What Struck Me

I’m really jonesin’ for a new camera.

Must have

• at least 5 megapixels
• 3x optical zoom
• image stabilizer
• decent enough video with sound
• & (sadly) at least a 2.5 inch LCD screen (my eyes, they’re old.)

I don’t want/need an SLR- just something simple. Small is good. Nick has a Canon that we got him for Christmas that takes waaaaay better photos than our Nikon, so I’m thinking maybe not Nikon. Canon is good, Sony is good, maybe Kodak?

Anyone have a suggestion?

My cousin Tom is a sports reporter for WXYZ in Detroit and he’s blogging the Super Bowl hoopla here (look for the entries by Tom Leyden.)

He must be having a blast- he’s been a football fanatic since he was old enough to know what one was, and now he’s working for the ABC affiliate in the town where the Super Bowl is being played!

Ah, it’s all the same, right?

It’s funny how things happen. Last week I was absent-mindedly clicking around the popular listings at del.icio.us and I found a tag that seemed pretty unusual, at least to me- GTD.

Turns out GTD is for Getting Things Done, which is the name of a book and program for organizing your life. Interesting that I’d already started to do that, so it was just what I needed at just the moment I needed it.

I haven’t actually read the book yet (it’s on order from amazon) but it seems like a pretty cool system. I’ve managed to figure out the basics from visiting various sites and I think I’m making some progress. My stuff is certainly better organized, and now I need to get working on my time.

I’ve read other books about getting past the procrastination in the past, and they’ve never worked. But that’s because I tend to spend so much time reading I never get to implementing. This time I’m already well into the implementing, so we’ll see how it goes! Hey, I’ve already knocked a whole bunch of things off that huge todo list!

What I like about the program is that it’s very practical. It’s not tied into having a perfect life or finding your reason for living or authentic self (gag). It’s just a straight forward way to Get Things Done.

And hopefully once I start to get things done I’ll have time to do the things I want to do (like update this blog, for example) and not feel so paralyzed by the things I need to do (like call the driving school to get Andy scheduled for lessons, which is what I’m going to do right now.)

Yesterday I spent hours going through the trash heap that is our basement. Or I should say it was a trash heap, because, while it’s still full of stuff, I got most of the actual trash bagged and piled up to go away. I ended up with 9 huge contractor bags of just garbage. That doesn’t count the busted furniture, old computer parts, and assorted other lumpy items that don’t fit in the bags but are in a nice big pile.

The rest of it needs to be cleaned up and priced for a garage sale. Yes, pretty much everything that isn’t trash is going to be sold or given away (I already have 3 big boxes of clothes ready for the Salvation Army.) I’ve been talking about having a garage sale for… ever, but this time I really have to do it, I need to empty everything out! So it’s sell it or rent a dumpster and toss it all. So much of it still has life in it, so a sale it shall be.

It was pretty easy to go through and decide what to get rid of. If I haven’t used it or even thought about it in the past year, it was gone. If it brought back a cool memory I enjoyed the memory for a moment- then trashed it. I was easier than I thought it would be to get rid of some of the books. The mold kinda made that a no-brainer.

Most of the toys are actually in pretty good shape, so I’ll sell those. Lots of household doohickeys I never or rarely used are going too. And the Total Gym. I know I’ll never use the damn thing. It’s like new! Maybe I can sell that one on craigslist and get some decent money for it.

There’s 20 years of accumulation down there, people.

I’ll let you all know when so you can come over and shop. I promise to give you a good deal.

I got things done today. Yes, that’s news. Because for the past couple of weeks I’ve pretty much done what I used to do at my last paid job- I made like I was really busy but accomplished nothing.

But Time magazine spanked me with the latest issue- a HUGE section in there about making better use of your time and life.

At least now I know I’m not alone.

So I read the Time articles and decided today I was going to actually cross things off my todo list (and not things I add on there because they’re easy to cross off like “brush teeth.” In fact the first thing I decided to do was… make a new todo list! And it’s a long sucker. I really do have a lot to do.
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So we got our first (rough) estimate on the addition. I’d heard this particular builder was going to be expensive, and she certainly wasn’t cheap (yes, “she”, which works in her favor) but not as bad as I’d feared. She made a few suggestions that made a lot of sense and could actually save us lots of money. We also have some things we can do without, at least for now, to make it cheaper. But they are a true “full service” builder, which is nice, but you pay for it.

Pat’s going to meet with at least two more builders (soon, please!) and then we’ll decide who to go with and move on from there.

It does look like I’m going to have to do without my new front porch, at least for now (sniff). And I’m also pretty sure I’m going to lose my glorious half-octogonal bumpout (sniff sniff). But it’s coming down to what we need vs. what would be awesome, and awesome may just have to wait.