Tuesdays

I'm watching Notting Hill, which makes me happy because it's in London. Plus, it has the great time-passing-montage to "ain't no Sunshine when she's gone" which I like. I'm having a lovely evening sitting by the fire with the cats, making out a poster of my new-year's-resolutions-schmezolutions to hang up on the fridge. I'm also going to write for 90 minutes, and start emailing people about the a capella choir I'm going to start. So all in all, I anticipate a lovely and productive evening. Yay for productive evenings.

Resolutions Schmezolutions

So here we are at another January and I'm doing more resolutions. Actually, I kind of enjoy it. Yesterday I listed all the ares of my life that are important to me, and what I wanted to accomplish with them this year. It's kind of fun to think about, and create the year. So here are some things I'm going to accomplish in 2010:

1. Write - like, seriously, like my life depends on it. Because, in some ways, it really does. I say that I want to be mobile and have a life that is split between LA, PA and London, with travel on the side as well. It's kind of hard to do that with a "real" job. So I really feel like writing is where it's at, especially because reading and writing have always meant so much to me. So this year, the goal is to write for 6 hours a week (that's an hour a day, give or take) and also to take my journaling seriously. Also, I'm going to finish, edit and publish my 2009 NaNoWriMo book, which is one that I'm really loving.

2. Exercise - like, seriously, again, like my life depends on it. Because in a much more real way, it does. I putter around on my elliptical 5 times a week already, but that's kind of lame because my muscles are already used to it, and it's kind of like sleepwalking. I don't do any weights, or core exercises, and that's important as I get (ahem) older. So I bought an exercise ball and have started using it, and am going to do push-ups - starting with my knees bent because I'm lame, but growing my strength so that by the end of the year, I can do 25 push-ups with my legs straight. That's the goal.

3. Go back to London more - At least twice this year. I get lazy because I hate leaving home, but really, that's where my soul belongs, and I need to spend more time there. I get inspired, I get in action, and I come alive when I'm there.

4. Financial - One thing I know is how to make money. Unfortunately, I also know how to spend it with the best of them. So this year, I'm going to try an experiment: I'm going to try to live off of half my salary and save the rest. That will allow me to do things like to go London a lot without charging it on a card. It will also allow me to build up a nice little nest egg for the time when Baby Heather comes along and we need to buy foreign things like diapers and cribs. Weird. And really, lord knows I seriously don't need more scented candles or faux-designer bags from Target. It's all just more junk to move someday anyway.

So those are four of my big resolutions for the new year.

And a funny thing happened during the keeping-of-a-resolution: I decided to go for a hike around the lake this morning, as the weather was nice and it wasn't too freezing. So I get there, park the car, and take my car key off the chain as always, and also as always, I tuck it into my underwear. This is what I have always done, since the days when I began running 15 years ago. Yes, I carry my car key in my underwear. So sue me. So it was slipping around, and I was like, "man, I've gotta find a new place for this key" and then reached in by my hip, and it was no longer there. I shook out my clothes, and nothing. I went back and forth along the path five times, and no key. What the hell, right? Right. So then I finish walk, call hubby and he gets our neighbor to drive him to get me because I have no key. We are going to walk the bit of path where I lost it again, looking more carefully, when suddenly I feel it in an unmentionable. It had moved around and I basically had key-butt. Which was funny because I'd had key-butt for three miles and hadn't felt it. Weird.

Bah!

So its the week between Christmas and new year's and I'm mad. I'm mad because Target already has Valentine's Day stuff out. Seriously? You can put Christmas stuff out in mid-freaking-October, but come December 26, it's time to sweep it all away and move on to the next moneymaker? I mean, come on, can we actually stop to enjoy a holiday for longer than five minutes? I hate to sound all “back in my day...when I walked to school uphill both ways...” but come on! No wonder we're all freaking out and ADD and all that crap. We spend months getting ready for Christmas and then it's over in a day! I am kind of getting over Target after all this. And I know it's not just them, but they're the ones I see. So that's my rant. Keep the flipping decorations up, at least till new year's! For pete's sake!

Podcast Fun

New Episode of the Renaissance English History Podcast up.

http://englandcast.blogspot.com

Yay for Podcasts done in front of the fire and christmas tree.

Email and fertility

I'm trying to get control of my inbox with the help of InboxZero - a site by a guy who wrote a book about how to get control of your email. Honestly, the amount of time I spend on email is seriously mind blowing. I'm especially sick of the people who "reply all" on stupid stuff that has nothing to do with me, and then like 6 people get involved in a conversation about when to have a conference call, and the thing goes on forever, and it just kills me. So I'm learning how to create rules in outlook for listservs and reply-all's. And I'm committed to keeping an empty inbox from now on. Every day I lower it a bit more. It's part of not being a procrastinator any longer.

So I bought one of those over-the-counter fertility tests at Target the other day. J and I have been trying to get preggars for a couple of months now, and since I'm a little bit older (33 - egad!) I thought it wouldn't be a bad idea to just do the test and see what it said. Here's the funny thing, though: I balked at the $22 price tag. I was like, "dang, I can buy something from bare escentuals with that money..." and then I thought about it and figured that $22 for a fertility test is like the biggest spending joke ever. Should I actually have a kid soon, I will be spending way more than $22 on him. So I better just get used to it. I hope my future kid appreciates it.

Oh, and the good news? According to the test, I'm fertile. Good to know.

Stillness

Remember when you were a kid and December seemed to last forever? I used to keep tick marks on a white board with a picture of snoopy on the bottom, and those lines could never accumulate fast enough. Now December just flies by, and I hate it. I really want to be still and enjoy the peace and quiet of the snow, the fire, the coziness, and the lights. So I'm trying to create stillness these days. One way I've found that slows things down is that I actually say out loud what it is I'm doing - like, "I'm driving to work right now," or "I'm cooking dinner right now," or "I'm feeding the cats right now." It presences me to what's going on at that moment and helps me slow down and do just one thing at a time. I wish I could take credit for the idea, but like many good things, I read about it in O Magazine.

So I'm watching The Sing Off right now, and am happy that a capella music is getting popular again. I'm also working on my next episode of the Renaissance English History Podcast. Some of the reviewers on itunes said they wish that I did more episodes...well, I wish I had more time to do more episodes. Once my ILP is over, I'll have so much time, it'll be awesome.

Thanksgiving, snow days, and google wave

So I got a google wave account today. Is google taking over the world? I mean, really. Google owns blogger, youtube, voice, wave - they probably own my house and I don't even know it.

I was supposed to be down in newport beach today, but we had snow, and I couldn't get out. So we had a Snow Day which included much sledding, writing, bubblebaths, reading of Vanity Fair, napping, and watching The Princess Bride. I'm about to hit the elliptical and then keep writing for National Novel Writing Month. I'm out to do the impossible - write 30,000 words in 3 days. Crazy.

I made a giant turkey for Thanksgiving, so we'll be having turkey sandwiches for about a year or so. Fun. Between the turkey, snow, sledding, and naps, life is GOOOOOD.