One Little Word, 2013

I've signed up for Ali Edwards' class One Little Word.  This class encourages you to pick one word to focus on for the year.  To let that word resonate inside and guide you through the year's activities and goals.

My word for the year is

NOW

now

[nou] 

adverb

1.

at the present time or moment: 

2.

without further delay; immediately; at once: 

3.

at this time or juncture in some period under consideration or in some course of proceedings described: 

4.

at the time or moment immediately past: 

5.

in these present times; nowadays: 

6.

under the present or existing circumstances; as matters stand: 

7.

(used to introduce a statement or question): 

8.

(used to strengthen a command, entreaty, or the like):   

Synonyms:  

PDQ, at once, at the moment, at this moment, at this time, directly, first off, forthwith, immediately, in nothing flat, instanter, instantly, on the double, promptly, pronto, right away, right now, straightaway, this day, today

_______________________________________________
Procrastination has been a part of my life for as long as I can remember.  It's the habit I have that gets me in the most trouble and causes me the most stress.  I'm not a firm believer that if it wasn't for the last minute, nothing would get done; but, I sure act as if that is my motto.  If something's worth doing, it's worth doing tomorrow.  I was always this way in school and this habit has poured into my adult life.  I'm tired of being so frazzled all of the time because I've waited again until the very last moment to take care of something that I know has been sitting on my to do list with a very reasonable due date, but I just haven't done it.  I want to break this habit so that life can move at a pace that is a bit less frantic.

I want to embrace the word NOW.

Do it now.  
Prepare for it now.
Get the task out of the way, now.  
___________________________________

• Wake up in the morning, put on the workout clothes and work out.  NOW
• Get assigned a site, schedule the visit and prepare for it.  NOW
• Get an email with a task, address it.  NOW
• Get back from a visit, write the trip report.  NOW
• Want to keep project life up to date, do it.  NOW
• Have a trip to take, pack.  NOW
• Need to take medication in the morning, swallow them.  NOW
• Need time to relax before going to bed, to do all of the night time things you want to accomplish, go to bed.  NOW
• Want to always have a clean house.  Straighten up.  NOW
• Planned an event at the house, prepare and shop.  NOW
• Want to eat healthy, determine the menu and go to the grocery store.  NOW 
• Know that a special event is coming up, buy the present, make the card.  NOW

 And it's more than just the little tasks in life.  I think I spend a lot of time thinking that once this happens, then that can happen.  Or once I achieve this, I can do that.  Please.  Embrace the moment that you're sitting in right this minute.  Figure out the best way to spend that moment.  Life is full of only so many moments.  Make each one of them count for something meaningful.  NOW.   

Journal: January 5, 2013

Woke up this morning at 5. Seems that this is the time the internal clock says get up. I want to sleep in and I laid in bed trying my hardest to get the eyes to shut and go back to sleep but no go. So I thought the hell with it and got up.

Grabbed a sweatshirt and some slipper socks and braved the artic to get to my scrap room. It's no secret why Stew got me another heater for Christmas. Now I have one for the two rooms in the house that I spend the most time. My office and my scrap room.

This reminds me that when we were at Laura's on Thursday she showed me her footie pajamas. I really, really want a pair of them, but couldn't find them in the size fat ass around Christmas time. Laura said she can't wear them to bed because they're a little too warm. I said, "Well, make sure you bring them to my house when you spend the night. You're going to need them." She said she was planning on it.

I worked on my journal posts from earlier in the week. I had them mostly written, but I've taken to writing them on my phone and without the pictures, so I wanted to go through them, add the pictures, and look over the spelling and stuff before posting them.  I only have to finish up the 1st and that will be up to date.  I also worked on adding all of my pictures to Smug Mug.  It got a little behind in November and December - wonder why?  Now they're all uploaded.  Haven't burned them to disc yet, but it's coming.

I ended 2012 with 54.5GB worth of picture and video files.  16,532 actual files and took pictures on 321 of the 366 days - not too bad.

Stew slept until around noon.  When he got up, I was on a teleconference for this Move More, Eat Well class I'm taking.  The teleconference is just a place for everyone in the class to get together and ask questions or just get some motivation for the coming month.  I enjoyed it.  One of the things I want to work on this year is rekindling old friendships and starting new ones.  During my first appointment with my new therapist she asked me about friends.  I told her that I mostly spend my time with Stew and my family, I really don't have any one that just falls into the "friend" category and if I do, they don't live anywhere near me.  She found this really hard to believe.  She thought that with my personality, I would make friends easily.  Is she out of her mind?  Is she the one that needs the counselor?  I've never made friends easily my entire life.  I don't know if that's a self esteem issue or what.  I know it was in high school.  Now that I'm an adult it's like, where the hell do you make friends and where in the hell do you find the time?  I have a very full and active family life and let's be honest, if I'm going to pick people to spend my time with, my kids are on the top of that list.  I didn't think I was really missing anything until the therapist brought it up and until I started talking to my old, but good friend, Shellie.  I was reminded of how much I really do miss having that person that you can just talk to about whatever you want.  Sometimes with family you have to mind your words.  With friends, you never have to do that.  They have their own family stuff they need to get out, too.  In the vein of all of that, it's a goal for this year.  I'm going to write a post later about all of the goals I have for this year.  I spent some time today really kind of fleshing them out.  Of course there's a million of them, but that's okay.  Aim high and just try to work on a few of them at a time.

After my class, I went upstairs to get ready as we were going to GEP's basketball game.  Stew was playing on his iPad.  I'm really happy with how much he loves it.  He found the game Trivial Pursuit on there, so we spent some time playing that.  He's up two pieces of pie to one.  I'm not sure why I play with him.  He always wins.  Jerk.

Then it was off to GEP's basketball game.  This kid must really love basketball - he actually runs.  I've seen him play baseball - no running.  I've watched him play soccer - no running.  Basketball, he's out there giving it all he's got.  His team is young and so they are a little inexperienced when it comes to the nuances of the game - like it took them the whole game to realize that someone has to inbound the ball, but they played with all their hearts and seemed to have fun and that's all that really counts.  Let's not mention that this is a team of 7 and 8 year olds and it was reported that the other team had fifth graders on it.  I don't know why people do that.  I agree with keeping score, let's not mistake that, but good gosh, it's peewee basketball.  There's no need to cheat.  Ass.

After the ballgame, it was Pizza Johns.  Last trip for awhile - so I needed to make it count.  The blackbottom cheesecake is no where near as good as it used to be.

Spent some time with Phill, Christina, GEP and AGP.  GEP loves his little sister even if he does call her the beast.  And AGP is smiling so much now.  It's so cute.  I didn't get any pictures of the smiling as Christina was taking them.  I'll get them if she ever uploads them to SmugMug - but I'm not holding my breath (love you, girl).

One of the funniest things that GEP did today...he was eating pistachios and he came upon one that he could not open - so he, of course, being the ingenious little fella that he is, goes and gets the nutcracker.  After he smashes the pistachio to smithereens, he looks up and says, "Yeah, no good."  This child...

Stew and I left more because I was exhausted than anything else.  We got home, I spent some time in the scrap room and then he and I ended the night with episodes of Duck Dynasty - love that show.

We hadn't planned on doing anything tomorrow, but it's looking like our last food hoorah will be Kobe Steakhouse, so we're going to go there to eat and to pick up my car from Phill's.  I have to drive to Georgetown on Tuesday.

POTD: January 5, 2013

Brother and sister...so damn cute!

MMEW 2013: Statement of Intention

I signed up for Cathy Zielske's class Move More, Eat Well last year and completely fell off that wagon.  With the new year beginning, I'm starting again.  One of our pre-class assignments was to write a Statement of Intention for the coming year.  Here's mine.
______________________________________________________

Hello, 2013, it’s me, Gina.  I’ve been thinking long and hard over the past couple of weeks about resolutions and intentions and everything else that the magical day of December 31^st brings.  I don’t know what it is about the new year that makes every one feel like it’s time to turn over a new leaf.  I don’t know what makes January 1^st so magical, but the fact of the matter it is, most of us do look at it as a time of renewal.  The old is gone and the new is here.  With that changing of the calendar, we shed all of the failed intentions, all of the bad, and all of the disappointment of the last year and look at that new calendar filled with 365 gorgeously blank days.  We haven’t messed up one day yet.  It’s glorious.  For me, however, my new year is starting on the 7^th.  I just want to be realistic with myself.  Stew and I are traveling the week of the 1^st and I don’t want to get off on the right foot.  So we’ll take the first weekend of the year to set out our goals and our plans and start on Monday.

I have a lot I want to achieve where my health and fitness is concerned this year and piggy backing on my One Little Word for the year, I want to achieve these goals now.  I’m so tired of starting over.  I read a quote once that said, “If you’re tired of starting over, stop quitting.”  Isn’t that the truth?  At this time next year, I want to have the habits and lifestyle in place that will enable me to remove the resolutions of lose weight and exercise from the list.  I want it to be second nature and okay, maybe it never will come that easily, but once the routine is established and the weight is gone, I would hope that keeping on that road would be easier than it feels now.  I sure as hell never want to be at the weight I am now, again.  I want to walk up the steps without getting out of breath.  I want to be able to paint my toenails without feeling like a circus contortionist.  I want to run around with the kids without feeling like I’m going to die.  I want to hike. I want to bike.  I want to swim.  I want to grab life by the horns and take advantage of every moment of it that I have.  I don’t want something as silly as weight to hold me back and let’s be real for a minute, it is silly and it is easy to fix.  Stop putting in your mouth what you’re not working off.  It’s that simple.  At least for me, it is.  I know it.  I just don’t live it and now is the time that I do.

I love the Nike slogan:  JUST DO IT.  I would only add one word: 

JUST DO IT NOW!

Pinned It, Did It, Friday (or PinBusted)

Let's face it, a lot of us spend a lot of time in Pinterest thinking that all of these things we see would be really cool to try - but if you're like me, they sit in this internet ether never to be looked at again.  Well, this year, I vow to stop this and so Pinned It, Did It Friday (or as Stew calls it, PinBusted) is born.

Today, we're talking about straightening wavy hair without heat, which pretty much would save an hour of my day.

This is the pin:

To straighten hair without heat, just mix a cup of water with 2 tablespoons of BROWN sugar, pour it into a spray bottle, then spray into damp hair and let air dry!

The original source.

Before I showered today, I went to the kitchen to do a little mixing.  I got my 2 tablespoons of brown sugar and my cup of water (I used warm to help the sugar dissolve).

 Then I put it in my spray bottle and took a shower.

This is what my hair looks like right out of the shower.  (Next time I decide I need to take pictures from the back of my head - I'm using the tripod and the remote.)

And what it looks like after it's been brushed.

I sprayed the sugar water on my hair (while standing in the shower - I didn't want what may become a sticky mess to land on my bathroom floor).

And then I waited for my hair to air dry.

This is the final result:

And the verdict:  You can see for yourself - my hair looks nothing like the picture.  Now there could be a lot of reasons for this since the instructions weren't that specific.  I didn't know how much of this stuff to use or what to do with my hair while it air dried.  I worked at my computer.  Even so, in my opinion, it's back to the hair dryer and the flat iron.  I'm going to call this one:  Deleted from my pin board.

Journal: January 4, 2013

Woke up this morning when Stew did around 5AM.  It seems that if I go to bed around 10:30, getting up at 5 doesn't seem so terrible.  I'd like to push that bedtime back to being asleep at 10 and not crawling into bed at 10:30, but we'll see how it goes.  It's just another goal for the long list of goals I have for this year.

The day started off without anything planned but work, tv, and laundry night.  Didn't quite turn out that way.

I went right to work as soon as I woke up.  No shower, nothing, just the burning desire to get these things that are sitting on my to do list off of my to do list.  I got most of them done.  Sitting on the phone with Hertz for what felt like forever didn't help matters.  They didn't log my car in as returned the last time I rented from them and they had it being returned in Jacksonville, 3 days after I returned it in Baltimore.  Yeah, PROBLEM.  Had to get it fixed today so I can submit my expense reports.  It's fixed now, but the new receipt won't be available today.  Can't get that done.  Shoot!

Did some other work that was on my plate.

Attended the first teleconference for a class I'm retaking.  I signed up for Craft Your Business in November and fell behind and didn't finish.  The class is being offered again in January and it's free for people who took the November class so I'm going to try my best to work through it this time.  That's going to mean a lot of changes on my crafting blog, whenever I find time to re-introduce myself to web design.

The call was very informative and I feel like I'm learning a lot though truth be told, I really don't have a focus.  Of course, I'd love to make money scrapbooking - but doing what?  That's the part I can't figure out.  Now I don't believe for one second that I'm going to be able to quit my job and make a living scrapbooking, but making enough money to maybe cover the costs of my hobby wouldn't be a bad thing.  This requires more thought.

I started a new series on my blog today.  It's called Pinned It, Trying It.  I hope to have a post focused on that every Friday.  I pin a lot of stuff on Pinterest, but never really try any of them.  I'm going to resolve to change that.  Today's experiment was an epic fail - see the other post for that catastrophe.

I also spent some time researching tablets.  Stew bought me a Nexus 7 for Christmas and though it did a lot of cool stuff, I didn't feel that for the money it added anything to our already overwhelming collection of technology.  I hated to tell him that.  I really don't like it when I don't like a gift someone's given me.  It bothers me.  I want to love it all, but I guess sometimes, you can't.  As Stew tells me, he'd rather me be honest and get something I really want than to say I like it and never use it.  So I bit the bullet and told him and then we started looking for something that would really be productive for me.  I found a Windows tablet that I thought would work and we figured out that Walmart would take the Nexus back.  When I was looking on the Walmart website to see if they had the Windows tablet I wanted, I found the Samsung Galaxy Note.  As Stew describes it, it's like his phone on steroids.  I love that it has a stylus, that you can do photo editing on it, and take notes with it.  It's exactly what I wanted.

When Stew got home from work, we headed off to Walmart to return the Nexus and buy the Note.  The line for the returns at Walmart had me cringing.

However, much to my surprise they moved pretty quickly.  The woman at the customer service desk was very pleasant and very efficient.  I really should have gotten her name so that I could have written a letter to her manager.  She was one of the most pleasant people I've ever come across working there.

We left Walmart with my new little toy.

We were then on the search for dinner.  Why do we always want to go to dinner on a Friday night?  I guess it's because the rest of the world wants to go to dinner then, too?  We're not much for waiting for a table though - so no to Bertucci's, to Outback, to Red Robin, to Sakura - we finally settled on Chick Fil A to go.

We headed to Best Buy first though because there is an adapter that will hook to my camera and allow me to upload pictures directly from it using wifi - I wanted Stew to take a look at it and see if he thought this was something that would be helpful for me.  My biggest problem is that in order to get pictures off of the big camera, I have to be in the scraproom.  But if I want to journal and use those pictures - I journal upstairs in my bedroom.  It's my routine.  So I thought if there was some way that I could get the pictures to some device upstairs than I could be more timely in uploading my journal entries.  Unfortunately, they didn't have it.  What they did have was the new season of Sparticus, a cover for Stew's iPad, and an adapter for my Note that will allow you to hook a USB device to it - like my camera!

Headed to grab dinner and get home.  Major explosion of strawberry milkshake in the car - will someone please remind me the next time I get a milkshake from there to ask for a flat lit.  Those domed lids always pop off and I end up having to clean the car every time.  It's not like I want whipped cream on the darn thing anyway.

We ate dinner while watching Duck Dynasty.  Still loving that show.  It's an illness, I admit it.

We opened the Note while we were watching tv.  It's going to require a lot of playing to learn all that this thing can do - but I'm super duper excited about it!

I read a few more pages or in my case on the Kindle a few more percents of the book I'm reading and it was off to sleep for me.

Ohhh, one other thing I learned today - Google Drive - synched all of my computers, my phone and my Note - it's truly a thing of awesome!

And another thing I have to say today - this weekend may be the only weekend ever that I consider myself a Ravens' fan.  If I hate the Ravens, I hate the Colts more.  So goooooo Ravens.  Knock the hell out of them.  And if I'm really being honest, I'd like to see the Ravens win it all for Ray.  He's a great player and I think that would be a good way for him to retire.

(This was painted on the sidewalk outside of Best Buy - the whole city is starting to buzz.)

Stew's prediction is that Denver wins it all.  I don't have a prediction yet.  I'm a bitter Steelers' fan.

POTD: January 4, 2013

I wasn't sure what picture to choose for today's POTD - I thought I'd go with the one I found a little disturbing and maybe funny?  I can't decide.  Why would you make women's pajamas and put the word cream right over the breast?  Tongue in cheek maybe?  Although, these were found at Wal-Mart, so, who knows.

Now, who wants me to get these for them for their birthday?