Potholes in the road of life.

Today is Blue Monday, the most depressing day of the year. [Actually the whole concept is a marketing ploy, read the Wiki.] And I’m definitely feeling it this year.

Or well actually I’m feeling exhaustified. My body has been acting oddly for quite a while now. At first I just attributed it to my not-unheard of poor eating habits. But seems like I should have balanced back out by now, yet I’m still feeling iffy. I’ve actually been about 2lbs down from what I consider my “normal” weight since like before Christmas now. Weird.

But inevitably the prime suspect of my exhaustification is reading Children of Dune. I keep staying up too late. Ooops. Seriously the last time I went to bed before like 12:30am was maybe Thursday.

Some people are addicted to easily categorized ‘bad things’, For example alcohol or drugs. Me? Well I’m addicted to books and they still manage to have bad effects on my physical health.

*shrug* Can’t be perfect.


“Mondays are the potholes in the road of life.”

Productivity

So last weekend was a concert weekend. And a concert weekend means 12 days of often stressful work in a row. In fact last weekend was particularly bad because of the possibility of snow. People here freak out if they even see the word. The end result of those 12 days is always without fail me being ridiculously excited to finally reach the weekend.

I'd started planning things I wanted to do with my marvelous days off before Friday and so by the time I arrived home at approximately 4:40 I was able to begin putting together a list of things to do which later grew into this beauty:

Things to do now that I finally have 2 whole days off!:
1. Clean room
2. Read Dune
3. Knit at least 5 inches of arm warmers
4. Beat another level in Guitar Hero 2
5. Beat another song in Guitar Hero 3
6. do laundry
7. wash sheets and towels
8. find and mail Nicole's christmas present
9. start new budget in Microsoft Money
10. re-memorize Raindrop Prelude
11. learn tricky part of Prelude 4
12. send random letter
13. find subscription order forms to use as examples
14. make some form of meal food
15. teach TRM to double knit
16. lunch with a stalker
17. make iced tea with good tea bags
18. clean kitchen

The results were as follows:
1. Cleaning my room was easy. Really things just end up getting piled up during the week so all I needed to do was put stuff away.
2. I probably should have put a page restriction on this. I did make it through quite a bit of the book but there are still about 80 pages to go.
3. I also made some decent progress here, it's definately looking like something tubular now, but I think I only made about 3.5 more inches.
4. Check, beating another level on GH2 was easy.
5. Sadly I didn't even attempt passing a song on GH3. I have been stuck on this one level forever. I'm playing on hard now and it's gotten seriously hard. Maybe I can make it a goal of the week or something.
6. Laundry is one of those obvious and easy weekend things. Double check.
7. Easy peasy. And bonus now my bed is all neat and nicely tucked in again. Inevitably during the week it somehow starts shifting and drives me nuts (even though I make my bed every morning).
8. So Nicole's Christmas Present is definitely MIA. I'm really questioning my sanity and wondering if I actually mailed it to her in a more timely fashion already.
9. So this budget is really rather insignificant. And I'd just like to do it for the graphs and charts that Money can generate. So maybe during the week I'll un-slack off. I'd also like to enter in everything from like the second half of 2008 sometime maybe.
10. At first I was quite frustrated with my inability to play Raindrop anymore. But I'm just rusty and things started clicking on Saturday. I think I could perform it passibly enough. Most people might even be impressed.
11. As my piano skills returned this became easier. Not performable yet, but good progress.
12. I ended up writing 3 postcards to 3 of my friends. I like the random factor of the idea. That and getting stuff in the snail mail is always fun.
13. This task I think I had finished before 6 on Friday. Now I can take them into work tomorrow!
14. Saturday for Dinner I made myself some Tilapia. It was a pretty pathetic attempt at cooking, but hey gotta start somewhere, and hey it really didn't taste half bad imho.
15. TRM was envying a phone case that I recently whipped up so I had to teach her to double knit so she could make one.
16. So adding this to the list was a direct quote from him. And it needs to be noted that stalker is not flower boy. It definately ended up being possibly the longest first date ever. The jury is still out.
17. This was random, I had a sudden urge for good iced tea. And indeed it was tasty.
18. There were many dirty dishes. But I always feel so accomplished after I clean up the kitchen, so completing this made me happy.

Takes the taste out of peanut butter.

Many times in the past few days have I thought of things that I wanted to write about on here. And yet I never did it. It was a concert weekend. And as always those always shoot my motivation to hell. Plus they went and forecasted snow (most of which didn’t come) for the weekend which was a really really good way to stress me out because all of our patrons start freaking out. But it actually went rather well, it was a miracle.

Then on Tuesday I received flowers at work from some random kid that I’d be talking to online. Like holy freaking crap. I love flowers and they are totally a very good way to win my heart. But the whole getting them from someone that I’ve not even met – not cool. It ruined the flowers completely plus because it was at work people asked about them. And I didn’t want to tell the truth so I lied. And then I just hated having to keep lying again and again. Plus now I really don’t know what to do about this guy. He’s perfectly nice and sweet, and for gosh shakes he sent me flowers. How many times have I wished I had a significant other that’d do that. But still…really no interest in dating this guy. Yet I really don’t want to have to tell him. I could go the way of A and just *poof* (disappear) but that is rather cruel to do to someone.

On my non personal life front so far me and the New Years Resolutions are iffy. I’m doing quite well about my new blog. In fact I’m sure it contributed to my not posting over here so much. The extra $ and biking are really not at all everyday goals. And well I’m failing, unfortunately as I predicted, at the stretching. I have excuses! It gets hard when the days are stressful and there are concerts and I end up exhausted. And then I go to ballet and end up sore the next couple of days. Here’s hoping I kick myself out of it and get back on the horse.

In other news the economy is becoming more and more scary. Big name classical arts organizations are floundering: The Baltimore Symphony laid off a number of staff, and today the Met announced top staff took 10% pay cuts and are asking lower staff members to do the same. Wish me luck in this environment.

“Nothing takes the taste out of peanut butter quite like unrequited love.” - Charlie Brown (Charles Schutz)

A single step.

As you can see my blog has been prettified. Hooray for new beginnings.

I think that I should modify things so that my new year really didn't start at midnight on January 1. Because well bad things happened then. But things like my new pretty blog give me hope.

As you admire the amazing color/design also take note of the progress bars to the right. After a good bit of messing around with some code that I don't actually understand but managed to work by trial and error I consider them to be quite the sucess.

Please also also take note that there is even some reported progress!

3. I forgot to mention in my Beginnings post but I've found another small trickle of additional income. Sometime in December one of the blogs I read posted a link to join Pinecone research! And if you've ever researched anything about being paid for online survey's you'll know that Pinecone is the place to sign up with. So I did. For each of the survey's you complete they mail you a $3 check within days. It's awesome. So far I've received $6. Rock on.

4. Yesterday was my first day of stretching. Rather incorrectly I went and did it cold. And really I must say there is a huge difference. Most of the serious stretching that I've done lately has been towards the end of ballet class when I'm obviously quite warmed up. Ah well, live and learn. And one additional 'interesting' effect was that it seems to have bothered my left knee which hurt some this morning. I've been having knee issues when doing some strenuous stuff (running or serious hiking) but I can't remember which one. Yup, I'm that awesome. Something to watch out for. Also I need to think of a better way to track my progress on this one for it's sidebar.

5. New Blog! http://musicaincipit.blogspot.com/ I also made this one pretty. But still tried to be sophisticated about it. Plus I have a list of topics to write up posts on. Sweetness.


“A journey of a thousand miles must begin with a single step.”

Beginnings

I resolve in 2009 that I shall accomplish the following things:

1. Pay off 1 student loan ($2,510.03).
2. Ride my bike 1200 miles.
3. Generate $300 beyond my salary.
4. Stretch. Have at least one solid split.
5. Create and maintain a “professional” blog.

When I first came up with number one my initial reaction was ‘that should be easy’. However in considering it further and re-evaluating my budget, I’m rethinking a bit and have decided that this could be a challenge. But really these resolutions are not supposed to be easy as pie things that do nothing for my personal growth so I intend to have quite a go at it. Previously I was budgeting $100 per month for my student loan, this was based on the $99 and some odd change requirement over the 10 year period. Before I even thought this up as a resolution I had increased that amount to a barely significant $120 per month. Now it is my intent to throw my entire extra paycheck (January’s a 3 pay period month) at it. That will be exciting (I’m not being sarcastic I’m a huge dork and this excites me).

Number two initially was 1000 miles. Mostly because that’s a nice even round number. But I decided that it would be too easy to attain. This past year I probably hit 800, and that includes not starting until like June and being a beginner who was afraid that the whole 20 mile loop would be difficult.

The resolution that I am most concerned about is number three. This is something that I’ve seen many other pf bloggers do, generally in much larger amounts. And while it’s something that I’ve considered many times I’ve never actively set any goals. Some current thoughts on how to accomplish this are: interest which is kind of cheating but I still think it fits, sell crafts (most likely paper cuttings) on Etsy, find occasional handy jobs on Craigslist, or maybe even try and sell some things that I no longer use or need. It could be very exciting if I am able to do these things and generate a bit of extra cash in my pocket.

Number four is something that I’ve tried to convince myself to do a million other times. And as of yet have never gotten very close to accomplishing. I think my best run is probably stretching about 3 days in a row. How shameful. My side split is dismal and I have little to know hope for it. But right now my right is somewhere around 6 inches up I'd imagine. The left is a bit behind it. So if I'm persistent a few months could see some good progress.

Five should actually be some fun. Blogs are big now not only in the random completely personal sense that I am posting now. Hopefully I can put out some good ideas, and maybe eventually I’ll even generate some readership.

Now I shall endeavor to overhaul the design of this site and add *gasp* progress bars!

Reflections

2008, you were a year. That, by any means, is the truth.

I think what most stands out about the recently passed year was its being a year of settling and coming into my own. It was the first year of my 100% legal (and nearly all financial [I think the only real exception is the cell phone my parents pay for]) independence. Way back in 2007 I was still a student for the first half of the year and then spent the second half pretty much doing nothing with my new life.

When I made my somewhat ridiculous list of 'resolutions' on the eve of 2007 part of it was out of the need to fill my life with something, anything. I wasn't joking when I say I was doing nothing in the fall of 2007. I went to work, I came home. Repeat.

But even then I was on the edge of new things. TRM and I had started dating in December of 07. We were together through June of 2008. That was my first adult relationship. And as bitter as I was from the breakup I'm really very thankful for the growth and learning that the experience provided me. Plus all in all he was and is a great guy, albeit not the perfect one for me.
In June I was handed the experience of going to a big national conference for the arts. It was great to see so many ideas and new things presented. Plus just the ability to almost (although not quite) go off on a trip on my own. Not to mention that it was done on the company dime.

2008 saw the beginning of my new obsession, biking. I blame Jo for it’s origins, but I’ve definitely taken it to a farther level than her now. It all started with the $30 yard sale bike. I logged somewhere around 800 miles I figure. I’d be half tempted to say the best $30 I spent all year. Although unfortunately the obsession did spur additional spending. My bike gear now abounds. Plus I went way out on a limb and made the $800 purchase of my new beauty. I didn’t even budget for it. In the end however I can afford it. Plus I’m pretty sure it’s totally worth it. I got a ridiculously good deal. My $30 bike was a $30 bike, and it was too big for me. Orange (as I have spontaneously decided to call my new bike) actually fits me and cause me to do less damage to my body. And over all the whole bike riding this is incredibly beneficial to my heath and well being. Plus I’m somewhat determined to, once the weather hits spring, use it instead of my car whenever possible.

In conjunction with the bike obsession I participated in two pretty serious rides. First I rode a ridiculously hot and way too hilly 100 miles. Then later a sweet and speedy flat 150 across NJ. I’d definitely say that those are my accomplishments of the year.

And those are the things that stand out to me when I think back upon my year.

Happy New Year

2009 rolled in by emotionally kicking my ass. Things have not improved since then.


*my previously mentioned and more uplifting posts may yet be still forthcoming*