Stuff I’m Doing This weekend (so I don’t lose track)

1) Mailing eBay package
2) Mailing Stacy’s birthday present (only a month late!)
3) Finishing Bil’s logo
4) Helping mom pack up stuff from garage sale & haul to good will
5) burning stuff in Mike’s yard
6) Helping David and Garrett scrape and paint their house
7) Make multiple copies of CD for CD club
8) Trim Annabelle’s nails
9) Laundry
Holy crap, I forgot I’m on vacation next week. Well that’s cool. I don’t feel so jammed up now.

Continue ReadingStuff I’m Doing This weekend (so I don’t lose track)

Revisited: Things I have to do on Vacation

In revisiting my list, I’m running into a small snag. One of the items is the key problem:

  • Work on a logo for Bil and Jerame
  • Go for a Crown Hill walk with Lori
  • Mail my sister’s birthday present
  • Take clothes to a donation point
  • Take garage sale stuff to my mom’s house
  • Help my mom clean out her attic
  • Get brakes worked on on Truck
  • Clean the house for book club! (my house is trashed right now)
  • Relocate the Rose of Sharon bush to the corner of my yard
  • Catalog my books
  • Write an IndyScribe photo article
  • Write an IndyScribe review of Pirateer and Dread Pirate games
  • Make my photo galleries web standards compliant
  • Read my library books before they’re due
  • Take my dog for some long walks
  • Make sure my neighbor’s contractor doesn’t trash my yard anymore

That cleaning the house item will take all 5 of my vacation days to do, unfortunately. And I have to get it done, because my house is freaking me the hell out. My stress level is through the roof because of all the garage sale stuff sitting around in my way, and I can’t clean anything, etc.

Normally the only time I lose things in the house is when I’m carrying something I use every day around, and I get distracted by a phone call, person talking to me, etc. and I set the thing down where it doesn’t belong to do something else. But for things that are normally put away, I don’t lose track of them. This morning, however, I’ve run all over the house looking for the bug bite itch cream that I bought a couple of weeks ago due to the massive mosquito problem we have in the neighborhood. And I can’t find it anywhere.

Continue ReadingRevisited: Things I have to do on Vacation

Things I have to do on vacation next week

I’m on vacation next week from the 12th through the 16th. Here’s what I’ll be doing:

  • Work on a logo for Bil and Jerame
  • Go for a Crown Hill walk with Lori
  • Mail my sister’s birthday present
  • Take clothes to a donation point
  • Take garage sale stuff to my mom’s house
  • Help my mom clean out her attic
  • Clean the house for book club! (my house is trashed right now)
  • Relocate the Rose of Sharon bush to the corner of my yard
  • Catalog my books
  • Write an IndyScribe photo article
  • Write an IndyScribe review of Pirateer and Dread Pirate games
  • Make my photo galleries web standards compliant
  • Read my library books before they’re due
  • Take my dog for some long walks
  • Make sure my neighbor’s contractor doesn’t trash my yard anymore
Continue ReadingThings I have to do on vacation next week

T-shirt Challenge Revisited

A while back I decided, since I have way too many t-shirts (over 100), I would wear all of them without repeating, and photograph each one. I didn’t get too far into the project before photographing all of them became too much to keep up with. I’ve still be cycling through them, and I have 36 left to wear. But it’s obvious I don’t need all of them, and it’s also obvious that many people will be in desperate need of clothes soon. So I’m going to sort out most of them and give them away, as soon as charities start accepting donations of clothes for Katrina victims.

I haven’t located a place yet (most, like the Red Cross are really in need of cash donations, which we did this week) but I’m sure that will come soon.

[edit needed: update photos]

Continue ReadingT-shirt Challenge Revisited

The Importance of Sleep

Harvard study on the importance of sleep:

Van Cauter also showed that sleep-deprived subjects had reduced levels of leptin, a molecule secreted by fat cells that acts in the brain to inhibit appetite. “During nights of sleep deprivation, you feel that your eating goes wacky,” says Stickgold. “Up at 2 a.m., working on a paper, a steak or pasta is not very attractive. You’ll grab the candy bar instead. It probably has to do with the glucose regulation going off. It could be that a good chunk of our epidemic of obesity is actually an epidemic of sleep deprivation.”

Your mother was right: You’ll get sick, become fat, and won’t work as well if you don’t get a good night’s sleep. So make time for rest and recovery. Stickgold likes to compare two hypothetical people, one sleeping eight hours, the other four. The latter person is awake 20 hours a day, compared to 16 hours for the first. “But if the person on four hours is just 20 percent less efficient while awake, then in 20 hours of waking he or she will get only 16 hours of work done, so it’s a wash,” he says. “Except that they are living on four hours of sleep a night. They’re not gaining anything, but are losing a huge amount: you’ll see it in their health, their social interactions, their ability to learn and think clearly. And I cannot believe they are not losing at least 20 percent in their efficiency.”

Continue ReadingThe Importance of Sleep

the nine reasons we don’t do what we should

Via Lifehack: a great article on why we don’t get stuff done that we should.
Fear
Lack of Self-Confidence
Lack of Knowledge
Trying to Do Too Much Alone
Trying to Do Too Much
Loss of Self
Lack of Energy
Lack of Reward
It Can’t Be Done
UPDATE: the more closely I read the article, the more I like it, and think it’s important. There are some really great things here that I need to learn.

Continue Readingthe nine reasons we don’t do what we should

Long-delayed t-shirt blogging

I started out with such great intentions. I was so determined. I as going to take a picture every day, and blog it right away. How quickly I got sidetracked. Curse you, real life! How dare you get in the way of my silly website projects?

Well, anyway, here’s the catch-up… see the main photo page for all my shirts in context.

[edit needed: update photos]

June 28, 2005 – One of my three Curious George shirts. Sleeves are too long, but I love it.

June 28, 2005 – fun grey shirt; this looks good on me.

June 30, 2005 – I have six white shirts exactly like this, and a grey, blue and black. I’ll have to try on another to see how they all look.

July 1, 2005 – Beaver Mountain. Hee hee.

July 2, 2005 – Darn it, I need someone else to take pictures.

July 3, 2005 – I love this shirt, but it’s too big, and is getting old. It’s definitely a wear-around-the-house shirt.

July 4, 2005 – One of my standard Old Navy ringer shirts. They look alright.

July 4, 2005 – Another Old Navy. I spilled on the other one, and had to change.

July 5, 2005 – Inexpensive Fruit of the Look I bought for $3 several years ago. This looks okay.

July 6, 2005 – Cool “year of the rooster” shirt I got several years ago. They didn’t have the “year of the monkey, or I would have it instead. Sleeves are too long.

July 7, 2005 – Standard Old Navy ringer shirts.

July 8, 2005 – I’m blogging this! I got this at thinkgeek.com
Okay! Now I’m all caught up.

Continue ReadingLong-delayed t-shirt blogging

tshirt blogging; day 4, 5, & 6

[edit needed: update photos]

A really old t-shirt that I love because it has a cool tiger on the front. It’s not really in the wearable pile anymore either, but I’ll try to do something with the logo. Why do I keep sticking my hands in my pockets?

A new Old Navy ringer shirt. I like this one because it’s plain, and the sleeves fit better.

My Dinosaurland shirt. I love this one, but the sleeves are too long, so I’m thinking of having them re-sewn to be shorter. I tried not sticking my hands in my pockets for this photo, but clearly that’s not the best pose either. I need to practice in the mirror

We had another hectic weekend. We spent Saturday at Stephanie’s getting her house ready for her surgery, and then took a break and went to see Bewitched in the evening. I liked Nicole Kidman in this movie better than some she’s done in the past. Sunday we visited my mom and saw my nieces Riley and Erika.

This morning, I spent 45 minutes looking for my keys and never found them. They have to be somewhere in the foyer, but I didn’t find them at all. I ended up using my spare set. Very frustrating, especially after I didn’t sleep well.

And last but not least, I’m struggling to get through my book club book; 1912: Wilson, Roosevelt, Taft and Debs -The Election that Changed the Country. I know the first (and second) rule(s) of book club are not to talk about the book before book club, but I can’t help it — this book is damned boring. And it’s especially frustrating since

I’m slogging through it so I can read these far more interesting books:

Freakonomics : A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything
by Steven D. Levitt, Stephen J. Dubner

Everything Bad Is Good for You: How Today’s Popular Culture Is Actually Making Us Smarter
by Steven Johnson

Why Marriage Matters: America, Equality, and Gay People’s Right to Marry
by Evan Wolfson

Emotional Design: Why We Love (or Hate) Everyday Things
by Donald A. Norman

Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell
by Susanna Clarke

Continue Readingtshirt blogging; day 4, 5, & 6