31 March 2010

Tuesday

It was a great day for the diet and I got in a couple of 30 minute plus walks to boot. Very much a net loss kind of day. Only fail was a sore heal as a result of trying to remove a callous the night before doing all that walking.

I did have a latte at Starbucks... no more. At least not for awhile. I need to get back on my budget wagon pronto which means cutting my visits to the two tailed mermaid down to once a week. So I am officially declaring myself baned till after next Tuesday. Gosh, I hope they don't go out of business.

I feel like I am running a little behind at work. Got to get on top of it today.

30 March 2010

Monday

Wins:

  • At work did a fairly decent job of facing unpleasant stuff head on and getting the worst stuff out of the way first
  • Stuck to my diet, yet had breakfast, lunch, and dinner
  • Treated myself to a latte at lunch
  • Got some walking in as part of my commute
  • Updated my checkbook
  • Got my Starbucks Gold Card
What can I say, it was a good day for a Monday.

29 March 2010

Sunday

Sunday was my day to do stuff and I was not completely unsuccessful. I woke up, had coffee and bagel with a friend. I hooked up with some other folks to to go see the early show of How to Train Your Dragon which I give a thumbs up. For me it there was a slow spot towards the end of the second act, where I caught myself wondering when the third act was ever going to start, but the movie redeemed itself by the end. It's always a good sign when there is a smattering of applause at the end of the movie. Visually the textures used in the animation seemed different that what I have seen before, more real? It's hard to describe but it did work in the movie's favor.

Post-movie I headed back to the house did laundry and cleaned. The usually weekend stuff, strip the beds, wash the linens, remake the bed, vacuum the house, mop the kitchen, scrub the bathroom it all its multi-surface glory, wash any remaining laundry and put away; balance the checkbook, reconcile bank statements, open and pay any bills that I had missed during the week; enter any transactions I had forgotten about; take a nap; and watch a foreign film, in this case Reprise which I just didn't get. The characters were not compelling and there was not much of a detectable story. It's shame because I really wanted to like it.

Didn't feel very good Sunday, mostly from having slept like crap on Saturday night. I tried unsuccessfully to take a nap, but my nerves were too jangly. I felt hot and feverish, which probably didn't help my liking of Reprise. I blew my diet to hell with judicious application of Ben and Jerry's Cheesecake Flavored Ice Cream, but damn it, it did make me feel a bit better. Today is a new day however, and it's back on the diet wagon for me.

28 March 2010

Thursday, Friday, Saturday

Gap alert. I hate it when I get behind. Nothing much happened Thursday or Friday, I woke up, took the bus to work, work, took the bus home, cooked dinner, watched a little TV, washed dishes, slept, and repeated. Some unexpected work stuff came up Friday, but nothing insurmountable.

Thursday I went with the guys to lunch at La Botana, a local Mexican restaurant and managed to a) not eat any of the chips and salsa b) find something to order that fit into my diet. (chicken tacos, no cheese)

For lunch Friday I took a long walk (2 miles) to Chick-Fil-A to grab a sandwich, then stopped by a nearby Starbucks to have a coffee intending to sit and write for awhile, unfortunately time ran a little short and it was grab and go.

Saturday I had a very enjoyable breakfast with friends at the corner cafe, did my weekly shopping at Trader Joe's, came home, put things away, and then went over to a friend's house to hold a ladder. A raccoon that had been living in his walls managed to die in his walls, a contractor came and found the critter by cutting holes in the walls and ceiling. Repairing the holes was not included in the corpse removal fee which explains why my buddy is fifteen feet up in the air trying to patch his ceiling and needed me to hold the ladder.

I got home in the early evening, had a frozen protein smoothie and went for about a 3 mile walk through the village. I sat on the front steps for a bit as I watched the sun go down, went inside, made a salad and some salmon wraps, watched a bit of Angel, then tottered off to bed for what turned out to be a pretty restless nights sleep, listening for critters in my attic and a couple of other things on my mind. I woke up early and decided it was a good as time as any to update my blog.

25 March 2010

Wednesday

Logging every little calorie you eat is no easy task. I was plotting what I was going to have for dinner last night by taking items of the fridge and putting them on the counter when thanks to my iPhone and Livestrong app I realized I was about to overdraw my calorie account. My overeating came to a screeching halt. And you know, I managed to eat a smaller meal than I planned and was just fine with it. Eventually.

24 March 2010

Tuesday

I've been sticking to my diet for several days now. Today I started tracking my food using my iPhone and the LiveStrong App, we'll see how that goes. Counting calories makes me very conscious of how much I eat, which is why I don't like to do it, I know it works.

So why the getting serious again about getting more exercise and losing the extra pounds?

  • Getting back to my goal weight is #4 on my list of New Year's Resolutions.
  • I need to buy more pants or fit into the ones I already have.
  • I am working on a personal program for healthy living.
  • And I have been thinking more and more about resolution #1.

23 March 2010

Monday

Monday was a pretty good day, a bit of a blur, but a pretty good day from what I can remember. Mostly it was commute, Starbuck's, work, work, work, commute, diner, part of a movie, bed. It snowed (at least a couple of big wet flakes on the way to work) and rained on the way home. I stuck to my diet, mostly. Need to figure out what to do about lunches. I sort of decided that I just wouldn't eat them this week. Probably not the finest plan I ever came up with. Flies in the face of both science and common sense.

I need to start working out, but sitting here in the cold at 4:37am drinking a nice cup of coffee, I am just so not motivated to get down on the floor and start doing crunches. I think I am going to have to work up a little motivation before getting started on an exercise routine. Although even just the walking that I have been working in on my commute has been making a difference.

22 March 2010

Thinking

Of what once was
And what isn't... yet

Sent from my iPhone

Monday

Finishing up a latte at SBUX and pondering life. I had a good weekend and so far some of that momentum has carried into the week. Now the challange is to carry that momentum into work as well. It really shouldn't be that complicated. Work hard, do the nexy right thing, get to what I can get to, and get to the rest tomorrow. Today I am going to eat right and take care of myself. I will try to do right by others. Seems simple.

Sent from my iPhone

Sunday Day 80 2010

Coffee and then breakfast the Pot and Pan. There I forgot to check in on Foursquare. Afterwards I went to see Green Zone @ Phipps with Vick and a couple of new acquaintances, Fallon and Nathan, who are here in town attending managerial training for Teavana. After the movie Fallon and Nathan took us to see the Teavana store in Phipps. They have some pretty delicious tea's there, but my first love I think will remain SBUX's for the time being.

Green Zone was not bad for a war movie, technically it was great, Matt Damon is a solid action star. The shaky cam eventually became a bit much as did all of the extremely dim night shots. The story was relevant and topical. Everything was nice and tight. But I didn't really like the movie. I was hoping more Borne Identity and less Big Red One. It could be that I don't like war movies or just Iraq fatigue on my part. I am sick of being at war/fighting in both Iraq and Afghanistan. A movie is going to have to be pretty compelling to cut through my natural dislike, and this wasn't that movie. I was also vaguely annoyed because the trailer I saw in the theater didn't seem to match up with the movie I saw very well.

So post movie I headed home and proceed with the mundane tasks that I actually kind of like. I finished doing the laundry, got it folded and put away, I vacuumed the house, scooped the litter, made a smoothie for lunch and later heated up a can of black bean soup and made a spinach salad for dinner. I had just finished eating and was debating if I wanted to try to get anything else done when I heard a noise indicating that I had caught another squirrel in the attic. I turned out that it was not much more than a baby. Not so small that I felt bad about driving it cross down and setting it free somewhere else, but pretty darn small. It was pretty hysterical at being trapped in a cage and kept making this ear-splitting whistle which I guess was some sort of distress call. I kept looking over my shoulder as I climbed out of the attic for mommy squirrel and and company.

Out of consideration for the squirrel's feelings I didn't make it wait overnight for release, I got in the car and drove it across town and released it in a school parking lot. I got caught in some serious rain showers driving back home, saw some really interesting skies as the sun was going down, stopped at Trader Joe's, headed home and called it a night.

20 March 2010

Saturday Day 79 2010

It's been a nice day. Coffee with my peeps always starts the day right. I hit up Trader Joe's to lay in some provisions for the week, stopped at the Goodwill Store to make some donations and take a quick look through the store, then headed home. At home I made a power fruit smoothie for breakfast, it's been a long time since I've made one and I have no idea why it has been so long. I really love them. I think I will get back to making them a regular thing.

I spent the better part of the day cleaning up the kitchen and trying to organize the stuff in the "spare room" so the spare room is more of a spare room and less of a catchall for everything that doesn't have a place. I threw some stuff out and put some more stuff in the car to drop off at Goodwill. I worked at it for a good five hours before deciding that enough was enough. I walked for a couple of miles around the village, then came home, made a salad and heated up a can of soup. As I was making the salad I realized that I had forgotten the dressing and didn't have any in the house. The funny thing is between the humas, feta cheese, and black olives the salad didn't actually need dressing.

While I ate I sat and watched the first couple of episodes of Nurse Jackie.

While I was busy cleaning the neighborhood cats kept coming around and peering into the window, much to the consternation of my cat. I thought this photo was interesting with my cat named Shadow on the inside and the light colored cat named God knows what on the outside.

I did meet someone today I thought was quite interesting that I really should have invited out for coffee and shame on me for not doing it. It caught me a little off guard and let's face it, I am a little out of practice.

Friday - Day 78

Sometimes, there just is no time. Was so tired Friday I feel kind out out of it most of the day, but it was an exceptionally lovely almost spring day. I made a point of taking a lengthy walk to Chick-fil-a and stopped at Starbucks for a quick coffee on the way back to the office. It's so funny how it is suddenly Spring as if there was hardly any transition at all between the bitter cold and shirtsleeves weather.

18 March 2010

Starbucks

Taking a moment to sit at Starbucks and contemplate the universe over a latte. Sometimes I wish real change was as easy as thinking about it because I am really good at that part. But we seem to be very
complicated creatures and that step between what we do and what we want to do can be enormous.
I seem to be pretty good at getting it together in one area, but feel challenged when it would be nice to take on a couple of areas at once.What are all these areas of which I speak?
Work: staying on top of current stuff, looking for where I can improve, developing my skills
Social: putting energy into friendships, meeting folks, and gasp, dating
Personal: eating health, exercise, activities, working on my house,
decorating, housekeeping, etc

sent from my iPhone

17 March 2010

Tuesday Day 73 - "filler days"

Wow, Tuesday. Got an early start. Rewarded myself for previous nights squirrel success by stopping by Starbucks on the way to work. I had a busy day at work trying to work the kinks out of  some new processes. I came home, made dinner, and fell asleep on the couch watching NCIS.

As I first looked back on yesterday I was struck by how I didn't put one ounce of energy into any of my hopes and dreams. The day seemed wasted, a filler day between birth and death. I didn't take a half hour to write, I didn't eat particularly healthy, I didn't set down and work on my budget, I didn't do this and I didn't do that. All these things that I didn't do that I need to be doing if I want specific dreams to come true.

But if I go back and look more closely at yesterday, I find there was quite a list of things that I did do. I went to work, worked hard, was focused, and got a lot done, which is no small accomplishment, required a lot of energy, and is a necessary supporting piece of a lot of my hopes and dreams. I took the opportunity to go to lunch with friends because that's important me. I texted a friend while watching NCIS just to say hello. I walked from the train station to work and from work to the train station for the exercise. So on reflection the day was not the complete waste I first thought when I sat down to write about it.

Lately I find myself conscious of what I am doing with my days and how they are numbered. I don't know how many there are, there should be plenty left, more than half, but I do know they are a finite quantity. And the quality of my life is good right now. There will be times when that isn't the case.

So yesterday wasn't just a filler day, but I see room for improvement. What small step will I take today to ensure that today is not just a filler day?

16 March 2010

Monday Day 72 2010



So I come home and check my carefully laid traps. Queue my best evil villain victory laugh, muahaha! I have caught you Mr. Squirrel. Why don't you just sit there while I look up recipes for squirrel stew and tell you my plot to take over the world which is safe for you to know for the few minutes you have left since it is impossible for you to escape my clutches, make your way back to the squirrel army, lead a strike force back to steal my flux capacitors, and destroying me in an emotionally satisfying manner to make the audience happy while leaving a tiny bit of doubt about the finality of my end in case the studio green-lights a sequel in which I come back horribly scared and looking for revenge.

So perhaps it's a bad idea to indulge in elaborate revenge fantasies, particularly ones which involve elaborate mechanical deaths which I don't have time to watch and which you will inevitably escape from.

So  here is the deal. I am going to drive you to a much more expensive zip code and drop you next to a tree that has a nice park view and probably costs more than my entire house all by itself. So let's not have any ill will here Mr. Squirrel. I don't want to worry about squirrel ninjas cutting a hole in the ceiling above my bed and diving on me as I am sleeping with sharpened teeth and claws. If that should happen... let's just say I did bookmark that recipe for squirrel stew.

Sunday Day 71 2010

The day started with a trip by Starbucks to get my passport stamped. Buy one coffee a week and end up with a free pound of coffee. There is a promotion I can get my caffeine habit around. I then met up with a friend to go see Alice in Wonderland. Afterwards I came home and started mucking around in the computer when once again I heard the pitter-patter of little feat above my head.

There is nothing I like less than hearing the pitter-patter of uninvited guests above my head. I've been wondering what was making the pitter-patter and nothing that came to mind has been pleasing. Honestly I was kind of hoping it was squirrels, but I was worried it was rats. So yesterday I hear the pitter-patter again, go up into the attic, and find staring back at me from a across the attic a squirrel who is just standing there looking at me, pretty as you please, "Hi human, I like your house, nice of you to be sharing with me, it's a blustery day outside, I sure do like hanging out in your warm attic!" Well at least it was a squirrel and not some large sewer rat or something.

So I take an existing no-kill trap baiting with month-old peanut butter and stick it down at that end of the attic. I go downstairs and spend the next couple of hours listening to the squirrel scurry around my trap. I cannot stand it anymore, I check the trap. Somehow he's ignored it, not a fan of stale peanut butter I guess. I get in the car and go to Publix to look for tastier squirrel bait or at least a fresh jar of peanut butter. I come home and prepare my bait. I have a trap downstairs which I make ready for battle and I prepare fresh bait for the trap upstairs. I go up the stairs and carefully make my way back to the far reaches of the attic to set my traps. As I get toward the far end where the roof comes down to meet the top of the rafters I am obligated to lay on  my stomach and stretch out to get the traps where I want them. So I am in this position trying to set these darn traps when the insulation in front of me twitches and it takes a few seconds for me to register that insulation does not twitch all by itself. It twitches when there is something under it.

Perhaps a braver man would have lifted up the insulation twelve inches from the tip of his nose and said hello to his house guest. Not me. I figure the last thing I want to be is laying on my belly in the attic twelve inches from an annoyed squirrel looking at him eye to eye. I carefully finished setting baiting and setting my traps and quietly backed away leaving Mr. Squirrel to his nap.

15 March 2010

Alice in Wonderland

Alice in Wonderland was hands down the most enjoyable film that I have seen all year. Tim Burton's world really pulled me into the story which is something that a lot of movies completely fail to do. I also thought it was a film with more meaning and relevance to our times than say... Avatar. A completely shallow movie that seemed to have inspired endless debate among people. On one level Alice in Wonderland was all about growing up, becoming an adult, and acting like an adult, acting like an adult in the sense that you need to accept reality, whatever reality that is, and then make humane, considerate, and even courageous choices. It's about not accepting predefined limitations put on you by yourself or someone else, but finding those limitations for yourself. It's about the courage to try or believe things that you think are impossible. This is something that so completely resonates with me.

On a political level, I too it as a parody of extreme polarizing viewpoints and a call for rationality which seems an ungodly timely message. I don't think the Red Queen or the White Queen present some ideal of government, although the criticism of the White Queen was considerably more subtle and some may say that I am imagining it. But I would make a case that if you just look at how the White Queen and her castle are portrayed visually, you can tell she isn't supposed to be portraying some ideal. Her kingdom looks as forced and unreal as the Red Queen's. Actually the White Queen seems slightly terrifying almost drained of color except for the dark slash of her lips.

Alice is also a feminist movie in it's own way. This Alice is certainly a girl that I would want to present as role model to my daughter. She questions society, stands up for herself, faces reality, makes hard decisions, treats those around her with dignity and respect, and in the end doesn't just accept perceived limitations.

There were one or two things in the movie that didn't work for me. One CGI character shouldn't have been (the Red Queen's consort). The 3D didn't really seem to add that much to the film. Johnny Depp has turned in one of his best performances in years. The animation and characterization of the other fantastical characters was spot on.

And I loved the Cheshire Cat. Smile!

13 March 2010

Saturday Day 70 2010

I started the day with a latte at Starbucks, breakfast with friends at Einsteins, shopped at Trader Joe's, stopped at Lowe's for a padlock and hasp, ran by the gas station to make sure my tires had air, and then headed home. Installed lock on basement/crawlspace door, did most of the laundry, changed the bed linens, and puttered around the house a bit. Watched an episode of Castle and finished an interesting French film Cache. Made an avocado feta spinach salad with poppyseed dressing to go with a couple of turkey burgers wrapped in a flour tortilla shell and topped with cream cheese. I ate too much Greek yogurt and granola for desert.

A little worried tonight about all the things that need doing around the house from the daily chores, to critter proofing, to fixing whatever is going on in the southeast corner with the soffit, and if there is a leak in the roof that is causing the problem or just overflow from the gutter. I'm feeling a bit on edge tonight for whatever reason. Wish I had the house a bit more together and had found some folks to come over and watch 2012 with me.

Time change tonight, have to remember to set my clock forward an hour as I go to bed.

Friday Day 69 2010

One of those very busy days at work when you hit the ground running and sometime later you realize suddenly that your day ended a couple of hours ago and you need to go home. On the plus side, it seemed to be a pretty good day for getting things done.

12 March 2010

Thursday Day 70 2010

Thursday, got an early start, stopped at Starbucks. Work was a day of constant frenetic motion. A lot of energy was spent getting a lot of stuff done, just none was able to be spent on some key projects. Did hit Chipotle up with the gang and discovered that a Five Guys burger joint is moving in next door as a viable if extremely unhealthy lunch choice.

Came home, reheated some sketti, and watched the rest of The Jane Austen Book Club, a cute movie, but one that made me feel bad about having never read Jane Austen.

11 March 2010

Wednesday Day 69 2010

We are 18 percent done with 2010. I am amazed at the ability of time to move both quickly and slowly at the same time. It seems like there has been an awful lot of this year and it's been taking forever to muddle through stuff, on the other hand, there are things that I have not gotten to yet and it seems like I have barely procrastinated at all.

Having nothing to do with the passage of time, I find it amusing that the cat can jump into my lap as I am sitting at my desk typing. I cannot quite work out the physics of how this works. I suspect that several laws of motion are in fact being broken or that cats discovered how to teleport some time ago. Evidently they can read as well, she just looked at what I was typing, gave me an exasperated look, and jumped down, probably to go report me to some cat authority for giving away their secrets.

Wednesday actually started with a couple of setbacks, out of coffee, missing umbrella, missed buses, but things seemed to turn around once I hit Starbucks on the way to work and achieved Cafe Latte. I pushed myself in a couple of areas and the results were positive. I took something personally and then got over it. I found out something I didn't like and will have the opportunity to fix it. I think I learned a few things. Then I came home, made sketti, ate too much, and went to bed. Not the worst day I ever had.

10 March 2010

Tuesday Day 68

So I was almost home, just about a mile from home when some fool side-swiped the bus I was on, not doing anything really other than taking off the driver's mirror. Of course the bus had to be stopped and we had to transfer to the next bus that was running the route. I had left work late anyway, so it was pretty late by the time I got home. Just time enough to make some rice and beans, watch NCIS, and go to sleep.

Not the greatest day ever, but I found things to be grateful for in it. I started the day with a cafe latte, got a lot done at work, saw a couple of pretty girls, got a call from a friend, all good stuff.

09 March 2010

Monday Day 67 2010

What's to be said about a Monday? Got up, took the bus and train to work. Thought about stopping at Starbucks on the way, didn't because I thought I would be able to take a lunch break and get some coffee then, but that didn't happen. Left work late and by the time I got home, had some pasta, and watched an episode of House, the day was over.

08 March 2010

Sunday Day 66 2010

Sunday was a good day. Started with a stop at Starbucks for the sunrise and continued on with friends, breakfast, and going to see the first show of the day of Shutter Island. I thought the movie was good but very long and  definitely lagged in places. It was almost a relief when it was finally over. Afterwards I went over to a friends to help them with some minor tree trimming which didn't take long at all.

I headed back over to my house full of good intentions, but my cold flared up and when I got home I really didn't feel like doing much of anything. I made some lunch, and watched this week's episode of Grey's Anatomy. I puttered about the house for a bit doing minor miscellaneous stuff, nothing terribly productive or useful. I did follow through on something that I said the other day and sat down and wrote for a bit, just for my own pleasure more than anything.

Eventually I gave up on getting anything of substance done with the rest of the day, my face was throbbing and I felt like I had been ridden hard and put up wet. I put on the sweat pants, heated up a can of black bean soup, fired up the DVD player and watched Law Abiding Citizen which was a much more entertaining movie.

07 March 2010

Saturday Day 65 2010

Well my healthy eating resolution lasted as far as breakfast. I ended up meeting 5 friends at the Original Pancake House. I did however eat relatively healthy the rest of the day. I made pretty good use of my Saturday. After breakfast I came home and started organizing. I pulled all the 2009 bills, receipts, and tax forms from my working files and put them in their own box for longer term storage. I sorted through the stuff piled on my desk and managed to process some of it.

I fiddled with Quicken for quite awhile trying to get it to be a little more useful for me. I think I ended up knowing a little bit more about my financial picture. I took some steps in the right direction anyway. I have a lot more that I need to do. The good news is that I am close to having a positive net worth. In the next few months I anticipate being able to move the number from the negative to a positive value. 

I still have a bedroom full of random stuff that does not have a place. I spent sometime going through it finding that there is yet more stuff for the donation pile and the trash pile. I did my laundry, folded it, and stowed it away. I stripped the bed, washed the linens, and remade the bed. I cleaned the kitchen. I watched two cute movies, The Village Barbershop and Waitress. I loved them both. Independent films with plucky heroines that win out in the end are like chicken soup to my soul. The only downside at the moment I don't have a cute and plucky heroine to watch them with.

06 March 2010

Friday Day 64 2010 - Part 2

Friday was a actually a pretty good day and it has been awhile since I have been able to use the word "good" in relation to any day of the week between Monday and Friday.  While I made some progress there are still some large piles waiting for me when I get back to work on Monday. I think that big yellow metal Tonka dump truck was one of my favorite toys when I was a wee lad. Now I have nightmares of a full sized dump truck that backs up to my cube at work and covers my desk in several tons of coffee grounds, egg shells, tin cans, and fish-heads..... just after I've finished shoveling the last load out. Of course this is all complete hyperbole. Most days are at least okay and I've had my share of good days, but Friday was particularly rewarding. I helped someone else in a small way, was useful to a number of people, and made at least a little progress on a number of ongoing issues.

05 March 2010

Friday Day 64 2010 (make time to write)

How did it get to be Friday? The week has rushed past in a blur which given how much I have enjoyed the week, isn't such a bad thing at all.

I wonder how many people are going to get up this morning and go off to work wondering what they would really like to be doing for a living. I have always envied those folks that seemed to know from 5th grade what direction they wanted to go with their lives. I remember being asked that question in 5th grade and being completely unable to choose, there were things about all the classic professions, policemen, fireman, astronaut, doctors, lawyers, writers, and teachers that I thought was pretty cool.

The only occupation that I ever really felt drawn to was that of writer, but I have never had much luck trying my hand at fiction and I don't know how much of that desire was a fantasy of the lifestyle of a writer and how much is actually a love of writing, since as I say, I don't sit down and actually write fiction very often. There is something however that I dearly love about sitting at a keyboard and writing. I love it when my fingers dance across the keyboard and words come out, it feels like magic. If I think back about the things in my life that I am proud of a funny thing comes up. That 25 page term paper I wrote on the use of trains in early 19th century novels. That was a bear of a paper and I hit a home run on that one. So if I had a dream job, I think it would involve writing.

I think part of my problem with trying to write fiction has always been this awful self-criticism that I have always felt when I have tried to write. Everything comes out sounding horrible to me and I frequently stop before I get very far. It's only been relatively recently that I have realized that some of that, perhaps even a lot of that, might not be real or fair criticism. Since coming to that realization and starting to build a little basic self-confidence, I have not really had the opportunity to go back and apply that to writing. It seems like life has been moving a thousand miles an hour for awhile now.

It's only been lately that I have started to realize that waiting for life to smooth out or for there to be more time is a fool's game. Life is an endless banquet which presents an endless number of choices most of which are coming at us simultaneously. Life's choices are not this nice series of linear decisions my brain would prefer. It's more like making a bunch of decisions rapidly and at the same time. It's setting priorities, trying to live by some basic principles, and hoping for the best.

So what do I need to take from all this early morning rumination which probably does not make the least bit of sense to anyone? Probably that I need to set aside some time to write. It' doesn't have to be much, but if there is even a small piece of the dream that I had as a little kid of being a writer then just maybe I should honor that by finding a couple of hours to see if there is anything there. What's the worst than can happen? That I'll end up with a terrible unfinished novel in the back of the file cabinet? That's not such a  bad thing.

Thursday - Day 63 2010

Thursday morning. Didn't sleep particularly well last night, my mind was busy worrying about various things, including coming home and finding the back gate and the door to the basement/crawlspace partially open. I looked around but didn't find anything disturbed. A friend on Facebook described it as the activity of "neighborhood elves." It reminds me that I need to fix up the crawlspace door and get a lock on it, fix the gate and perhaps put a lock on it as well. In fact the entire fence around the back yard needs fixing up.

There is nothing wrong that an infinite amount of time and money will not cure.

04 March 2010

Moments


I need to get better at hitting pause and enjoying the moment. Particularly when things are stressful. What better way to start than actually stopping for a second to drink my latte @ Starbucks instead of drinking it while walking to work. It's only a few minutes out of the day and maybe it will set the right note for the day.

Sent from my iPhone

02 March 2010

Day 60 2010

It was an interesting Monday. It was a bit of a struggle to stay focused and positive, but in the end it worked out.

I stuck to just my morning cups of coffee at home and didn't have any caffeine for the rest of the day. I've had a bad habit lately of supplementing that coffee with even more later on in the day. Evidently it has been a habit because around four in the afternoon yesterday I got really tired, at first I couldn't figure it out, then I made the caffeine connection. It's time to be a little more conscious of my spending. I made a good start yesterday. I was running a couple of tax related errands and was trying to choose between having coffee at Starbucks or getting a real lunch at Chipotle. I was going for the coffee until I asked myself which would be taking better care of myself? Given that I had already skipped breakfast, I thought Chipotle was the next right thing to do. Of course as I ate my burrito I tried to rationalized that I could afford the Starbucks too. Somehow I managed not to pull the wool over my own eyes, and ran to the post office instead.

It's a good thing I didn't waste time going to Starbucks, the post office turned out to be jammed with people and there was just one person working the counter. I think I waited in line for a good 30 to 40 minutes to get my taxes mailed. But my they are done and safely mailed off.

I watched my My Sassy Girl girl last night, the American remake of a hit Korean film. I watched it, enjoyed it, but wouldn't really recommend it.

01 March 2010

Day 59 2010

Rabbit, rabbit

Yesterday was a weird day. Didn't do anything that I had planned which just proves that sometimes the universe has better plans. Spent the day at a friends house eating too much and hanging out with their family and friends. Watched Canada beat the USA in the gold medal game in hockey. The last hockey game I actually watched was when the US beat Russia in Lake Placid. Was that really 30 years ago? I left the house first thing in the morning and didn't return until after 8pm. Good thing I was at least a little productive on Saturday.