Introspection

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2009 Accomplishments

January 29, 2010 in Introspection | 1 comment

I finished my 2009 Accomplishments list before the end of January!  (I’ll have to add that to my 2010 Accomplishments list.)

What struck me about this list is how heavy the home improvement category is.  I mean, it really shouldn’t need its own category!  I spent a great deal of time on this house and it looks like it will continue for much of this year.  That’s ok with me.  I enjoy the process and it’s very important to me to live in a pleasant, orderly environment.  Still, I plan to work on shifting the balance at least a little bit in 2010.

Writing out the list was definitely a valuable exercise.  I already felt like 2009 was a good year for me, but I had no idea that I did all of this!  I am also in the process of writing out my future goals, and I used the Accomplishments list to remind me of things that I am already doing that I want to continue, or which fit into broader goals that I have.

I edited the list a bit for public consumption, and I’m sure it’s quite a bore to anyone but me, but just like the Three Good Things, planning to put it up here on the blog helped motivate me to both start and finish it.  I bolded a few of the most significant accomplishments, but really, 2009 was a year of many Little Things.  Here they are, loosely categorized but otherwise in no particular order:

Personal

  • I did the Three Good Things exercise for about 6 months out of the year
  • Made significant progress in my introspection work (details omitted)
  • Organized and decorated and shopped and cooked for a great Christmas at home
  • I took a fair amount of pictures and got some of them organized into photo albums
  • Did volunteer work for ARI
  • Got a fish
  • I walked the dog regularly when the weather allowed
  • I started getting monthly massages
  • I managed my pain through massage and stress reduction, so that I had almost no pain all year
  • I changed my diet and worked on new habits of shopping and cooking to suit it
  • I started listening to music again
  • I started listening to LP and DH podcasts
  • I lost 8 pounds (and gained them back)
  • I showered about 75% of the time
  • I found an inexpensive hairdresser
  • I joined a book club
  • I read a few books in the Great Books Series, Ten Years of Reading project.
  • I read many books
  • I went to the Smithsonian Air and Space Museum
  • I went to the Reston Zoo
  • I went to Mt. Vernon
  • I started practicing the piano again
  • Adam and I decided to have another baby
  • I got pregnant
  • I grieved a lost pregnancy
  • I hosted a party for the first time since 1999
  • I visited North Carolina
  • I visited Florida
  • I visited NYC
  • I took a lot of videos of Sam
  • I attended a talk by John Allison at The Ayn Rand Center
  • I found a dentist
  • I watched the entire Battlestar Galactica series
  • I kept in touch with my friends
  • Started using Skype with a few friends
  • I hosted at least 23 different guests at my house
  • I hosted a couple of playdates and took Sam out for a few.
  • I attended a Tea Party protest
  • Visited the Jefferson Memorial
  • Visited the Smithsonian
  • I found a dermatologist
  • I graded essays for ARI
  • I celebrated my 7th wedding anniversary

Blog

  • I maintained my blog regularly all year – 554 posts
  • I upgraded and added a few new features to the blog: subscribe to comments, search Objectivist parenting blogs, and Feedburner
  • I more than tripled my blog readership during the year
  • I added advertisements to my blog
  • I made my first money with ads on the blog
  • I hosted the Objectivist Round Up 4 times

Writing

  • I decided to try fiction writing
  • I started my first novel
  • I came up with a few other story ideas

Home Improvement

  • Found a good housecleaner
  • Installed a mirror in the bedroom
  • Created a prioritized list of home improvement projects
  • Got the toilets fixed and put on new toilet seats
  • Got the basement laundry sink fixed
  • Put up all of our art
  • I designed and Adam put together my new, personalized office space with a short desk.
  • Replaced the eat in kitchen light fixture
  • I did a lot of unpacking and throwing away old junk from the previous occupants of this house, and continued the cleaning process
  • Adam and I got rid of all of the cardboard boxes that we had been saving and hauling around for all of our moves.
  • I cleaned the grout in the kitchen (a 2 month project)
  • Had new windows installed
  • Moved playroom to kitchen and created dining room
  • New lighting in kitchen, dining room, basement, and foyer
  • Got the roof fixed
  • Started planning for painting the house

Financial

  • I created and stuck to a budget for 10 months of the year
  • I did the taxes
  • I moved Sam’s 529 to VA
  • I paid all the bills and did all the financial planning and reporting

Parenting

  • I was Sammy’s mommy for 365 days and nights and there is no way to list all of the accomplishments this involved
  • I explored Positive Discipline parenting techniques
  • Took Sammy to see “Go, Dog, Go,” the musical
  • Did an “observation” at MSO
  • Found a good and cheap babysitter
  • Took Sammy to the pumpkin patch
  • Planned and executed Halloween with Sammy, including lots of decorations
  • Re-read Faber and Mazlish
  • The daily schedule whiteboard
  • The cooperation chart/new task chart
  • I found Sam a new doctor
  • I made up many songs
  • I made 31 Valentines day cards with Sammy
  • I found a Montessori school after a long quest
  • I registered Sam for Montessori and helped her through the transition in starting school
  • I attended a 7 week Montessori for toddlers program with Sammy
  • I potty trained Sam
  • I took Sam sledding
  • I took Sam to the water park and helped her conquer her fear of the water slide
  • I started teaching Sam to read
  • I attended 2 homeschooling conferences and made significant progress on my homeschooling plans.
  • I taught Sam how to dress and undress herself, all except for shoes.
  • I continued to arrange the house in a way that allows Sam to be very independent, including many stools, the light switch extenders, her own broom, rake, and shovel, her low-slung closet, her low mirror in the dining room, and her low coat rack.
  • Moved Sammy from her crib to her toddler bed
  • I arranged for two occasions where Sammy spent a couple of nights away from mommy and daddy.
  • I made up dozens of stories
  • I taught Sam how to know it is morning using her teach me time clock.
  • I planned and executed Sammy’s 3rd birthday party

A Good Time to Take Stock

January 6, 2010 in Introspection | 1 comment

You might have noticed that I’ve stopped the Three Good Things exercise.  I got so caught up in the Good Things of the holidays that I just didn’t have the time or energy for it.  But instead of starting it up again, I’m going to a try a different exercise, which I’ll call my 2009 Accomplishments.  The idea comes from the same source as Three Good Things, Jean Moroney.  As soon as I finish it, I’ll publish it here. 

Here is Ms. Moroney’s description of how to take stock of your achievements:

2010 is just getting started. To begin on an inspiring note, I suggest you spend a little time taking stock of your achievements from 2009. Make a record of your accomplishments–everything you did or said or bought or made happen that you’re proud of. This is not a journalistic account of the ups and downs of the year; it includes only the successes. They’re what matter most in the long run; they’re worth pausing to reflect on to give you fuel for 2010.

This is similar to advice I relayed some time ago to record three good things at the end of each day.* It is not a mindless exercise in feel-good, rah rah positive thinking. Reviewing your actual achievements is much more profound than that. It reaffirms emotionally that these successes are good and important, and keeps that context activated.

There is an added benefit to reviewing the whole year. You get to see the brightest achievements all in one list–a list as long as you can make it. To make sure you remember the highlights, I
recommend you review your calendar or some other record of your activities; it’s surprisingly easy to forget important achievements from months ago.

If it was a difficult year, you can see clearly all you accomplished in the face of adversity. If it was an unusually good year, you get to count up the amazing total of successes. When you see the year as a whole, you add to the sense of yourself as one who achieves something over time. As you do this over many years, you can reflect on long-term improvements that you see from year to year.

I think you will also find that reflecting on the successes of the
previous year puts you in a good frame of mind to look to the
future. As you review, you will find some unfinished business. Seen in the context of all you did accomplish, it’s natural to treat these items as next year’s successes, rather than last year’s failures. I always find the process leaves me inspired to achieve more in the future, because I am building on the success of the past.

This reflection takes a little time, but the time has a payoff.  Reviewing your achievements across the year gives you a sense of yourself, and helps you keep your life in perspective.

A productive and happy 2010 to you.

*The “Three Good Things” article is on the site at:
http://www.thinkingdirections.com/Tips03ThreeGood.htm

Jean Moroney, President of Thinking Directions, teaches managers, business owners, and other professionals how to tap their own knowledge banks to solve problems faster, make better decisions, and communicate more effectively. Corporations hire her to train their managers in “Thinking Tactics” to help them get more done with fewer resources. For more information, visit: http://www.thinkingdirections.com.

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A Gift

October 22, 2009 in Experiences, Introspection | 6 comments

During our long, terrible weekend recovering from the miscarriage, life threw us yet another curve ball, but this was the good kind.  We found out that Adam’s recently deceased grandmother left him a large sum of money.  Adam and I are both in a bit of shock about it and we’re trying to work through what it will mean for us.  It’s not enough money that (even if he wanted to, which he certainly doesn’t) Adam could quit working.  It’s nowhere near that kind of money.  It’s not even enough that we will substantially change our lifestyle.  But it’s enough that it will definitely change our lives.  I think I can sum it up by saying that we have lived on the financial edge for as long as we’ve been married, but this will put us into the blissful category of “financially secure,” and it will probably keep us there forever.  Thank you, Grammy.  This is an amazing gift that we never expected.

The first thing we’re going to do is to pay back Adam’s parents the money they lent us to use as down payment on our house.  That will feel really good.  Then we’ll pay off a good chunk of our “second mortgage,” otherwise known as our student loans.  We can completely eliminate at least one loan and free up a sizable chunk of monthly income in the process.  Then, we’ll set aside a healthy emergency fund.  That will be a huge relief to me, as the conservative CFO of this family. 

There will be plenty of money left after all that and we’re not sure exactly what we’ll do with it yet, but we do intend to buy one special thing:  a digital piano.  We’ve been saving up for one for a few months now anyway, but now it will be a gift from Grammy.   This photo will have a permanent home on top of the piano:

With Great Grammy

It’s hard to believe this is really happening.  This money is going to give us peace of mind about our finances.  I can’t even remember what that feels like, but I know it’s going to be really, really good.  

This experience reminds me of one of Diana Hsieh’s first podcasts, when she answered a listener’s question about the morality of inheritance.  She essentially said that an inheritance is a gift, and that there is nothing immoral about accepting a gift.  At the time I thought, “duh!” but now that it is happening to me, I can see where people might have some trouble accepting such a gift.  I don’t personally have trouble with this kind of gift, but I do have trouble accepting other things from people, as I mentioned in yesterday’s post.  I can’t easily accept sympathy, help, and support from others.  I conflate sympathy with pity, which is a mistake.  Part of my problem is a mistaken premise that I have a duty to support myself independently, regardless of context.  Part of it is a trust issue.  It manifests itself in many harmful ways that go way beyond accepting help:  I’m uncomfortable meeting new people, it takes me years to form a real friendship, I am hyper-defensive and second-handed about how people perceive me, especially regarding my intelligence, and there’s more.  I’m still working on figuring it all out.  So, along with dealing with the wonderful support I received after my miscarriage, this is yet another experience that is helping me in my introspection on this issue.  In this case, I have something to differentiate.  Why am I able to accept benefiting from an inheritance (and one that has not even been given to me, but to my husband), but I can’t easily accept someone cooking dinner for me when I’ve suffered a loss?  I’m going to listen to Diana’s podcast again, with this question in mind.  I’m getting closer to an answer to this problem.  I’m determined to work this out so that I can benevolently enjoy my relationships with others.  And if Grammy helps me get there, that will be an even greater gift than the money.

My iPod Saga

February 8, 2009 in Introspection | 5 comments

I still remember the first time I saw an iPod.  It was at an Apple Store, not too long after they had been introduced.  Adam said, “Hey, come check out the controls on this thing.”  I gingerly touched the wheel – it was like no other electronic gadget I’d ever seen.  I was a bit scared of it, but then I moved my finger and got the subtle feedback of the sound and sight of scrolling.  I spun my finger around that wheel with glee – “This is so cool!  I want one.”  I didn’t even care what it did; I just liked the user interface.

I didn’t get my iPod until early 2007.  It has been making me feel guilty ever since.  I spent countless hours loading up all my CD’s, then hardly listened to it because I couldn’t figure out how to get the right subset of my music on the iPod.  The whole reason I got it was that I thought all my music would fit on it.  Also, iTunes slowed down my computer and I hate headphones.  I had a 6 month old baby, I was going to school, and it was all just too much trouble. 

I used it at the gym about 3 times in late 2007, then when we moved from San Diego to Lexington, it disappeared.  Adam had been using it in his car when he drove the animals across the country.  After staying with friends in Richmond for a couple of weeks, we packed up and I realized that I couldn’t find it.  I felt so guilty for spending so much money and time and getting almost no use out of the thing.

Six months and another move later, I was purging useless possessions.  I threw about 6 computer bags and 12 tote bags in the trash.  When Adam got home he said that he liked some of those bags and went through the trash to take back the ones he wanted to keep.  One of those bags held my iPod!  I was so happy to see it, and yet it took me another 7 months to start using it again.

I’m still completely flummoxed about how to choose which songs to put on the iPod.  I’d love to have it rotate my music automatically, but I can’t find any way to do that.  I don’t think I’ll ever use it as a portable device.  I just can’t imagine walking around with cords all over me.   I’d get caught on every door knob.  I can’t even handle purse straps!  So I’ve plugged the iPod into a little radio/iPod speaker system we were given as a gift.  At least I have some kind of music in the house now.  We sold our old “component” system and speakers when we left Michigan, and the one portable CD player we brought with us broke about a year ago.

I’m hoping that I’ll finally learn how to love my iPod.  Music is one of the values I had to give up temporarily, partially because of the time required to take care of a baby, but mostly because of our multiple moves.  It’s hard to explain what it’s like to be adding values back into my life, instead of trying as hard as I can to “simplify.”  There was no sacrifice involved – Samantha, Adam’s career, and the adventure of living in three new cities were greater values (although barely, where the moves were concerned).  Still, I had to give up a lot of the Little Things.  I think it is so important to have both kinds of values in your life: big things like career, family/friends, and personal growth, and little things like a nice set of sharp knives, a good haircut, and trips to the zoo.  Music falls somewhere in between for me, and I’m glad to have it back.

Doggie Despair, Little Liberation, and Homeward-bound Husband

January 17, 2009 in Homemaking, Introspection, Parenting, Pets, Three Good Things | No comments

Three Good Things for the day: 

  1. I got in a miserable funk because the dog tracked dirt onto my white ceramic tile kitchen floor – AGAIN.  This led to another pass at organizing Samantha’s closet, unpacking all of her music boxes and stuffed animals, hanging her alphabet finger puppets, hanging her height mirror (I’ll have to post a picture of that), vacuuming and Fabreezing the area rugs, rearranging the furniture in the basement, oh, and yes, cleaning the kitchen floor – AGAIN.  The good part was not so much that I got all of that stuff done, but that I forced myself to stop moping about how much cleaning and unpacking still needs to be done, and just started taking action.  I know, I know, you’re supposed to learn that when you’re about 14, but I’m slow. 
  2. Part of the reason I was able to get so much done today, besides the motivation through despair, was that I finally decided that Samantha knows how to handle the stairs.  I was partway there when I decided to let the dog out without bringing her with me, but I would normally still go up and down with her, just below her on the stairs in case she fell.  I’ve been doing that ever since she started climbing up and down stairs on her own, and I think I’ve only had to catch her twice, and not for a while.  Today I told her she could come up and down with me as she pleased, and she did.  Sometimes she would stay upstairs and follow me after a few minutes, or she might not follow at all.  As with every milestone, it feels like another huge weight lifted from my shoulders.  The freedom was intoxicating, I tell you!
  3. Adam comes home in just a few hours.

Earning Money to Adopt

January 15, 2009 in Introspection, Products/Services | 2 comments

Chris

I’ve been hinting at this party I’m throwing for a while now, and it’s about time I explain.  Actually, I’ll let my friend Chris explain because this e-mail she sent was so touching:

Many of you know that Jon and I have talked on and off for a long time about adopting a child.  It is an enormous decision and about six months ago we found ourselves on the same page.  I was still in school so we decided to wait until the fall to make any big moves.  Well, it’s the Fall…and we recently decided that we are committed to moving ahead and have chosen our agency.  This is so very, very exciting to us I can’t begin to tell you!  We are looking to adopt an “older” child from Ethiopia and could not be more excited.  By “older” we mean a child some where between 3 and 5ish.  Jackson has been asking for a brother or sister for as long as I can remember and he is thrilled at the idea.

So that’s the awesome news…

And here’s our challenge…it’s damned expensive!  You may or may not know that adoption, especially international adoption, is frighteningly expensive. The likely cost is between $20,000 and $30,000.  Given that we don’t have that laying around (does anyone?) I have been wracking my brain about how to continue working as a nurse AND raise money on the side toward the adoption…in a way that doesn’t have me away from my family too much more than I already am.  The answer came to me a month or two ago and I am now getting ready to begin!

I’ve decided to sell a line of jewelry independently to raise money for the adoption.  Some of you may be familiar with the line…Silpada.  For those of you who are not, what I can tell you is that I love it enough to sell it.  I really didn’t think I’d be interested in spending time on this sort of thing at this point in my life, particularly with my new nursing job. But I have to tell you…I love the darned jewelry!  For those of you who know [K], she’s bought enough of it from another rep that she’s had to buy a piece of furniture to store it all!  I love that girl!   My hope is that this will allow me to do something independently to raise money for the adoption while not having to take time away from Jackson or Jon to do it…very important.

Silpada Jewelry

So as you can probably guess, I’m hosing a Silpada Jewelry party for Chris next week.  First, I want to help her reach this goal in any way I can.  I admire her so much for her commitment to pursuing her values, and what an exciting goal!  Second, I needed a good kick in the butt to get me started socializing anyway.  I want to meet my new neighbors, and I want to get to know the few people I’ve already met better, so this was the perfect opportunity.

And even though all I have to do is invite people and put out a bit of food, the whole process is terribly frightening to me.  I went through a couple of days of high anxiety trying to put together the invitation list, but at some point, I let go and realized that the worst thing that could happen was I might have to cancel the party if not enough people wanted to come.  Big deal, right?  But my social anxiety is not rational.  I’d like to make friends and be able to attend social events without dread.  Really, this is quite a big step for me.

If you’re interested in the jewelry or helping Chris out, you can browse the catalog here.  You order by e-mailing Chris what you want using the link on her site.  I bought a necklace and earrings and they are some of the nicest pieces that I own.  You might even strategically leave her web site up on the family computer – Valentine’s Day is coming up soon, you know!

Good Things

December 30, 2008 in Introspection, Three Good Things | 1 comment

Thanks to Jean Moroney for another simple, and hopefully valuable, idea: each day, write down three good things that happened in the last 24 hours.  I can always use a little help staying on the positive side, so I think I’ll try it here on the blog for a while.  In the last 24 hours:

  1. I took Sam to our local library for the first time and it turned out to be a beautiful new building with a great selection of books.  I love our new neighborhood.
  2. I took Sam to our local (indoor) pool for the first time, and again, it was a nice, clean facility and we had a blast.
  3. I watched a movie that goes on my Top 50 List for sure: The Man Who Would Be King.  What a grand adventure!  And how can you go wrong with Sean Connery and Michael Caine?

It’s Not a Problem, it’s an Opportunity

December 19, 2008 in Ideas, Introspection | No comments

I’m having a real problem with time sickness again.  Any time I’m doing something that is either purely for myself (taking a shower, eating, writing in my blog) or where my body is occupied but my mind is not (doing dishes, driving, letting out the dog) I feel panic setting in.  All I can think about is how many other things I need to do, and that I should be doing them and not what I’m doing now.

This is nothing new, and it’s entirely predictable that it would crop up again while we’re in this “moving in” stage.  As a matter of fact, when I looked up the entry I just linked to, I saw that it was about one month after our last move.   That’s about where we are now.  It’s true that I can barely keep my head above water at the moment, but getting all worked up about it doesn’t solve anything.  I also keep forgetting to recognize all the things that I have accomplished, and I allow myself to wallow in the, “I’ll never get out of this hole” mode of thinking.  I wonder where my youthful confidence went – the feeling that as long as I’m working hard and doing the right thing, that things will work out ok.  They always have.

Intellectually, at least, I know what my problem is, but it’s still very hard to snap out of it.  But the cheesy phrase I used as the title of this post actually does help, as does writing about it.

Overdoing It

October 7, 2008 in Introspection, Products/Services | No comments

I’m still sick with this cold I’ve had for 5 days and counting, so blogging will probably continue to be light for a few days.  Today I’ll just make a long overdue addition to my product recommendations. 

OxiClean must be the best cleaning product ever.  I mostly use it to spot clean the carpet.  It takes out everything I’ve tried it on: wine, coffee, cat puke, blueberry.  It’s great for laundry, too.

Somewhere in all the moves we made last year, I lost the squirt bottle I had always used for my OxiClean.  (I buy the powder and mix it with water or throw a scoop in the laundry.)   When we arrived at the house we’re renting now, I didn’t bother getting a new bottle and making any because I was just too overwhelmed to think about cleaning.  The carpet here is already old and stained and I just figured, why bother?

Well, new stains were still happening and the living room carpet was beginning to disturb me.  Yesterday I finally reached my limit and I made some OxiClean in a measuring cup.  I must have spot cleaned 20 stains.  It didn’t matter how old they were, every single one came out.  And I didn’t have to scrub or rinse.  All I did was put a bit of OxiClean on a paper towel, soak the stain, and then rub it a bit.  The difference in the carpet is amazing, and it’s so easy.

I had also purchased a can of Resolve High Traffic cleaner.  It’s one of those foams that you spray and then vacuum.  Before I tried the OxiClean I had tried the Resolve and it didn’t take out a single stain.  It might have made the carpet a bit cleaner overall, but not in any way that I could discern.  Baking soda is cheaper and probably works just as well.

If you noticed, I did all this work while I was sick.  I had been stuck at home doing nothing for 4 days and Sam was finally back at day care and I felt a bit better.  I did what I always do when recovering from a cold: I overdid it.  Not only did I clean the carpet in two ways (including vacuuming 3 times), I rearranged the furniture.  I hauled a huge bamboo trunk up the stairs and carried a rocking chair down the stairs.  It just felt so good to be able to accomplish something and I couldn’t stop myself.  I didn’t feel too bad yesterday even after all the work, but today I am much worse.  

I’m sure someday I’ll learn to remember that I need to take it easy after a cold, even if I feel better.  I mean, I’m finally wise enough to stop getting a sunburn at the beginning of every single summer before I remember how bad it is and start using sunscreen.  But I still do too many sit ups every time I start a new workout regime.  And I’m writing a much longer post than I had intended, since I really should be resting.  These seem like silly little things that many people do, but this is day-to-day long range thinking, and it’s something I’m working on.

In the meantime, I’m going to go rest, eat some soup, drink some OJ (I can finally feel good about that acronym again!), and watch Sesame Street.

Life Lessons Brought to You by Survivor

September 30, 2008 in Entertainment, Ideas, Introspection | No comments

(Warning:  Includes spoilers from episodes 1 and 2, air date 9/25/08)

 

Michelle, the angry victim, was the first person voted off Survivor: Gabon last week.  It reminds me of something I witnessed at the doctor’s office a couple of weeks ago.

I was in the waiting room when this tense woman walked in.  Angry Woman went to the front desk and asked where Dr. D.’s office was.  The receptionist told her that this was indeed his office.  Her response was, “Oh, well I would have expected his name to be on the door or something.”  The receptionist asked her name, and whether she had her “orders.”  In a short tone, Angry Woman said that, no, she didn’t have her orders.  The receptionist asked about some other paperwork and by now, Angry Woman was pissed.  She sarcastically told the receptionist that she did not have that paperwork either, the implication being that the receptionist was out of line for asking.  Angry Woman was given some forms to fill out and she sat down, fuming.  After a moment, she declared to the room at large, “I might just have to leave.”  She looked around at all of us, seeking a sympathetic face I suppose, and apparently the woman next to me gave it to her.  Angry Woman addressed my neighbor directly:  ”Did they treat you like that? I might not be able to stay here if they are going to treat me like that.  Did they treat you like that?” My neighbor mumbled, “Yes.”  Then Angry Woman muttered to herself for a minute or two.  Eventually she went back to the receptionist and gave her a tongue lashing about how people who come here are in pain, and need help, and if this is the level of service from the receptionist what can she expect from the doctor, and she might just have to leave, and she is outraged, etc. etc.

I’ve been to this doctor about 8 times, and the administrative staff is way above average and I’ve always been treated with respect.  The receptionist treated Angry Woman the same way, at least until Angry Woman gave her the bad attitude.  Then, the receptionist was a bit more formal and short, but that’s about the extent of it.

After chewing out the receptionist, Angry Woman joined my neighbor and they started bitching together about how terribly they have been treated.  I had to change seats because I just couldn’t take the needless negativity.

Later that day, I went to the drive through at McDonald’s.  I ordered a Filet O’ Fish and a milk.  Chicken McNuggets came up on the display screen.  I corrected the order a few times, and managed to get the fish sandwich and milk up on the screen, but no matter what I told the woman on the other side of the intercom, those nuggets stayed up there.  I was laughing when she asked me, “Will that be all?” as the quantity of nuggets went from 1 to 2 to 3.  In a silly voice to make sure she knew I wasn’t mad, I said, “yes, but NO NUGGETS.”  She laughed and finally got them deleted.  When I got to the window to pay, I said, “You’re really doing the hard sell on those nuggets today, aren’t you?”  She laughed and we had a nice moment.

How many times in the past have I been bitchy about someone getting my order wrong, or misspelling my name 3 times in a row, or not using their turn signal?  What a waste!  Most of these people are not incompetent or mean or out to get me.  Maybe they are new on the job, or hard of hearing, or are actually doing something good that I’m just not aware of.  Sure, the incompetent people are out there, but going through your life angry about how the stupid people are making your life hell is counterproductive.  I’ve been doing it for 30 years and I’m just realizing that I’ve been the stupid one.

Michelle bitched and moaned about how her tribe mates were stupid.  They voted her off because of her negativity, but she was convinced that they were losers and that they voted her off because she was strong.

Victims choose to live in the world that they complain about.

If the Joker is evil because he embraces chaos, does being a control freak make me an angel?

September 29, 2008 in Entertainment, Introspection, Parenting | No comments

Last Friday night was “Parents Night Out” at Sam’s day care.  For $20, they babysit the kids from 6:30 – 10:00pm, and dinner is included.  They do this once a month and that’s usually all the babysitting we need for a night out here and there.  On Friday we decided to see a movie instead of going out to dinner, our usual outing.  The Dark Knight was still playing at a nice theatre just 8 miles away and it started at 6:55pm – giving us just enough time to get there after dropping off Sam.  We loved Batman Begins and really wanted to see this sequel in the theater, so we felt very lucky that it worked out so well. 

It was raining that night so I worried about traffic delays, but getting there was no problem.  I got the tickets while Adam parked, we raced in for popcorn and soda, and had just enough time to visit the restroom before the previews began.  Perfect!

About an hour into the movie it occurred to me that those previews had gone on for quite a while, and movies tend to be so long now that we might be cutting it close for Sam’s 10 o’clock pickup.  I checked my watch – it was 8:05.  I forgot about it.

By 8:45, I was thinking about it again.  Why didn’t we think to check the running time?  I guess we figured 3 1/2 hours had to be plenty of time.  It felt like the movie was about to end, but I’d been feeling that way every time the scene changed for the past 10 minutes.   At 9:05, I whispered to Adam that we might have to leave before it was over.   It was only a 15 minute drive, but we had never been to this theater before.  Sometimes it takes 10 minutes just to get out of the parking lot at a busy, mall-based theater like this one.  And I had to go to the bathroom.  And it was raining.  And it was Friday night.  What would they do with Sam if we were late?  I’ve actually had nightmares about forgetting to pick her up at day care, so I started to get anxious. 

By 9:15 I was freaking out and I didn’t process the end of the movie at all.  It finally ended at 9:30.  Some people applauded.  I stood up so fast that I accidentally pulled a woman’s hair by grabbing at the seat in front of me so that I could gain that fraction of a second.   Adam gallantly indulged me and rushed to the car while I went to the ladies room.  I was so stressed out that I criticized his driving the whole way back – I really thought the car was just going to slide right off the wet road.

We made it back with 5 minutes to spare.  I can’t say that I learned a lesson from this about chilling out.  Maybe that is the right lesson, but what I’ve decided is that I will never go out to a movie again without checking the running time.

We’re going to have to rent The Dark Knight on video as soon as it comes out so I can see the end.  I think it might have been quite a good movie.

Grown Up

September 25, 2008 in Ideas, Introspection | 1 comment

An old friend contacted me through Facebook the other day.  I worked with her in the mid-nineties when I was doing software development.  She had a young daughter at the time and was a bit older than me.  We weren’t very close but I liked her, and she said one thing to me that I still think about quite often.  When I was about to turn 30 and expressed some surprise that I could be so old, she told me that her thirties were a great decade and that I would love my thirties.  She might have told me why, but I don’t remember what she said.  I just remember that I was surprised to hear that somebody was happier when they were older.  Most people don’t talk that way. 

Since then, any time that I get that scary, I’m-getting-old feeling, I recall her words.  I’ve always thought those people who pine for the good ol’ days of high school or college were morons.  They always seem to talk about how easy life was “back then,” but they forget that they chose the additional responsibilities in order to gain values:  marriage, kids, a house, a career.  These things are values you have to work for, and bemoaning the effort is just childish.  The effort is part of what makes these things values to begin with.  Seeking the unearned is the most direct route to unhappiness.

I was pretty clear on how much better life was in my twenties than in my teens, but I didn’t translate it to my thirties until my friend prompted me.  Life really is better now, and there’s no reason to think it won’t get even better in my forties.  The first thing my friend wrote to me on Facebook was, “So, like, you’re a mom and married and all grown up.”  Yes, I am.  Nice to be here.

Fractured

August 20, 2008 in Ideas, Introspection, Parenting | 4 comments

I haven’t been able to post much lately because life maintenance has again taken over.  I hate to use this blog to bitch about things that bother me but if you bear with me there might be a point, and some good news, at the end.

We have now lived in our new home for three months and I’m still catching up.  To give you an idea of the things that happen when you move three times in a year, I’ll tell you about my current project: catching up with my filing.  When we left Michigan, we needed to take some files with us because we would be on the move for a full year.  We couldn’t go without our tax files or bank records or auto maintenance files for that long.  But we certainly couldn’t take all six drawers of files we had in our office.  I pulled out what I thought would be necessary, and that meant splitting up some of the files and just bringing the newer, more important papers.  So we now have two “pet” files, two “credit card” files, two “owner’s manuals” files, etc.  I managed to get the volume of files down to one plastic filing drawer with a bit of extra space for new papers. 

Well, in the year we were “on the road” we sold a house, rented three homes, Sam had minor surgery, I developed a medical problem, Adam had three different jobs, and of course there were the three moves.  The final move to northern Virginia required two moving companies, a separate unpacking service, and one trip back to Michigan.  All of this generated more paperwork than I anticipated and after the plastic drawer was full, I filled a huge plastic bin with important papers.

Right now I have my six drawers back and after throwing away two trash bags full of papers we no longer need, I was able to dump most of the unfiled stuff into one drawer and to pile the rest on top.  I estimate that it will take about five more hours to clean it all up.

The childless people out there are probably wondering what the big deal is.  I’m sure the stay at home moms get it.  Any project that takes longer than a nap or the brief window between the kid’s bedtime and your own is daunting.  This one is stumping me more than usual because I need to use the basement floor space to spread out all the papers, and that is Sam’s main play area.  If I try to do it while she is awake, she will want to “help” by taking each paper and putting it somewhere for me.  Like under the couch.  Or on the dog’s head.  Or in her mouth.  If I start working on it during a nap, I’ll have to clean it up and put everything away before she wakes up or else just give up the use of the basement for the duration of the project.  Again, the childless might say, “so what?” but I’m sure all the parents out there get it.  (I have a post planned about how important our “playroom” is and how I almost went insane in the month that it was out of commission due to flooding, but it’s the kind of post that takes more than an hour, so I haven’t gotten to it yet.)

I suspect that this inability to do focused projects is the biggest problem of professional parents.  All the usual complaints from moms are true: a lot of the work is tedious, it takes more than eight hours a day, and you are on call 24/7 every single day of your life.  But are those things really that difficult compared to other professions?  Doctors work long hours, are on call much of the time, and just like moms, have that constant responsibility for others’ lives.  Lawyers and many entrepreneurs work much longer hours than any professional mom.  Many factory workers (and computer programmers!) have to do endless, tedious work.  But none of them have fractured time.

Fractured time is my term for the inability to stick with a certain type of task long enough to get it done.  When you first have a baby, your time is so fractured that you might be unable to shower or cook or even eat a sandwich.  You just don’t have a block of time big enough for such things.  It’s a challenge just to keep yourself and your baby fed, warm, and clean.  I’ve found that my time has become less and less fractured as Sam gets older.  Instead of five naps, seven diaper changes, and six feedings a day, there is one nap, about five diaper changes, and five feedings a day.  There is still a daily routine that needs to happen or things get ugly, but we don’t repeat the same exact cycle every two and a half hours.

But anything that requires me to focus for longer than an hour is still difficult.  I do have about four hours every night after Sam goes to sleep, but I’m usually too tired to take on anything challenging by that time so I use it to pay bills, read, or maybe post A Little Thing.

When most people claim they “don’t have time” to accomplish something, what they mean is that they choose to do other things with their time instead.  When a stay at home mom says this, she doesn’t mean that she is busy every minute of every day; she means that there is no available block of time big enough to get it done.

Those childless people (aren’t they annoying?) might now be thinking that this is just a lot of whining about the need to multitask, and in a sense that is true.  Moms are the ultimate multitaskers.  (This is my third sitting for work on this blog post, and probably not my last.)  But certain things just can’t be done, at least without great pain, in blocks of an hour or two.  Imagine trying to write a novel, create a sculpture, or write a complex computer program in blocks of one hour at a time.  I suppose it can be done, but it is such a waste of time to get your mind into the project and then have to quit after such a short time.  And it is spiritually frustrating.

I used to think that this spiritual frustration came from having too many short-term goals and no long-term goals.  But raising a child is an extremely fulfilling long-term goal that can be accomplished alongside the tedious day-to-day tasks.  It’s the mid-range things that frustrate me.  Like filing.  Like loading up my new MP3 phone with my favorite tunes.  Like writing a blog post more challenging than linking to a funny video.

So how did I write this post, anyway?  It’s called daycare, people.  For the past month I’ve spent most of Sam’s daycare hours in physical therapy, but I finished up last week.  From now on, three whole times each week, I should have five hour blocks of time to use however I want. 

I’m back!

Time Sickness

July 14, 2008 in Books, Ideas, Introspection | 3 comments

I haven’t been doing very well appreciating the little things lately.  Moving really sent me into a tailspin.  You see, I have time sickness. 

Barbara Sher, in, “I Could Do Anything if I Only Knew What It Was,” calls time sickness, “a form of hysteria that makes you believe you must fill every waking hour going after what you want, that everything must be done at once because time is about to end.  You have no sense of the future, the leisurely course that time actually takes in most of our lives.” 

The concept of time sickness gave me so much insight into this problem I’ve had for as long as I can remember.  It helped me to figure out that I want to be a writer (since I could let go of the idea that I had to be perfect immediately) and it was part of the inspiration for the theme of this blog.  I knew something about this problem of mine before, but it makes all the difference in the world to have a clear definition and the memorable term, “time sickness” to hold as shorthand in my head.  Every time I start getting the feeling, “I shouldn’t be wasting time doing this because I have 15 other, more important things on my to-do list for the day,” I try to ask myself if that is really true or if it is just my time sickness.  It’s ALWAYS my time sickness.  The feeling is strongest when I’m doing things like brushing my teeth, eating, taking a shower, or talking on the phone with a friend.  For some reason, I consider those things “expendable,” and I think I should be doing things like paying the bills, planning activities to do with Sam, or cleaning the house.  But when I’m paying the bills, planning activities to do with Sam, or cleaning the house, I think, “I really shouldn’t be doing this; I should be submitting article ideas to magazines or taking a nap.”  There is no time when I am satisfied that I am doing what I should be doing.  There is no time when I allow myself to fully live in the moment without a nagging sense of guilt that there are things still undone.  I am always in a rush and I’m always exhausted from the marathon that I run every single day.  Time sickness.

So I’ve been working on it and I’ve been improving.  But our recent move threw me for a loop.  My to-do list grew to a length that overwhelmed my ability to be self-aware.  We only plan to live in this rental house for a year while we explore the DC suburbs for a place we want to buy, so I had it in my head that I couldn’t start living until I got the house unpacked and organized.  I would not allow myself to focus on anything else because I felt if I didn’t rush through it I’d be unpacking the whole time we were here and I’d be in a permanent state of “moving” for the next year and a half.  While it is true that moving sucks, my time sickness compels me to make it much worse than it actually is.  In reality, if I just went on with life, unpacking a little bit each day and not worrying about how long it would take, I wouldn’t mind the unpacking so much at all, and it probably would get done just as quickly.

I’m just getting over this relapse now.  I got my hair cut last week, something I would not have allowed myself to “waste” time on a few weeks ago.  I’m starting to spend more time just being with Sam, not doing anything in particular, but just watching her or tickling her or waiting to see what she wants to do next.  I’m working on it.  And even though I’m not perfect, I’m once again starting to enjoy the process of working on it.