts up again, and what have I accomplished? Not a lot. Well, I guess that’s not entirely true. I’ve done a lot. But what’s getting me overwhelmed is that the a lot I’ve done in the past three weeks or so hasn’t actually been on my list of things to get done over winter break.

I had it all planned out, too. I had a pretty little list for every day of break. Even written in pencil so that I could erase and move things around if necessary. Write one page every day. Read a little bit every day. Research writing jobs. Compile list of pubs to query. Follow up with previous clients. Update online profiles. Revise business plan. Email this person. Email that person. Brainstorm ideas. Blog once a week. Read for writers’ group. Write responses for writers’ group. Attend writers’ group. Attend holiday parties. Plan holiday parties. Visit with family. Dinner with roommates. Take a day off.

Whew. I’m tired.

Then I read blogs like this one or that one. All with great info. Tips for snagging the kind of work you want, making connections, maintaining relationships. Suggestions for evaluating your progress, keeping track of accomplishments. Stuff that I should be doing. Getting organized. Setting (more!) goals. Simple business plans. Books to read. Sites to join.

Then, I get excited when I see things like this, and I want to participate in things like this or this. I want to do everything, but of course that’s not realistic at all. I find all this stuff simultaneously inspiring and infuriating. Because people out there are doing what I want to be doing, which is good to know. It’s encouraging and validating to know that others are successful with similar ideas. But, then again, how come they get to do it and I don’t? How come their thing is taking off? What are they doing that I’m not? And if they’re already doing it, why do I need to do it? What can one more person contribute to what already exists?

And so, I find myself pondering all of this noise in my brain, completely and utterly overwhelmed. Too much going on; not enough accomplished. See, once something has happened, I can happily cross it off the list. The problem, I’ve decided is that there’s too much continuously happening and not enough that’s happened.

Take a hike. An urban hike.

Winter Wonderland
The Start: 7th and K Streets
The Route: up K Street, right on 11th Street, right on L Street, left on 10th Street, left on N Street, right on 15th Street to Q Street
The Distance: approx. 1.3 miles
The Best Part: This hike is best before Christmas. It’s no Rockefeller Center in New York City, but Sacramento does have its own giant Christmas tree (several, in fact) and an outdoor ice rink right at 7th and K Streets, in front of the Hard Rock Cafe. Join the fun on the ice or just watch the scene of people circling the rink and trying their hand at figuring out exactly how to effectively employ use of the notorious toe pick. From there, this hike takes you up K street and past one of Sacramento’s landmarks, the Crest Theater. If time allows, investigate what’s showing and take in a holiday matinee such as A White Christmas. Or visit the recently renovated Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament at 11th and K Streets. Next, head down 10th Street in front of the Capitol building and its own over-sized Christmas tree. This scene is especially impressive at night. Up N Street to 15th and Q takes you to Naked Lounge, one of Sacramento’s many independently owned coffee shops, where a warm drink is in order — especially on a chilly winter day.

Spring to Life
The Start: 10th and L streets
The Route: around Capitol Park as many times as desired, up Capitol Avenue to 18th Street.
The Distance: one time around Capitol Park is 1.1 miles
The Best Part: Take this hike mid- to late-spring, when nature starts coming back to life. You’ll notice the rose garden on the east end of the park, which should be just starting to bud again. On the south side, try to identify some delicious smelling plant, which I think is a magnolia tree, but of course that could be entirely wrong. Either way, each time you pass by, you’ll know what I’m talking about — it’s like walking through a spritze of nature’s perfume. It’s the best place in the city to savor the fresh crispness in the air that comes with spring. End this hike with a refreshing iced tea at Java City on 18th and Capitol, under the most amazing tree in Sacramento.

Summer in Sactown
The Start: Front and K Streets, Old Sacramento
The Route: down Front Street, left on Capitol Mall, right on 3rd Street to the Crocker Museum on O Street
The Distance: .5 miles
The Best Part: Not only is it a short distance and perfect for enduring the heat of a Sacramento summer, it’s also mostly an indoor hike — another perfect escape from the heat. Grab an ice cream at Produce Junction (I think is what it’s called) on Front and K Streets in Old Sac. Savor it on your way, and take your time — you’ll need it to keep your cool as you head over to The Crocker Art Museum, which is quickly becoming my favorite place in Sacramento. Aside from the building itself being just plain cool, it contains so much history, culture and creativity all in one spot. An hour at the museum equals countless minutes of quiet contemplation (disclaimer: the level of quiet does depend on the time and day of your visit) and inspriation. I highly recommend a visit to the Crocker for a good dose of peaceful, spiritual rejuvenation.

Awesome Autumn
The Start: 16th and T Streets
The Route: straight up T Street to 59th Street, left on 59th Street to the Light Rail station, take Light Rail back to Midtown
The Distance: 3 miles
The Best Part: T Street is likely one of the most gorgeous streets in Sacramento — especially during the fall. From 16th Street, you’ll see a variety of house from old Victorian style to newly built town homes. Pay particular attention to the large white house on the corner of 22nd and T Streets — its the house where Joan Didion grew up. Once you cross Stockton Boulevard, the street widens, and a boulevard park (complete with benches at either end) divides multiple blocks. This stretch of T Street has an impressive canopy of trees, and when the leaves start to fall, they dance to the ground in a spectacular medley.

*Written at the request of a friend of mine, who put together a creative Christmas gift for her mom this year: a guidebook of hikes written by family and friends.

All I have to say is that there better be a Second Annual Ball Drop for New Year’s Eve 2009…