You Have to be Crazy to be up that Early

 

 

Our backyard has been a playground for deer this winter.  Maybe because there isn't a dog back there to chase them off (sniff, sniff).   A couple of times we've stood at the kitchen window and just watched them.  This one was hanging out by the back fence for quite a long time while we had dinner the other night.  I guess if we can't have a dog, an occassional deer will do.

 

 

After I "lost" my entire blog last summer, I decided I really needed to get the whole darn thing printed off.  So I took a chance on a blog printer I found on the internet and uploaded my shortest year (2011) to try it out.  The book came today and overall I'm pleased, with a few exceptions:

 

1.  This is not the printers fault, but I wish that my blog post titles were in a different font than the main text.  I don't know how to change that, so please enlighten me if anyone knows.  It would just have made the book look less blah.  The titles were in a different color, which was a nice touch.

 

2.  I chose the "condensed" option to consolidate the posts onto as few pages as possible.  The problem with this is that the captions don't match up with the photos.  On the subsequent books I will choose the other option for keeping the original formatting, even though it will cost me more.  (Yikes!  Who said that?)

 

 

The printer I used is SharedBook.com, so if anyone has a blog printer they are happy with, please let me know that as well.  This is my first attempt at this, so I'm happy to learn from other's experiences.

 

 

My former walking partner, Laura, has shamed me into walking in the mornings again.  It's good to get up and moving around in the morning, and despite what I tell her, my days do go much better when I've excercised first thing.  It's just that I'm SO lazy . . .  and I lack motivation . . . and my bed is SO warm . . . and right now it is SO cold outside (hello - 0 degrees!).  But I'm glad she's dragging me along.  I'm not a morning person and the current style of my hair makes for extremely frightening morning hair (thank goodness for hats!).  I know I'm overall pretty darn scary in the morning so thanks to all the people - especially the people I know who are also at the gym at 5:30 am (including the much-maligned-in-this-blog Molly and Stephanie)  - for not screaming or throwing rotton tomatoes at me.  That would be quite coutner-productive to what little motivation I have.  So a big thanks to you, Laura, for having the courage to take me on at that unholy hour.  And bless you for having heated seats in your car.

 

What I did over my Christmas vacation

I worked a half day on December 21 and have been off work since then.  I have to go back tomorrow.  I had really grand plans of things I was going to accomplish while I was off work.  I wasn't just going to squander away the time with nothing-ness like I did last year.  No sitting around shoveling popcorn into my gaping open mouth.  No watching hours on hours of mindless TV.  In other words, I had a week and a half to totally change all my natural instincts.  Here is what I intended to do and what I actually accomplished:

1.  Catch up Quicken:  During my most recent computer crash I lost 6 months of data.  This is indeed a a tragedy due to both my knowledge that I really should back up my data, and yet didn't, as well as my  intense aversion to my balacing and reconciling my checkbook.   Please also consider that I have 3 checking accounts as well as multiple savings accounts.  Explaining why that is would expose you to far too much of my own personal can of crazy, so we won't visit that.  Even Lane has given up asking why.  Anyway, it was my sincere intention to restore, line by painful line, all that missing data.  I have successfully avoided it until the last evening of vacation.  RESULT:  2 checking accounts fully restored, the worst account (meaning, our main account) has 3 of the 6 months restored, both in checking and savings.  Of course, now December is outstanding as well.  Crap.


2.  Clean Sewing Room:  Done.  Christmas wreaks quite a lot of havoc on my sewing/craft/storage room.  It is now all clean - well, as long as you ignore the scrapbooking table.  And the top of my storage dresser.  And the corner where we keep the sleeping bags.  But lets be honest, I'm the one who has to clean it, and it is currently as clean as it is likely to get.


3.  Review and ACTUALLY do Pins:  Not only did I not do this, I pinned a whole bunch of new stuff.  I had promised myself  NO MORE PINS!!  until I tackled what I already had. If I have to look for a success, it is this:  I have successfully taken an already big mess and made it a bigger mess.  Good for me.


4.  Go to the gym daily:  I'm pretty sure we did this, at least on the days where it was possible.  I did a lot of walking, a little weight lifting, a little random hills on the treadmill, and ran twice - once for .75 mile and once for .95 mile.  I am determined to get my jogging back on track because Running with Angels 5k is coming up and I really want to do that again.


5.  Clean Closet:  Done.  Today.  See how I procrastinate?  I got rid of a few things, and organized a few things and found out I have way too many old tshirts and not nearly enough shoes.


6.  Scrapbooking:  Considering I am about 3 years behind, this was a tall order for a week and a half.  I did get our most currrent photos done, from October of this year until Christmas Eve. I do all of my scrapbooking (the stuff with photos anyway) digitally, so I can just print off 4 copies and have pages done for the family scrapbook and the kids books just like that.  It does make it super quick that way, but like I said, I'm 3 years behind and have all the report cards and art projects sitting scattered all over my scrapbook table (see #2 above).



So, it's true I didn't quite make my goals, but I did do a heckuva lot better than last year!  Sure, I did pretty much nothing at all last year, so the bar was set really low. I do reach my goals a whole lot better when the bar is so low.  I'm dumb like that.