Creature of Mad Enthusiasms

So. Been a busy week, and meant to be a busy weekend, what with that extra day. Unfortunately for my productivity, all the ex-fundamentalist blogs I read have blown up with the Josh Duggar news, especially when the post about the police report on Love, Joy Feminism went viral. So that's been an interesting mix of conversation and whack-a-troll. All 2200 comments of it.

Also, as you can tell from the last few posts, the creature has found a new mad enthusiasm. And I got really excited about it. Really, REALLY excited. That, combined with weekend sale at MoonJoggers & Virtual Events, means that my current virtual racing schedule looks like this:

Today/tomorrow/end of week: Live Long and Prosper Memorial Mile, Geek Day 5K
June: Voldemort V-mile
July: Independence Day 5K NOTE TO SELF: Sign up for Run You Clever Nerd
August: , Summer SoleMate Fun Run, ET Phone Home 5K
???: upon completion of The Walk, I'm buying myself She turned her can'ts into cans and her dreams into plans
September: Smile Run
October: Support Our Girls NOTE TO SELF: Sign up for Up to No Good
???: upon completion of Zombies Run! Couch to 5K (scroll down), I'm buying myself She believed she could, so she did
November: Hug a Runner
December: Ugly Sweater virtual race, wrap up Meet Me on Mars (goal: Space Ranger)

This doesn't count upcoming not-yet-announced Flex it Pink and Hogwarts Running Club events.

Yes, at an average of $20 a race and $50 for Mars I did just drop a few hundred dollars. But what would a gym membership cost me for the next 8 months?

Still considering if I'm entering Happy Birthday USA this weekend to run on the 4th specifically. Also, MoonJoggers is selling old medals. I'm pondering if it "counts" to really, REALLY belatedly run a couple of those races. If I actually run 5K and throw a fiver at the charity, I've legitimately earned it, yes?

I would also like to do the live halloween 5K at Congressional Cemetery, and the next town over has a "Gobble Wobble" on Thanksgiving morning. I'd also rather like to run one of the real-world ugly sweater races, although I need to make the sweater.

The only time Run Like a Diva is in my area is an awkward date for me, but I'm keeping an eye on them for the 2016 go around.

Obviously, there's a new "Christmas Wish"/resolution: one v5K a month. In 2016, I'd like to up that to 3 5Ks of any description every 2 months. There's a shoe store here that runs timed ones on weeknights if there isn't a fun run or v5K around.

My only comment on the season finale of Doctor Who: I enjoyed it, but I also admit that it is extremely problematic internally, racially, and logically and all of that has to be handwaved in order to enjoy it. Expecting "Permission to squee!" to be the new wibbly-wobbly quote; anyone who made lanyards/t-shirts/iron-ons with that quote could make a mint selling it across fandoms.

Okay. Resolutions. I'm hardly giving them up - over the years they've served me well - but I'm initiating one of the changes I talked about in the last resolution post.

As you know, last year I tried to treat resolutions as agile software development sprints, with extremely poor results. I'm trying again, with a different angle and a whole lot of pollyana positive thinking.

As before, each thing I want to accomplish is getting a page in my calendar so I can track what I have done/need to do. However, rather than labeling it "Resolution x" I'm retitling them "By [time frame] I wish to have X." Less a goal than an agile "user story" ("As a user of software x, I want to be able to y.")

I feel like 5 kinds of dork admitting that, but the point is to try to focus on the outcome and why I want to have it in my life rather than the work to get there. This has two advantages: keeping my eyes on the prize and allowing for creative problem solutions.

For instance: the previous post had the line " all knitting needs to be potholders for the Kitchen Guild."

The reframe is "By fall of 2015, I wish to have used up all the Sublime cotton yard making items for the Kitchen Guild." Concrete goal 1: to use up an underused and now little-wanted yarn. Concrete goal 2: to create useful items for the Kitchen Guild.

With the reframe, the path to those goals opens up wide. I was already looking up nice, thick knitting stitches to try. But I'm no longer limited to knitting: I've got a table loom in the basement; there's nothing stopping me from doing a bit of weaving with that yarn. Also, because I'm knitting double-stranded, why not consider this the perfect project to learn basic yarn-plying on? After all, if I screw up, this is going to be used for open hearth cooking; beauty is not the main desire here. All these interesting options for learning and stretching... and still in service of two specific goals: to use up a certain yarn and to create a certain item.

Y'all will doubtless hear of how it goes.

People seem to be interested in reading some of the systems I've created, and today a very old one is absolutely saving my ass.

On my computer, in the same folder with my resumes, is a Word table titled "career data." It has the month/year that each job started and ended, the name of the company, and the name(s) of my supervisors. It also has the resume writeup I used when that job was fresh and new.

Setting it up was a pain in the patoot; maintaining it literally only takes a couple of minutes, because when I write the resume I just copy/paste over and fill in the names of any new people I work for.

So here I am, working on a brand new federalized resume, and just when I'm thinking "fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuck, I can't remember what I did in 1999" I've got this lovely database holding my job description when it was fresh and new and I was trying to make it sound sexy. It's not doing the rewrite work for me, but it's sure making the rewrite go a lot easier than if I had to reconstruct the problem-action-outcome-keywords from a now-shrunken blurb from 6 jobs ago.

Yeah, 2015. I'm actually within sight of completing the main 2014 resolutions - heck, of completing the entire house renovation. Have to work hard enough to actually *reach* the goal, but I can see it from here.

I already had one resolution for next year - getting a grip on my life and priorities so I don't stare wild-eyed at people when they remind me what I said I'd do. (It still gets done, mostly, but it's more stress on me and everyone else than it needs to be.)

Tonight I add a second, more frivolous goal. Congressional Cemetery, the location of Flee The British, has another 5K coming up - Dead Man's Run, which starts with a funeral knell and will include ghosts popping up. This is too much fun - and my time at Flee the British was so bad I got trampled by the British. So 2015 resolution #2 - Couch to 5K. (I have also joined Tombs and Tomes, the Congressional Cemetery book club. All the books have titles that have something to do with death. This month is The Skeleton Crew: How Amateurs Are Solving America's Coldest Cases by Halber.)

When things are over, it won't just be the house that is permanently changed...

There is something completely out of whack when it seems like reckless abandonment to flip through magazines for half an hour.

That said, I am doing *slightly* better on the chore-life balancing. Slightly. I'm certainly glad that I made time to go to Chort's last annual privateer feast. I'm even gladder that I put an antique candle mold on the flea market table - that went fast and I hope it brought in good money. It was a bittersweet time last night, knowing that this was the last, and knowing that this year we were donating money not for Team Wench's generic cancer fundraiser but for our hostess' medical bills.

I've sold an essay. I don't actually know for how much, though, which is hardly the grownup way to be a writer.

Although I'm not using the kanban board I built on the fridge, the idea of splitting all my chores into agile sprints appears to be a good one. However, I'm already having to fight the idea that "oh, yeah, I need to work on that eventually" is an appropriate way of dealing with the chore du sprint, and the fact that some important things are falling through the cracks because I haven't thought to write them up as a sprint. So the bones are good, but I need a little more discipline.

Don't I always! You may start getting a Sunday 7 list from me. Boring, I know, but the public name-and-shame of it has always helped me keep on track.

However, I can also point to a couple of little victories. Finances, for one. I'm one of those people who just threw everything - receipts, statements, bills, ATM slips, etc., into a bin and then stuffed the contents of said bin into a holding box for the legal 7 years. Just tossing things places was quick, but inconvenient to dig anything up.

So two months ago I sat down and took an old bunch of large envelopes. On the front is a list of each monthly bill I have to pay, so I can see when I did and how much. Clipped to the back of the current month's envelope is a tally sheet so I can write down how much I pay the credit cards (all but 1 are paid off and the last one will be done soon, but I still want to know how much I use them for over a year), a tally sheet so I can track the status of the furlough loan, and the rent slip for M. In the upcoming months are blank rent slips, a deposit slip, and the appropriate pages out of the mortgage and furlough loan books so I can pull them out when they're due.

There's a differently colored envelope for tax stuff, with its own check list.

I'm still basically throwing things in a bin... but it's a bin sorted by month that makes it very easy for me to leave notes for myself, organizes my paperwork where I'll need it and when I'll need it, and lets me keep track of everything at a glance. Not bad.

What's even better is that sniffing around my piles of "This may be useful someday" stuff has coughed up enough envelopes for me to have another 5 years of this system before I have to purchase anything for it. I also found yet a third set of envelopes good for using for investment mailings.

... and to give you some idea of how much of a packrat I am, they're labelled with various months in 1994.

I'm not even going to look up last year's resolutions; I know the general parameters and I know how little I fit them.

Maybe the problem was that the parameters were so vague. So this year, there's an agile board and a series of specific tasks with definable goals:

BEDROOM:
- declutter to the point that the floor is clear and there are no piles on flat surfaces
- clothes to be gone through; off-season to be stored in basement and non-fitting to be donated

KITCHEN:
- cabinets to be painted, items within to be gone through, organizing bins/shelves/etc. to be added. New hardware
- "dining area" - remove current furniture, add buffet and shelving
- Hang shelves by refrigerator

BATHROOM:
- vanity repaint, add drawer pulls, restore missing door
- touch up wall paint where assd other work has scuffed/pulled it away

LIBRARY:
- winnow books in shelves
- organize book collections
- declutter floor
- put console table in; move desktop from bedroom to library

LITTLE FREE LIBRARY
- set up far more organized system for moving books in and out and collecting them for the Book Thing

LIVING ROOM:
- Cookbook shelves: paint fronts with blackboard paint, winnow collection

PERSONAL:
- accomplish "The Walk" exercise program
- clinic minimum 6 times
- reduce debt by 3/4 if not pay off

KITCHEN GUILD:
- attend minimum 6 times
- assemble basic wardrobe

FANDOM:
- help run Scintillation of Scions
- help run Watson's Tin Box formal dinner
- Attend/panelist at 221BCon, ChicagoTARDIS
- deliver minimum 3 essays (1 written and needing typed ASAP, 1 due mid-Feb, 1 due August)


Those are the goals within my power to achieve. I believe that they are achievable within a single calendar year.

... and if this time I have the discipline to do it, I can FINALLY turn back to spending more time in 2015 on what I WANT do do and not what I HAVE to get done!

And accomplished I have been! Last night I returned to the scion society The Red Circle of DC for the first time in what is likely 20 (25?) years. Jeremy Brett was Holmes at the time.

Today I:
Cleaned up after the big bowl broken by the kittens. Since I had to sweep and mop the hall anyway, I might as well go on to steam mop it... and sweep & steam mop the kitchen... and scrub the kitchen counters... and scrub the bathroom counter & toilet... and sweep and steam clean in there, and once all *that* was done, there was no point in not wet-swiffering the living room and calling it a day.

Only I couldn't call it a day, because that was all ( before I stood a clinic shift. )

We also had an ex-military guy approach us and ask about escort training. Fearless Escort Leader is also ex-mil, so they had a grand old time swapping stories.

I topped off my gas tank on the way back, and was approached by Bobby The Pop-Up Body Guy. That sounds a little rude, but what he was actually doing was approaching people in the gas station to see if his team could take our cars around back and knock out the dings. Now, I've been mellow enough about the duct tape holding on the bumper to leave it on since September 2011 but it bothers my father SO MUCH that my main Christmas present this year was his offer to pay for all the body work *and* the rental car... which is time that I don't want to deal with. So I thought whatthehell, and let them work on it.

I got back with just barely enough time to take a desperately needed shower before rushing off to the Jane Austen Cafe at Riversdale mansion. I'll give a fuller description if people want, but basically we were discussing Pride and Prejudice and changes in women's lives (via the changes in what is considered "an accomplished woman" from then to now). I met a woman who writes Regency romances and another who is a mover and shaker of the Jane Austen Society of North America, which I have flirted with joining before and most likely will do now.

Then it was back to Bobby the Pop-Up Body Guy to clear my throat loudly and point out that while all traces of duct tape and dent have been removed, the bumper cover was still pulling loose. So I watched while the lower corner of it was screwed in... I don't quite understand how that worked but it's holding on now, so who cares?

I have three loads of laundry to do and then I shall feel I will have completely earned an agenda for tomorrow that reads, in its entirety:
1) Wear flannel PJs all day
2) Finish reading Pride and Prejudice
3) Read magazines.

For the Little Free Library fans, I wish I'd written down the books I'd put out after Snowmageddon, because a good third of them have vanished - quite likely via the local dogwalker who has requested cookbooks and the Verizon people who, although they couldn't sell me FIOS, did ask if they could take books. It turns out, though, that the door has warped, allowing the wind to whip it open - which means that during a windy rain, the books inside are in trouble. I need to come up with a catch that will hold up to wind and yet not confound the people who want books.

So far this year, I've been picking off the simple to do things from the "52 Organizing Missions" - stuff I've already done for the most part - and checked that off the resolutions list. Problem: I'm not then actually doing anything about the actual mess in the actual house.

Time to get serious. And to try not to be spittingly jealous of M, because *she* did all her work in advance so she could award herself a "spa day" - which we define as hanging around with nothing to do but eat, read, watch TV and maybe knit. Not even cook, because food's ready. I have NOT done my work in advance, and after I've had breakfast, I need to clean (including inaugurate the new steam mop), pay all the bills, update the iphone and ipad with new apps and fic, and pull my shit together for the upcoming week (make lunches & set out clothing.)

Little Free Library
One of my neighbors donated two grocery bags full of books, mostly paranormal romance. She says there's more to come.

RETURNED: Girl in Hyacinth Blue, Dog Gone It
GIVEN: 2 bags, Chic and Slim Encore
LEFT: Farm City, Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe, Gone, Guards Guards, I Don't Know How She Does It, Insane City, Ms. Hargraves, Pasta Sauces, The Human The Orchid and the Octopus, Who Says Elephants Can't Dance

House Renovation
Talked with my father on how to engineer radiator cover on opposite side of living room (between two bookcases) took measurements. Looked into some interesting Ikea hacks for kitchen.

52 Organizing Missions (still goldbricking)
Clearing Out Your Mind (to my amusement, this was a potted version of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy)


52 Weight Loss Missions (name and shame: up 1 lb)
Detox Your Space. I need to throw out some old ice cream; other than that, we've done it the way you're not supposed to by eating up all the goodies we brought home from the Mycroft.

There's been too much chocolate and too many meals bought at work. I need to start bringing in my own breakfast and lunch, and I need to start replacing chocolate with clementines. (This works fairly well if I'm just craving a generic sweet)

New Recipe
I've looked up the potato soup one, and I'm looking seriously into a single-serve peanut butter soup that's really more of a peanut butter latte. I'm working up the nerve to try that as today's breakfast to see how it goes.


7 items donated/trashed
See below

Other Accomplishments
I went through three massive piles of paper and dealt with them - the backed up "I'll go through this later" mail piles on the kitchen table, the overflowing box where I store mail to go through once a week, and the "I'll get to this someday" pile on the shelf where I drop my work bag. I created a file system for what needed to be filed, put papers where they belonged, pulled out all the bills, set aside the legal paperwork & contracts for the fire safe I need to buy, and tossed or shredded what needed tossed or shredded.

I also went through the glut of personal organizers. Long story short: I'm fond of an undated organizer page that you can only get in the Dayrunner Harmony* Starter set, which was listed as being discontinued a year or so ago. So I went out and bought up every one I could find. (You can find them easily now; I may have single-handedly brought them back into print.) Yesterday I went through them and sorted the bits so that I can pull out weekly or monthly pages, note pages, to-do pages, etc., etc. as needed. I don't use the little plastic holder pouch that comes with each one; I think an upcoming week's organization is going to include turning them into circular needle holders.

Anyone want a 5 x 8-inch 7-ring notebook? Or unused address pages? I've got a few spare... (yeah, yeah, I've got first-world problems)


*The ONLY pages where the spaces for Saturday and Sunday are the same size as every other day. Considering my weekends are fuller than my weekdays, I loathe the calendars that give you half an afterthought to write all the weekend stuff down.

Lifehacker pointed at an interesting set of questions to do your year-in-review -- not what have you accomplished per se, but:

What went well for me last year?
What accomplishments did I have?
How did I improve my life?
How did I improve my relationships?
What did I remove from my life that is now making me happier?
What do I wish I had taken more time for?

It's not a bad set of questions.

I'm also thinking that I'm going to move the Sunday achievements/goals to Goal Happy. It's a web-based goal and achievement counter, which means there will be less paperwork and typing than the current method, which is, well, paper and typing. I don't know if it'll output anything I can post to LJ, or if anyone is going to feel particularly bereft if I stop posting that stuff here. Sign up is free, and you can set your goals to daily, weekly, or monthly.

I'll keep up with the Little Free Library posts. I'm looking into library apps so that I can scan books in and out - any recs?

Little Free Library
Returned: Little Bee, Slay Belles, The Headless Cupid

Given: The Way of Zen, The Year's Best Fantasy (2007)

Left: Little Bee, Night in the Lonesome October, The Weird Sisters, The Zeroes,

House Renovation
Went through all decorating/handyman magazines; selected articles to keep & recycled rest of magazine

52 Organizing Missions
Never Forget to Pay Another Bill
Calculate The True Cost of Freebies

52 Weight Loss Missions
Unlock Your True Motivation
Take a Reality Check

Science of Cooking
none

New Recipe
Will be trying a new variation on stuffing later today (dehydrated onion, seedy bread mixed with white, homemade stock/broth)

Will be trying gravy from scratch later today

7 items donated/trashed
Not dealt with this week, although I suppose I could count the magazines

Other Accomplishments
nothing earthshattering