Blogging and Stuff

I read a story in the news today. The world's oldest blogger died recently. She was an Australian woman who lived to 108 years old. I'd love to live that long and have enough brain power left to write this blog. I'd forgotten how much I enjoyed blogging when I wrote more often until that story made me think about my blog, and made me want to write something in it.

I often wish I could do without a few hours of sleep. I envy my cousin who regularly runs on 5 hours sleep a night and she's not sleep-deprived. It's her natural biological rhythm. I'd do all my stuff that has to be done in the daytime and use those late night hours for writing, reading, and other creative projects because I'm at my most creative between 10 pm and 2 am. So, why am I writing this blog in my least creative time--early morning? Because it's when I can spare a few moments.

The rest of the day I need to spend working on three projects for work, finishing the homework assignment that's due today, practicing the music for Ladyesong and Funtimes Singers, and planning and buying next week's groceries. The homework is for my Dreamweaver class. The music is for Saratoga's American Cancer Society's annual Relay for Life fundraiser they do every summer. STOCtet sang forCampbell's Relay for Life last Saturday. Saratoga and Campbell are local small towns you probably won't have heard of unless you're familiar with the San Jose area.

So, I've looked at my busyness, and while it seems to be a symptom of contemporary life to be busy, I take it to an extreme. I realized the other day while talking with a friend at church that I always book myself to the limit because if I don't, I get bored. If I get bored, I start acting like a depressed person who doesn't want to do anything. And it's not depression--it's boredom. Once I figured out that my brain craves exercise, challenges, and so on, it became easier to figure out how to live my life.

It's also one of the reasons I have so much trouble with the routine, and totally boring, chores in life. I overbook myself so I don't have time to do them because boredom is my brain's worst enemy. But, if I have challenging intellectual work, to do, I'm more tolerant of the chores. And if I don't have to spend hours on chores, I tolerate them better.

If you read my blog earlier this year, you know I made a stab at following the Fly Lady's advice. It didn't work well for me, but I include a link because it does work well for a lot of people. I've been considering this problem a lot over the last few months. I think I may have a solution for the boring, routine chores of life. I could do 15 minutes of chores out of every hour I spend on the more interesting things I do. If I write out a plan for my chores, I can make sure I rotate them so everything gets done regularly and often enough to keep the health department at bay. 15 minutes doesn't sound like much time, but I live in a tiny apartment. I can get a lot done in a 15-minutes slot. Plus, those 15 minutes add up to an hour or two over the course of a day.

Of course, there's always option 2--plan a dinner party. If we have a dinner party, my ever-patient husband cleans the house so I can focus on the meal. I'd much rather spend my time planning and cooking a superb meal. Unfortunately, our budget and my aging body can't handle too many of those.

I'm reading Labyrinth by Kate Mosse. It's going slowly because I have such limited reading time, but I'm really enjoying it. I'm enjoying reading again. I'd pretty much given that up, too, because I was too busy. I have a list of things I want to get back into my life and I'm slowly managing to do it. I realized that I have more time than I think, but I have to accommodate my brain's quirks--it's need for challenges, for musing time--to let the creative projects simmer, and for exploring the rest of the world--refilling the well. If I don't do that, nothing gets done. If I do, lots gets done.

The length of this post tells me I do need to blog more often. I really enjoy it and will continue my efforts to write more often.

Happy Birthday!

Happy Birthday!
Happy Birthday, America.

Happy Birthday, Guys!
All of the guys in my family have summer birthdays. This year, we celebrated them all on America's birthday. We had a great time!

My blog has been on the back burner these past few months. I had to reformat my hard drive and reload everything, so it's taken me a while to get back to having even a few minutes to blog. I'm glad Google doesn't delete inactive blogs because I'd like to start writing in here again, now that I've got a working computer.

I'm taking a class in Dreamweaver. It's step one in my plan to finish that web development degree I started back in 2000. I'm hoping to take over the orchestra web site soon and to start a part-time business creating and maintaining web sites for small businesses. I see so many awful sites done by people who decided that HTML is easy and they can do it themselves, but they have no design skills. Doing an effective web site is about so much more than coding HTML. That's a rant for some other time, though.

Anyway, I'm planning to blog regularly, which I keep saying, but not doing. I doubt I'll be writing anywhere near daily, but maybe once a week or every other week. I really do enjoy doing this. I miss writing fiction, too, and want to start writing regularly again, even if it's not for extended periods of time. An online buddy, Holly Lisle, is a published author and extraordinary teacher. She has some online courses that a lot of people find helpful. I'm going to start my quest to write fiction again by doing some of her courses, particularly the one about writing when your life is falling apart. Here's a link to her web site, which has links to her free articles and her shop where you can buy her courses, if you're interested in learning a lot about writing.

Closing Doors

"The Advantages of Closing a Few Doors" by John Tierney of the New York Times. (By now, it's possible that you have to register in order to read the original article.)

He starts out discussing a Chinese general who took his army into battle and set things up so they couldn't retreat. They had to win or die. Dan Aierly had written a book, "Predictably Irrational", that spawned Tierney's column. Aierly did some expirements at MIT, where he's a professor of behavioral economics, that showed people's penchant for "keeping their options open", even when it's clearly in their best interest to close some doors.

Apparently, this is about having that feeling of loss. It's a feeling people will do just about anything to avoid. So, we don't break off bad relationships. We hang on to our stuff "because it might come in handy someday" or "as soon as I throw it out, I'll need it." Sometimes doors close so slowly we don't see that in our rush to keep all options open, we can pay a huge price. Airely's example is working long hours while your children's childhood slowly slips away. Those hours you might have spent with your kids can't be regained, so that's a closing door.

Speaking of work, choosing a career has major closed doors. If you choose one, you're giving up others. I know a lot of people, often super creative people, who can't pick one art to focus on. They write, paint, and make music. They don't make progress into making money at any of them because they don't put enough practice time into any one to get good enough at it to make a living. Or people like me who love and are curious about tons of stuff, so we take classes and learn about them. After a while we get bored with that subject and move on to something else. Barbara Sher talks about that phenomenon in her book about Scanners. I've found several things I'd love to cobble together into income-producing work, but I haven't figured out how to connect them yet. Maybe I never will get them all going, but maybe I can work enough of them so I don't get bored and quit before I make any actual cash.

This phenomenon is also why people like the Sidetracked Sisters and the Fly Lady got their jobs. They're helping people deal with the doors closed by being unable to get rid of excess stuff. They call one door "CHAOS"--Can't Have Anyone Over Syndrome. Excess stuff also causes you to waste enormous amounts of time looking for things. Your budget takes a hit if you go out to dinner because you didn't have time to do yesterday's dishes because you were looking for stuff or otherwise dealing with clutter. Or you pay late fees because you couldn't find your bills to pay them on time. And so on.

It's interesting how much of it isn't the stuff itself. It's the emotion attached to the stuff that causes the problem. Examples might be: sentimental feelings because "it's a family heirloom". Or getting rid of it means a dream absolutely won't happen, such as selling a musical instrument you haven't touched since high school, thus giving up any dreams of being a musician. Or you feel guilty because you bought the wrong whatever, often clothing items, and you feel like you're throwing money away if you don't keep them. So you plan to wear or use the stuff and don't follow the plan because you really don't like or want or need this stuff.

Ditto for the career choices. You don't want to give up all of your choices in order to pursue one, so you don't pursue any. You "keep your options open", but spend years in nowhere, dead-end jobs that don't cover the rent, let alone all of your expenses. Or you don't focus on one art, so you scatter your attention among lots of things. Then you never make enough money to give up the day job, and even if it's paying your way just fine, you hate it and yourself because you want to work at your art full-time but can't afford it.

The conclusion is that sometimes we need to close doors. Aierly talks about one door most people close and how they do it. He says when we marry, we close the doors to other relationships. We do it by telling other people we're making that choice. That public statement is one of the main ways we use to help us close that door. But this idea shows why the commitment-phobes have the problem. They can't face the loss of a possibly better someone they might meet in the future. So they refuse to close that door and commit to one relationship.

Airely says that those social connections can help us with other doors, too. I've seen that in the Fly Lady phenomenon. People write to her about how following her advice and flinging out the stuff has helped their lives. By writing, they're making public their commitment to getting rid of stuff they don't use and don't love. Making it public makes it easier to do. But he says he struggles with it himself. After all, he's human, too.

Obviously, recognizing the problem is one thing. It's pretty easy to see it and it's effect on your life. But it's often hard to change because we don't want to deal with the feelings of loss. Sometimes, after reading yet another story of how much junk people's parents left for their kids to deal with after their deaths, I wonder if the incredible personal losses of friends and family that pile up on us as we get older isn't partly behind that phenomenon. Some elderly people cling to their stuff because it's something they can keep from leaving them, unlike their friends and relatives who are dying. I suppose this thought, at least in part, comes from having attended more funerals in the past year than in my whole life up to now.

I'm not sure exactly how to deal with this phenomenon in my own life. So much of the stuff we were looking forward to using again after we moved out of my mother's house was destroyed and I greived, not over the stuff, but over the loss of the life I was looking forward to. We've gradually rebuilt a lot of that life and so I'm feeling more comfortable with sorting and weeding out the rest of the stuff in our boxes. I can see, though, that the clutter in all areas of our lives, not just "stuff clutter" is one result of not being willing to close doors. And that clutter keeps us from clearly seeing what will bring the most joy to our lives. Until we clear the clutter so we can see what will bring us joy, we can't figure out how to bring that joy into our lives.

March, so far

My life is a zoo, but if you read this blog very often you know that. I have a couple of things I want to blog about, but haven't had time to write them up. Today, my husband and I are taking a day off from chores and everything except the concert tonight. The concert is the best part of my job. I get to hear such amazing music.

I've started an essay, but it needs super editing before it's ready to post. I need to let it simmer in my head a bit, so I'll finish it soon and post it. It's about the idea that we're so reluctant to close any doors, give up any options in our lives, that we often pay huge prices in our lives in order to avoid giving up an option, or even, in some cases, just getting rid of some types of trash.

Some Thoughts on Food

I recently read Michael Pollan's books, The Omnivore's Dilemma and In Defense of Food. The first book is about where our food comes from. He discusses where the ingredients that make up four different meals came from. It's an interesting background to the second book, in which he discusses what he thinks we ought to eat. On the cover is a picture of red Romaine lettuce and it has a yellow band around it with his concise conclusion: "Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants." Defining this phrase and discussing how to implement it is the major goal of the book. In discussing the part: "Eat food" he makes a comment about how to decide if what you're eating actually IS food. One rule of thumb he talks about is whether your great grandmother would recognize it. A trip to the local grocery store, part of one of the major national chains was an interesting experience in light of what I'd been reading.

One thing you often read is to "stick to the perimeter of the store". You'd think this is good advice. That's where the produce, dairy, and meat is. But is pre-marinated, ready-to-cook meat still real food? How should I know? I have no idea what they put in their marinade. What about "fat free half and half", a product found in the dairy section? Or the "Grapple"--apples somehow flavored with "real and artificial grape flavorings"? Would my great-grandmother recognize any of these? And, if I stick to the perimeter of one of my favorite stores, I'd have to eliminate a lot of food from my diet--beans, rice, pasta, baking ingredients and breads. Then there's the vegetables. Some canned and frozen vegetables are well worth eating, and are pretty nutritious, too. Canned tomatoes, pumpkin puree, canned beans and frozen baby onions are good examples.

That trip to the store, along with what I'd been reading, got me thinking--a lot.
I started to wonder what my great-grandmothers would have fed their families. I know nothing about my great-grandparents on my dad's side of the family, so that leaves my Calabrian great-grandparent's food to use as a guage. I googled.

I discovered that my great-grandparents ate a variation on the much-touted Mediterranean diet. However, they ate a lot of pork, something we don't think of as being a part of that diet. They ate lots of fish, since Calabria is the toe of the boot--right on the Mediterranean Sea. The region produces 25% of Itailan olive oil, so olive oil and olives would have been a big part of their diet. They ate a lot of pasta and polenta. Vegetables were a major part of their diet, too, particularly eggplants and tomatoes. Their food was spicy, using lots of peppers. Butter and cheese were also a part of their diet. Desserts were mainly fresh fruit, particularly citrus and figs. Today they grow a lot of clementines, a variety of orange. They made fancy desserts mainly for special occasions such as weddings and Christmas holidays. Breakfast was often biscotti and coffee. Cappuccino is a breakfast beverage. I didn't see any references to alcoholic beverages except for wine, which is another thing this region produces.

Family meals consisted of a first course--mainly soups, pasta or a rice dish. The second course is either a small meat or fish dish, accompanied by a side dish, usually vegetables. Here, the Italians veer away from what we Americans are familiar with--they eat their salad after the main course, to cleanse the palate before dessert. I remember that from my childhood. My grandfather always ate his salad at the end of the meal. The last course is usually fruit, fresh and cold, or dried fruits with nuts. Celebratory meals would add a starter course of antipasti and a final course of a fancier small dessert. Meals end with coffee, usually espresso.

That's what my great-grandmothers were feeding their families. It's a pretty healthy way to eat, according to current nutritional wisdom. The nutritionists might think it's a bit high in fat, what with all that pork and full-fat dairy. But they didn't eat large portions of those foods. They mostly ate vegetables, which is exactly what Michael Pollan (and our nutrition experts) recommends, after he finished the research and writing of his books.

The question then becomes, how do I do that? How do I find that kind of food? It's getting harder and harder to do so in our supermarkets. I was shopping with my husband the day he found the Grapple and I said to him, "Do you realize how little actual food is in this store?" I've noticed over the three decades in which I've been responsible for the food purchases for a family that there is less and less real food. It's getting harder and harder to find plain ingredients to cook with because even the simplest thing now has a chemical soup along with the simple ingredient. Take tomato paste--one brand had tomatoes and a bunch of other stuff. The other had one ingredient-tomatoes. My question is--if one company can figure out how to make a product without the chemicals, why do other companies think they have to put them in? Anyway, I read the ingredient lists. If I don't know what the ingredients are and what they're made from, I don't buy it.

The other hard part is figuring out what are the best things to eat. It seems like every time you read an article about healthy eating, they have new information that contradicts what the current wisdom is. When you dig into the research, you come up with studies that seem to have been ignored because they don't fit in with the current way of thinking. I found this gem today about high fat dairy and fertility: Eating Ice Cream may Help Women to Concieve. I see stuff like this all the time. Chocolate is good for you. So is coffee. And alcohol, particularly wine, especially red. Reminds me of Woody Allen's film, "Sleeper", where he wakes up in the future and steak and hot fudge sundaes are health food. Yet a different study will be reported saying exactly the opposite. Do I want to be a guinea pig in the unscientific cultural research that's taking place by default as we try to follow expert nutritional advice that may or may not be correct and eat food designed by people who want to maximize our consumption so we'll maximize their corporate profits?

The conclusion I've been coming to is that maybe it's not as simple as the nutrion "experts" would like to believe. You can't isolate one nutrient, making it the "magic pill of good health". Everything works together and what may seem like a bad thing can be a good thing in combination with the right other things. One example is a diet based on corn tortillas. You'd miss out on essential amino acids, if that were your main food. But the Mexicans have been eating that way healthfully for a very long time. How? They fill those tortillas with beans, which has the amino acids corn lacks. This is why I think the glycemic index thing is baloney. You don't eat high glycemic index foods in isolation. Who munches on raw onions, for Pete's sake? When you eat those foods with a little fat, it slows down the absorption of the glucose and that solves the problem with those foods. So, you're better off to put a bit of butter on that baked potato than to eat it plain.

That's probably why we've ended up with the patterns of eating we've developed over the course of human history. The problem with our current eating pattern is that it's not based on anything we've evolved to eat. Our caveman ancestor didn't hang out at the local fast-food joint, nor did he nuke a complete meal and eat it standing over the sink. That's why the current wisdom to eat lots of fruits and veggies, a little meat (Or not, if you choose. Apparently, we can do just fine without it.), and whole grains makes sense. That's what humans have been eating forever. So the challenge is finding those foods, at a price I can afford, and arranging my schedule to allow time to cook them. We've started to build a "food now" culture, so our lives get swamped and we don't take the time to cook or make the time to eat with our family and friends. But that's another post, one I think I already wrote.

The Slow Movement

The New York Times has an article about "The Slow Movement". (Note: you have to register with them to read the article, but if I remember correctly, they don't ask for your whole life history.) Essentially, it's about slowing things down in opposition to our fast food culture. I think it's interesting that they likened our life to fast food more than to any other measure of speed they could have used, such as the computer industry's never-ending quest for faster, particularly when it comes to the Internet.

There's a woman in the article who knits rugs from the wool of sheep she's met. She uses three-foot long knitting needles. I admit I want to try that one, even if I don't get to meet the sheep or make my own yarn. The rug is absolutely gorgeous. There's a picture on the left sidebar of the article.

But I digress from my original thought. It occurred to me that food is really the ultimate speeded up part of life, and I often wonder if that's not to our detriment. I think we'd all be better off if we took the traditional Italian way of eating to heart. Fresh, real food, made from fresh ingredients cooked properly, which rarely can be done super fast, microwave ovens notwithstanding. Take time to eat the meal with family and friends, focusing on the meal and the company, not on the gazillion things we think are so important that we must forego soul-satisfying meals to do them. Or, if you're eating alone, still setting a pretty table and enjoying good music and your own company.

A lot of people have posited the theory that our large food industry with its faster to prepare, ready-to-eat, chemical stews that pass for food are behind the rampant obesity in our country. I'm pretty sure that's a factor because it was with the rise in prepared foods and fast food restaurants and cake from a box being called "from scratch", and a true cake from scratch, made with eggs, flour, sugar, milk, vanilla, etc. being considered old-fashioned, too difficult to do well, and too time-consuming to make. People cook for fun, not as a routine part of life to feed themselves and their families.

I can't help but wonder if there's another factor in the obesity thing that's directly related to the whole fast eating. I don't eat in fast food restaurants because I always eat way too much because the food doesn't satisfy me. If I'm out with other people and we go to a fast food place, we eat fast and get out--no lingering over conversation. That's the whole point of fast food-the whole experience is fast. Ditto for microwaved frozen dinners. They don't satisfy, either. And they mostly are eaten alone because it's when the family is all scattered doing their own things.

All of this lack of strong social structure to our meals could be one reason people overeat or eat to fill the gap left by unsatisfying meals eaten quickly so you can get on with other things. I wonder if we made an effort to make time to cook good food, make the dining room or kitchen table or wherever we eat a pleasant place to be, put on some quiet music, and gather family and friends for that Italian-style focus on the food and the people we love whether some of those emotional needs we eat to fill might not be filled. I also wonder if filling ourselves with freshly cooked food wouldn't satisfy us before we'd overeaten.

I don't know if that's true, generally. I do know that I tend to eat less when I'm eating really well-prepared food. I know that I eat less when I'm not feeling rushed. Although I talked about family and friends, this is true for me if I'm alone, too. If I prepare a nice meal and eat it without rushing, I still eat less and enjoy it more.

In a more general sense, I admit that part of what appeals to me about this whole idea of slowing down, as opposed to just slowing down with regards to food, is that I've always hated being forced to rush through things. I like being busy, but not to the point where I can't take time to "stop and smell the roses". I want to enjoy what I'm doing, not rush through to get to the next thing that I rush through to get to the next thing and before you know it, I have no idea where the time went and I hated every minute that's now gone.

I think that's why I'm working on being more thoughtful about how I spend my time. I've been doing too little cooking and too much eating out and quick pickup meals. Part of the problem is other people demanding things from me without advance notice. I know the answer is to say no, but sometimes I can't because they're things that have a time limit.

I'm hoping that by being more thoughtful about how I spend my time will help me focus my attention on the things that matter the most. We'll see if that turns out to be true as I take steps that will allow me to do that, mainly using my calendar more to keep track of the things that matter to me and doing those before the rest of the stuff that often just fills up the time.

Pretty?

An RSS feed on my Google sidebar came up with an article that linked to this blog post about prettiness . It's a subject I've thought about for a long time. I love the way she puts it--'Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked "female".' And she says the opposite, too--"You don't owe UN-prettiness to feminism..."

She's talking about the idea that as a woman, we're "expected to" or "supposed to" be pretty. I remember reading comments in fashion or similar types of articles where men said things like, "I felt cheated when I saw a woman with long hair and a good body, but when I saw her face, she was old." Or one who was offended by fat women who wear shorts. I never could express my anger at the idea that I was somehow shirking my duty if I didn't conform to their expectations. I've rebelled against that idea my whole life. I've never liked the idea that I was on display, just because I'm female. I don't think it's my duty to fuel some random stranger's sexual fantasies. It's my duty to be happy with myself and how I look.

Yet, thanks to my shallow, vain mother and a shallow, vain culture, it's really hard to get past that idea. Although, in my last paragraph, I mentioned men, I think it's the women in our lives that make the "rule" most personal. I sometimes wonder if part of the reason I've had issues with my weight aren't related to that rebellion against being defined by how I look. But being fat dosen't prevent me from being defined that way. It exacerbates it. I've known people who think I'm not "good enough" to be friends with because of my weight. Their loss, not mine. It doesn't bother me because they weren't people I have enough in common with to want to socialize with anyway, but it does bother me that people think it's a valid way to choose friends.

I'm not sure that there's a solution to this problem, since it's in part inborn. We're drawn to more attractive people in order to keep the human race going. We all want healthy babies and our biology goes for the most healthy people, which we assume attractive people are.

But I also think that the technology we have has skewed our perspective. It allows us to see people from all over the world, to be able to compare ourselves (usually negatively) with the few who look "right", even if those looks are the result of makeup, dress, hairstyling and a lot of Photoshopping. We see the ideal, and don't see the parade of normal people around us. For an eye-opening experience, look at the portfolio from a professional retoucher: Glen Ferron. Roll your mouse over the ads to see what the models looked like before the retouching. And remmember, the "after" pictures are the ones held up as being "ideal", even though they're complete fakes. The actual models don't even look like that.

I've often thought that we fool ourselves when we talk about losing weight "for our health". It's the "acceptable" reason to want to lose weight because, while our culture puts its stock in appearance, we all know that's a shallow value. And so we pretend not to care so much about it. Yet, even though our health may be affected by our weight, we don't usually look to health improvement as a measure of our success. We look at numbers on the scale, measuring tape around our middles, clothes sizes and what we see in the mirror. When our health does improve, we often think we're still failing because we haven't "lost enough" weight, which is usually defined by how we look.

This post rambles a bit, because it's kind of my random thoughts on various aspects of the subject. I've been facing issues that may or may not be weight-related, so I've been exploring in my mind my attitudes towards food, weight, appearance, health and all of that stuff. I really don't have any conclusions, but it's important to me to figure this out. I was just told that my favorite aunt died last night. She had complications of diabetes and she's the one I seem to take after the most, genetically. I don't have symptoms, but she didn't either--until she was in her 60s. I see a potentially ticking time bomb, even though I've lived a generally healthier lifestyle than she did. And the diabetes is not in a direct line (parent or sibling) to me, but my grandfather had it, so the possibility is there.

Lest this seem like my aunt's death is about me, it's not. I don't grieve in public. And my grief isn't the topic of this post. I will miss her very much. She was the one I talked cooking with. And she was the musical one. We had a lot in common. But I don't want to follow her into an early grave. I hope that doesn't make me seem cold. It's just that I'm not done with life, yet.

Doomed!

Apparently I'm doomed to write in spurts. I have time here and there, but not consistently. Part of that is the nature of both my job and my main hobby. When it's concert time, I have no time. When it's not, I have a bit of time. So, that's something I have to deal with in terms of all of the things I want to do in my life. And this week is a concert week at work. But I hate to skip so much time between posts because when I do that, the few people who care about this blog stop reading because it wastes their time to come here and not have a new post. A dilemma that most bloggers face in some form or other. I'm going to keep trying to post more regularly, though. I enjoy doing it.

I'm gradually getting the house more in shape. As soon as my husband and I get over the cold we both caught, I'm going to unpack the books onto our bookshelves. We've known that getting our stuff out of boxes has to be a priority because looking for stuff is a real time-waster. So, I decided that's my priority around the house and my deadline is when school starts next quarter.

So, I'm mainly working and unpacking these days. Writing and school are still on hold, mainly because the furniture we needed was on back order until after the busy holiday season started. Playing catch up, as usual. It's back to that baby step thing. I have to keep up with it by doing a little bit when I have a few minutes. Those minutes add up. I think my personality gets in my own way, but I also think I can learn to work with it.

Baby Steps

The term "baby steps" has been bugging me lately. I think it's because it's absolutely everywhere. The concept is a good one. Break large tasks, projects, and so on into chunks you can easily manage. But "baby steps"? Can't we figure out some grownup thing to call it?

Probably not. It seems that if we call it something grownup, it will end up sounding like work. "Work?"-choke, as Maynard G. Krebs used to say. (OK--how many of you know who that guy is? lol He was a character on a very old TV show, Dobie Gillis. The guy, Bob Denver, who eventually became super-famous for being Gilligan on Gilligan's Island played the character. I was too young to watch it, but I got to see the reruns when Nickelodeon started running really old TV shows. Great show!!)

Back to "baby steps". I can't think of a better term for it. I'm thinking that my problem with it isn't really what it's called, but that I don't seem to be able to do it. My brain sees the whole project and wants to get there--NOW!! I can break things down into little chunks, but I can't seem to do "today's chunk" and be happy with that. I want to do all the rest of them, too. Thus, my problem with doing habit-changing projects. Their nature is "baby steps" because they don't have a time when they're "done".

Our houses will always have something that needs cleaning. We will always have to exercise. We will always have to make food choices. We will always have to deal with that kind of thing, whatever our particular thing is. And the nature of that bugs me. I like being "done".

Life doesn't work that way. Many projects are never done. So, it's something I have to deal with. And many projects don't get done fast. Many, like writing a novel, making a movie, writing a symphony, and so on, by their nature, take months or even years of small steps to complete. But we can finish the small steps. If I plan to polish my sink, as the Fly Lady suggests for her first day's baby step, and I do it, I've finished something and it doesn't matter if I didn't do other things that weren't one of today's baby steps.

It's so easy to only see what didn't get done and not realize what did. We're all too prone to beating ourselves up because we didn't blah, blah, blah. But do we give ourselves credit for what we did get done? Rarely. That's why most systems of habit-changing suggest we reward ourselves. Or at the very least, pat ourselves on the back. Notice when we do what we want to do, instead of whatever thing we used to do that got us in the mess we're in. Paying attention to the good stuff, instead of the bad stuff is a powerful tool to help us make changes in our lives.

One of my new baby steps is to note in my journal when I do those baby steps. And to stop complaining when I don't do them. I think good planning is the key to being able to do what I want to do. And paying attention to when I follow the plan will make me more likely to keep doing it. I tend to get too hard on myself, like a lot of people do.

Anyway, baby steps, for lack of a better term, do work. If I don't plan more than I can reasonably expect to do and pay attention to the successes, I should make progress. And progress is all anyone can hope for. None of us can ever be perfect and trying to achieve some mental picture of perfection guarantees failure.

More about the Fly Lady & Other Stuff

The emails from the Fly Lady are mostly working now. So I'm getting a better handle on how the system works. It was bothering me that I haven't been doing it much. Then I got some that I couldn't do because they were already done. YAY! I realized that I was letting that perfectionism she talks about get to me. After all, I cannot do some of the things because of circumstances beyond my control.

For example, I can get rid of the paper that needs recycling or shredding. Bag it up and dump it down the recycle chute. But I cannot file or put away paper because the filing cabinets that are the legs for my desk, and part of the desktops, won't be here until Tuesday. I need to be happy with what I can do. And the house actually looks pretty good, in terms of cleanliness.

I have piles of books hanging out on my dining room table and in a box and one pile on the floor. It sounds like a lot, but I had to take them out of my small bookcases so I could move them. Then I had to do other things in my life, so they're hanging out for a few days. I'll use Fly Lady's slogan--You can do anything in 15 minutes. Set a timer and get it put away.

Next week, after our computer table gets here and we get it set up, we'll measure the walls and head to Ikea for bookcases. I can actually imagine a day when I don't have boxes lining my walls. YAY!

In other news--we're hitting the busiest concert season of the year. I already did one concert. We have three more, plus I have an additional concert, in the next two weeks. Along with that, we have two more to attend. Plus Christmas Eve service to sing at church. It sounds hectic, and it is. But it's also fun and January can be a bit of a letdown.

I finished off the last of the turkey today. I made a pasta dish with a white sauce. It didn't resemble any of the Turkey Tetrazzini recipes that seem to be in every food magazine after Thanksgiving every year. It was good. I can't give you the recipe, though, and I'll never make it again. It was one of those recipes created by tossing in everything that needed to be cooked or it was going to have to be trashed. I had a great time in the kitchen.

November

I was shocked at how few posts I've done this month. I expected to keep up, since I started building the habit of posting again. But I haven't been home. I'm on a forensic science list for writers and I have over 40 digests I haven't read yet. It's an active group and regularly has at least two digests daily, so it's not 40 days worth, thankfully. So, I guess I need to catch up for those who actually come here every so often and read this little blog.

NaNo is halfway a bust. It's a bust because I'm not going to finish it. It's not a bust because I discovered I have little bits of time in which I can write. I also discovered that I really didn't want to start a new novel. I really want to finish the one I'm in the middle of. I started NaNo with a different novel because the rules are that you have to do something new. I decided to put my effort where my muse wants to go--on 50 Ways.

It's not happening soon, though. We've had a small inheritance and have been using some of it for things we desperately needed to replace--old, worn out things or things that disappeared or were ruined while we lived at my mom's. The biggie is our Mazda 3 5-door, to replace our over 20-year-old Oldsmobile. We couldn't justify putting more money into the Olds, which was just wearing out. We love the Mazda. So far, we haven't found anything we want to carry that won't fit in it. It handles all the driving we normally do. And it gets decent mileage. Besides that, it's a really pretty dark blue, with a hint of green, and a metallic undercoat so it's nice and SHINY in the sun. What more could you ask for in a car?

Our computer desk and filing cabinets are trickling in. Some of it was backordered, so was shipped separately. Currently, we have one proper cabinet and 2 boxes topped by some of my cookbooks holding up the desktop. It gets the desktop computer off the dining room table. I still have to use the laptop there, but that's easy to move so we can eat. The rest of the modular system is en route. It shipped last weekend and I expect the holiday weekend to extend the waiting time by a day or two.

Our TV died the other day. We can live without a TV. But we'd planned to get a new one for Christmas. We knew it was going, but were hoping to replace it a bit later than this. We dithered around about it and finally decided to go ahead. We ended up with the same TV our oldest son has. He's trying to talk us into buying a Playstation 3, so we can play Blu-ray discs and I can start collecting Final Fantasy video games. It's a video game series we both enjoy. That's not happening. If so much of our stuff didn't need replacing, maybe we could justify spending the extra money. But we have to be mostly practical.

We had to replace our waterbed. It was not going to survive one more move. Then my youngest son used some of the wood for shelves, which sealed its fate. Our current bed is gradually getting off the floor. We'd started with an Aerobed. Then the box springs came and we had the aerobed on top of the box springs. The mattress got here about a week ago. So, we crushed the Aerobed and have the mattress and box springs. The bed itself is on backorder. It's supposed to be shipped on or before Dec. 10. So, maybe by Christmas we'll have a whole bed.

We found a small pantry online. We're planning to move as much of the food that's in our built-in pantry into it. Then we can use the built-in pantry for large pans, small appliances, and large bowls. All the stuff that doesn't fit in the regular kitchen cupboards. Then my kitchen will me much easier to keep clean. It will never be a convenient kitchen. A lot of the shelves need a step stool to reach and a lot are deep, so you have to move stuff to get to other stuff. I try to put the stuff I don't use as much in the back, but nothing is never used, so I expect to be moving stuff a lot.

I have almost all my bathroom stuff unpacked. This apartment has a good-sized bathroom with a decent amount of storage. I love that. I also love not feeling cramped in there.

So, that leaves the rest of the books, music, keepsakes, projects, photos, and misc. stuff that doesn't have a home yet. I expect a trip to Ikea for bookcases and a trip to the storage place for appropriate storage containers will take care of that. Maybe I can meet my goal of having all the boxes unpacked by Christmas. It's costing us a fortune. I expect mainly it seems that way because we had to pretty much start from scratch, like 20-year-old newlyweds or something. At that age, you'd have hand-me-downs from the family and accumulate a lot of this stuff the way we originally did--gradually. But at our age, there are no family hand-me-downs. We already handed them down to our kids.

OK--so, along with doing all the unpacking and shopping for stuff so I can unpack, and working at my job, I've been doing a ton of music. Plus some volunteer work. That's why I haven't been home so I could write posts.

We've done the first of our concerts since fall rehearsals started. Ladyesong had a great concert of works by local composers. Man, these people write wonderful music. But challenging! And totally fun.

We had the first of three Thanksgiving dinners at my church last Saturday. Two of us cooked turkeys, stuffing, and gravy. The third woman in our group took care of table decorations. We shared the shopping chores. A bunch of other people helped with set up and clean up. The guests brought the rest of the food. It was terrific, fun, and a lot of work. We're already discussing next year.

Tomorrow my youngest son, husband and I have been invited to a friend's for dinner. I'm bringing the cranberry relish. My friend moved to a new place a bit before we did. I'm looking forward to seeing it.

Saturday, my family is coming to my house for Thanksgiving dinner number three. My married son is at his in-law's tomorrow. So we decided to take a day between turkey dinners and do our family holiday Saturday. My fridge is stuffed. I wish I had a bigger fridge, but it's an improvement over the ones they used to put in apartments. And I have a gas stove. It's wonderful to cook on. I'm looking forward to cooking my family's favorites, since I haven't really been able to do that for a few years. They all requested apple pie. It's wonderful to be able to make the apple pie and NOT feel forced to make pumpkin, too, just because you're "supposed to" have pumpkin. No one really likes pumpkin that much and no one wants two desserts, anyway.

Next week is my birthday. My hubby gave me a budget and I spent most of it on replacing my food processor (one of the casualties of the leaky, damp storage shed where my stuff was for the almost 4 years we lived at my mother's), and got the mini-prep Cuisanart for free, thanks to a coupon at the store where I bought it. I bought several expensive cookbooks I've been eying. There's one I'm still searching for. I could buy it online, but I'm in bookstores often enough. I'll run across it, eventually. Then he's taking me out to dinner at one of my favorite restaurants on my birthday. It's special because I went for all that time not really cooking at all. It's a super treat to rebuild a decent kitchen and cook the good, healthy food I love to make.

I haven't forgotten the Fly Lady, either. I've talked about her emails. She's had trouble with the software not sending them consistently. It seems to be fixed. Anyway, I'm reading them and seeing how it works. I've also noticed that as I get useable storage and get my stuff unpacked, it's easier to keep the clutter down. When I get the filing cabinets and actually have a place to put all that paper, maybe I can keep it under control. I didn't have that problem when I had my big rolltop desk with places to put everything.

The Fly Lady's thing is to start with a shiny sink. I think it's kind of ironic that tonight everything in my kitchen shines except the sink. I had too many dishes for the dishwasher, so it will get cleaned tomorrow. I'm not staying up late to do another load of dishes and I'm not stacking dirty dishes on my clean counters, so I can shine my sink.

NaNo--Days 3: 162 & 6: 375

My current total is a mere 1,421. I didn't write Sunday or yesterday, but I plan to write more words after Dr. Who and Torchwood. I know. I should write now, but Dr. Who is a two-parter and I just have to know how it turns out. After Dr. Who I have to cut up all the veggies for salads. Cutting them after I go to the store makes it simpler to make salads for lunch and dinner.

That chore is done and I have about 15 minutes, which I'm going to use to write a bit. But that will have to do for today. I'll have more time tomorrow. Today was emergency errand day because we didn't have time to go grocery shopping and do errands for about a week and a half. A quick trip to the local Safeway to pick up a few things was not going to be enough.

As you can see, I did manage 375 words today for a new total of 1796. Not bad, considering how swamped it's been. I'll need a marathon to catch up, I bet, but the next FM marathon will be when I'm cooking Thanksgiving turkey for our church dinner. I guess I'll have to do my own marathon, on those mythical two days when I don't have a lot to do.

I knew going in that I have a busy month. I'll keep chipping away at that word count and maybe I'll manage it. If not, I will have accomplished two things-whatever words I get on a story I'm having a lot of fun with. And established some kind of writing routine, which I want to continue after NaNo.

NaNo--Day 2: 498

So, yesterday I was not home. I managed 498. I figure every word I get before next week is a winner, since November 1-4 were not going to have long writing sessions, no matter what I did. I knew before I started NaNo that they'd be busy days. I'm going to try to get some words in before we leave for the weekend. And some when we get back. I'm not taking my computer, so I won't be posting any word counts until Sunday or Monday. Anyway, the story is going well. The writing stinks, but there's stuff to work with in revising, should I like this enough to do something with it after NaNo is over.

NaNo--Day 1: 761

My first day's NaNo count is: 761. Yeah, it's not the magic 1667, but I had a ton of stuff to do yesterday and wasn't home. I will be writing this morning. If my son doesn't need a ride to take care of paperwork for his new job, I'll write this afternoon, too. Tonight, my other son needs a ride to do an errand and we have an errand to run, too, so no writing after dinner.

(Funny how our children, neither of whom has a driver's license yet, suddenly need rides. Ya think it has anything to do with our spiffy new vehicle?)

I'm going to be out-of-town this weekend and I'm not taking the laptop. I don't expect to have time to write. I'll do my best to do a bit more on the days I can write in order to make up for the days I can't. Like next Sunday, when I have a concert. And Saturday the 17th when I'm cooking for the church Thanksgiving feast. And whatever day I end up doing the family Thanksgiving. It looks like I'm going to need 2053 words a day on the days I can write in order to make 50K.

My current plan on work days, since most of what I'm doing is pretty tedious computer input stuff, is alternate the two things. Use the work time to plot the novel, write a bit, then go back to the work stuff. We'll see how it goes.

So far, it's going great. I figured out what my protagonist wants more than anything. It's cool to see story developing where I had a void for a whole month.

Re: my Halloween Hangman link:

In the comments, Kristy Shreve Powers noted that it's a great NaNo procrastinator. Yeah, it is. I have another of those, if anyone wants to do a bit of charity and procrastinate on their NaNo novel: Free Rice. It's a vocabulary quiz, which someone posted on Forward Motion. For every word you get right, they donate one grain of rice, through a UN food program. You can rack up a lot of rice in a short time. Anyway, it's a cool way to while away some time, learn some new words, do some good, and have fun. Cool beans -- uh--maybe I should say--cool rice!

Halloween Fun

I know Halloween is almost over for this year, but I couldn't resist sharing this bit of addictive fun.



Set a timer. It's easy to keep going and going and going...

Cooking and Life

Last Sunday Paul and I had a new experience. Our church has a cadre of volunteers that cooks at the San Jose Family Shelter several times a year. The shelter looks for volunteers to cook on the weekends when the regular staff is off duty. Our head chef, Andrea, is a super-organized lady, which is why it all works. Someone joked that she's a slave driver, but she isn't. She doesn't need to be because she posts a list of what has to be done and the time schedule, so it's easy for us to choose the next most important task and get it done.

After we madly slice, dice, and cook, we serve the food to the families. It's a lot of fun. I see I'm going to have to get coached to revive my high school Spanish. I could almost, but not quite, remember how to ask the Hispanic people what they wanted. Then we get to eat. However, we had more people than they ever had before and we ran out of chicken. Everyone got some, but we ended up trying small bits of what was left and eating later. Andrea brings good recipies.

It was a fun day and we're all signed up for the next one. Our church's turn comes up about four times a year. It's yet another way I can thank God for one of the gifts he's given me, since cooking is one of my greatest pleasures. And it's much more fun and rewarding to cook for other people, no matter who they are--friends, family, or strangers.

In a couple of weeks, I get to do more cooking. Our church hosts a Thanksgiving dinner a week before Thanksgiving. Three of us are gathering to cook the turkeys and dressing. Everyone is bringing the sides as pot luck. We did this last year for the first time and it was a blast. We decided to make it an annual event.

In other parts of my life--before we do the Thanksgiving dinner, my women's group, Ladyesong, is singing our fall concert. It's called "California Connections" and all of the music has been composed by California composers. Some of them will be attending the concert. We're also having Dan Levitan playing the harp and Michael Touchi on flute. It's going to be a good concert. And I get to cook some more. I'm bringing 2 dozen cookies for the reception afterward. I think I'm going to make these to-die-for fudgy chocolate cookies that are rolled in powdered sugar before you bake them. If anyone living in or near the SF Bay Area is interested, the concert is November 11 at 7 pm at Prince of Peace Lutheran Church in Saratoga. And it's free. The Thanksgiving dinner I mentioned is also at Prince of Peace on November 17. I don't remember the time, so I'll have to post that later.

Paul and I got a new car yesterday. We retired the old brown Olds and got a Phantom Blue Mica Mazda 3 5-door hatchback. We got a good deal because I fell in love with this color that no one wants. It's a beautiful dark blue green with a metallic undercoat, but it looks really green and kind of ugly on the Mazda web site. When I saw it in the dealer, it looked totally different and really pretty.

We decided to get a new car since, we were looking at putting at least 5 grand into repairs on the Olds and that's way more than the car was worth. The dealer gave us 50 bucks to take it off our hands. lol If only we could have gotten it to fail the California smog test. Then we could have sold it to the state, as part of their gross polluter program, for one thousand dollars.

Paul's phone interview last week went well. The interviewer wants him to come in for an in-person interview. We're waiting to hear the details for that from HR. We hope that will happen soon and that he gets this job. He'd really like the work and it's a good fit for his skills. We're also, of course, hoping it pays enough to cover the bills. A lot of technician jobs these days don't, just because housing is so expensive here. I guess almost everyone who lives in California complains about the cost of housing.

We'd be willing to move to a cheaper location, if companies would give him a chance, but he rarely gets interviews when he applies out of the area. The couple of job offers he's had over the years wanted him to start at entry-level jobs and pay, even though he had 20 or more years of experience. What's up with that? I can't believe they really think someone with that kind of experience would move hundreds of miles to take the bottom job in his field.

On the whole, though, things are looking up here. And I'm hoping for a bit of stability, at least for a while. I really, really like our new apartment and the money we saved on the car is paying for a bed and computer table and filing cabinets and other furniture we need so we're not sleeping on the floor and can unpack the rest of our stuff. It would be a great Christmas present to me if I could have an apartment not decorated with boxes lining every available wall, and half of the main closet.

Habits

Since I subscribed to the Fly Lady emails, I've been a lot more aware of habits. I've started to notice the domino effect of the habits in my life. The effective habits I have make other things much easier. The ineffective habits do the opposite. That seems like a no-brainer, especiall if you're one of the naturally organized folks. What Fly Lady, with her baby steps, is trying to get us to do is change one ineffective habit at a time into an effective habit. Effective habits have their domino effect, too. I think it's easier to make the changes when you really see how it all fits together. Having a positive domino effect is great motivation to change one habit. And move on from there.

I decided to go back to school and finish that web development degree I started before we moved to Salinas. I pulled the information from their web site and now I have to decide what to take. I also want to work on general drawing and design skills. What I love is designing web sites, but I'm not a skilled artist. I do fine with page layout, but I really want to create the graphics I'm using, as well. So, I'm planning to take classes that aren't required, but will help me reach my personal goals. Since I only have one or two GE classes left to take, I have room in my schedule to take classes that will improve the skills I'm weak in. But, if I'm going to continue to do the things I'm doing now--work, sing in my ensembles, take care of the stuff everyone has to do--I need to build better habits. I have the holiday season and NaNo month in which to do it before school starts. That's a good motivation for me. Heck, I to build effective habits just to get through NaNo and the holidays.

I've often tried to create effective habits, and have succeeded in some areas. But I've never before really understood the relationship doing one thing has on everything else. I always thought I had to change everything all at once or I'd be stuck with things the way they are. But I don't. I only need to change one thing. After I see what effect making that change has, I'll be able to see where I'm being ineffective and choose what the next one change should be. I may not make changes in the same order as the Fly Lady suggests, but that's not the important thing. What's important is that I develop habits that make the life I'm leading work for me in a way that's less stressful than it is now.

A Quick Post on NaNo

I'm not preparing anything other than a character and the essence of who she is for NaNo. It's not that I don't want to know more, it's that every time I try to do background stuff, what comes out is story. Writing story before November 1 is against the rules. My husband says I should just wait for NaNo and start writing.

That's a scary proposal for me because I've tried to write about this character before. She's really interesting to me. But I got stuck because I cannot figure out what the main problem she's facing is. I feel like I ought to have that, at least, before I start writing. But it's not happening.

I suspect what I'll end up doing is follow her around her normal day and see what happens. Something interesting is bound to happen because my imagination hates being bored. Start with the alarm clock going off and soon she'll be up to her neck in trouble, or at least talking to someone else up to his neck in trouble--and she'll want to help.

We'll see what happens when NaNo gets here. I'm determined to do something with it.

Fusion Food

Sometimes fusion food is nothing more than a technique borrowed from one cuisine used to create a dish using ingredients from another. Take my last night's "Fried Rice". It's just a veggie sauté with rice added in. I needed a simple dish to go with baked trout. Here's what I came up with:

Veggie Fried Rice

Toasted nuts
Olive oil
Frozen veggies--thawed and drained well
1-2 slices cooked bacon--diced
Garlic
Shallots or onion
Cooked rice
salt & pepper

The amounts you need will depend on how many veggies you're cooking. Heat olive oil in a large skillet. Add veggies and onion. Sauté until the veggies are almost done. Add the garlic and bacon. Sauté a minute or so. Add rice. If your pan isn't nonstick--the rice will stick a little no matter how much oil you use, however, adding a bit more oil before adding the rice helps keep sticking to a minimum. Sauté to heat the rice through. Stir in the toasted nuts. Season with salt and pepper, to taste.

Note: This is one of those basic technique recipes you can use to create a lot of different dishes. Different vegetable combinations would go with different combinations of herbs and spices. You could melt in some grated cheese right before you serve it. I'd recommend adding the salt after the cheese, since cheese can be salty, so your dish could end up too salty if you do the salt before the cheese. You could use fresh veggies and prepare them the way you would for a stir-fry. After all, a stir-fry is simply the Asian version of the French sauté.

Mangia!

Changes

I had an interesting revelation this week while reading the emails from the Fly Lady site. I thought I was adaptable and accepted the inevitability of change, a "go with the flow" person. I realized that I do expect change and I am "go with the flow", but only in certain situations, those I'm fairly comfortable with or have faced successfully before. Or those I have no control over.

What I also realized is that I'm spontaneous, so I don't cling to my routines so much that I end up with a boring life with no fun in it. I realized that I'm a good problem-solver, so I often can come up with good solutions to the problems that arise in life. But when those solutions mean I have to make drastic changes, I resist. Changing makes me feel uncomfortable, as it does for most people.

I realized that one of the important things in dealing with this quirk is knowing why I'm uncomfortable in a situation. I need to know that the benefits that result from my being uncomfortable, but doing it anyway, are something I really want. I need to know that the discomfort will only last until the new thing becomes the comfortable old friend our habits eventually become. If I have those things, I can live with the discomfort and change my habits.

I also remembered that I need to take time to understand what I'm supposed to do before I actually start doing it. So, I'm not being ornery in not doing what's in the emails from day one. I'm being myself. I plan to start doing day one next week, after I understand the first week. I think I'm more likely to be successful if I use my natural approach, rather than push myself to act totally against my personality.