Done this year (20160101Fr - 09Sa)

[mdlbear]

Well, it's another year. There always seems to be a lot of potential around transitions like this, but it rarely seems to get very far. A lot of my goals for this year are carry-overs from last year. I've been spending too much time beating myself up over things I regret not doing last year (last decade, last quarter-century, ...), many of which simply can't be fixed. I keep screwing myself over, and I don't really understand it. (More on that in a later post, hopefully.)

This does nothing to help with my depression. It may, conceivably, help me fight procrastination. Maybe. I'll start working on that tomorrow.

I have gotten a few more things done in the last 10 days than in most comparable periods in the recent past. A few. Largely reading and research around tiny houses and shipping container houses, and a couple of fun dives into math.

Last weekend Colleen and I celebrated our 40^th anniversary by going out twice: for dinner at the Melting Pot Saturday, and brunch at Salty's on Sunday (the actual day). That, at least, was good. It was a good set of mutual gifts to ourselves -- the last thing we need right now is more stuff.

Speaking of which, my book on tidying seems to have gotten lost somewhere in the clutter. Fortunately, I found a different one yesterday at Half Price Books.

Lots of links in the notes, for those of you following along at home.

0101Fr
  * 12:05am - sounds of fireworks and celebration from outside.  In here, I'm sipping
    Jameson's out of a wine glass.  I have been reading 40x28 while the rest of the zoo
    plays Monopoly and argues about the rules.
  * up 7ish; W=197.8; laundry, dishes, cleanup, garbage, recycling
  ~ we are coming up on our 40th anniversary -- it's not too soon to think about presents
    -> going out, twice.
  @ ISBU Information | Intermodal Steel Building Units and Container Homes
    Intermodal Steel Building Units and Container Homes (40x28)
    Shipping Container Homes
  & Printed CCI: Put Off Procrastinating! -- started working through them.
  " I think building
    a house together should almost be a prerequisite for marriage. You get to see your
    partner ecstatic, exhausted and borderline-nuts, sometimes all within the same 24 hour
    period. You get to work together, disagree, argue it out and compromise. The journey
    is sweet, but you have to work a bit to make it so. "
  % numb feeling between nose and mouth on the right side.  Do not like.  What in hell did
    I do?  Tooth or gum, perhaps?  Grump.
  & moved the clip-on desk lamp to where it can actually illuminate the desk instead of my
    back.
  * Did an import from LJ to DW; last one was a long time ago (either 58 days or 58 weeks;
    I don't remember)

0102Sa
  * up 7:20; W=198.4; laundry, shower, dishes
  * copied blackroot:.ssh to nova:.ssh.blackroot -- it is believed to be the only
    remaining copy of my "work" ssh identity.  Should really replace all my ssh keys.
  * 15min: tidying in Great Room around the liquor cabinet
  & as an experiment, shut down browser on Trantor after the usual AM reading.  This may
    free up some mindspace for other things.
  * Finished first pass over  CCI: Put Off Procrastinating! -- the larger worksheets are still to be worked on.
  * did a load of dishes and got about halfway through the pile.
    ! annoyed because our guests left the kitchen in an unusable state after dinner.
    -> might have to start being more assertive about asking for help.  "might"??!
    % my back has started to hurt
  % remembered that there is at least one box of unsorted mail left.  Grump.
    -> another pass will be needed; threw out the charity mail.
  * 15min: second pass at the kitchen.  Taking it slow because back.
  * 15min: emptied dishwasher
  * some puttering in the garage.  Looks feasible to free up a set of shelves, but it
    would be more lifting than is safe for me.
  * shopping:  Walgreens:  panties
  * start leaving ~5pm -> good thing; I had a little trouble finding the place.
  * 6pm Melting Pot -> yum.  Next time we'll know not to get the plate of extras for the
    dessert fondue; it would have been quite enough without it.
  * 9:30ish Ticia chased Cricket, who ran across me on her way to the windowsill; painful
    puncture just behind my left ring-fingernail, and three half-inch gashes in my right
    forearm.  Looks like I've been in a knife fight.  Oh, right.  Knocked Cygnus off the
    chair arm and onto the floor; seems none the worse for wear, but I'll probably want to
    run an fsck.  (If the disk had crashed it would have made a good excuse for an SSD)
  
0103Su our 40th anniversary!
  * Up 4:30; W=197.8; laundry, bath, dishes
  * spent most of the morning on Cygnus rather than Trantor.
  * cleared the plates off the card table in the kitchen (where they've been since April),
    and put most of them under the kitchen table.  Kept out the ones I thought were most
    attractive.  Folded up the card table.  It is now possible to get to the hot tub.
    (Or will be once somebody moves the walker that's on the floor in front of the door.)
  * 9am shopping:  QFC/Petco
    dry and wet cat food for Ticia; litter
    steak and mushrooms for dinner with Kat and Rabbit
    milk, peanut oil
  ~ canned air for Colleen -> found a can in the Rainbow Room
  & using Trantor with the SAD light on and no browser for now.  Not clear that I have a
    specific project to work on; may just get off the computer and read some dead trees.
  * 1:15 Salty's -> yum.  Overate a little, in part by overestimating how much Colleen
    would want.  Here's to the next 10 years... and the next forty, if possible.
  : It started _snowing_ just as we were leaving for brunch, which made for a perfectly
    enchanting afternoon.  Stopped around 3:30.
  * How to Beat Procrastination - Wait But Why
  " If you Google
    “how to stop procrastinating,” you’ll find about 1,000 articles, all offering terrific
    advice on how to do it. The problem is that the articles are always written for sane
    people, and procrastinators aren’t sane people. Being insane, procrastinators are
    always under the delusion that they’re sane, "
  * Dinner:  baked potatoes, tri-tip steak, and mushrooms.  Nobody was hungry enough for
    the broccoli or salad, and I had the smallest steak and skipped the potato.  Yum.
  * Listened to a lot of Dave Carter.  Sang Desolation Row -- a couple of major flubs, but
    that's not surprising considering how long it's been since I played it last.

0104Mo
  * up 6:25; W=197.8; ..., laundry
  * re-caulk shower stall.
  * activate Sound Credit Union debit card
  * set up online access to Sound Credit - temporary id and password in packet
    -> loan payment due 1/26; minimum 597
  * pay mortgage
  * Contractor meeting:  tile installation starts next week.
  & Damned near lost Cricket -- she dashed out as Dale was coming in.  Fortunately I was
    at least wearing socks; I grabbed her by the mailbox but she slipped out and ran to
    the porch, where she let me pick her up and carry her without struggling.  I think she
    decided she didn't like it outside.
  * call clearpoint; cancel clearpoint (pull, so must call)
  ~ cancel great lakes autopay (pull, so must call)

0105Tu
  * up 6:36; W=197.8; laundry
  @ Countdown to 2016 (and some links) *lots* of links, mostly about adtech
  @ What is donotlink, and how does it work? | donotlink.com
  * humira shipment due
  @ The Tomato Thief | Apex Magazine Ursula Vernon.  Excellent (and weird)
  @ “Adulting” is an Indictment of Society, Not of Millennials 
    " Millennials and others who don’t want to adult aren’t being immature. They just
      don’t like the mainstream society’s definition of “adult.” And sooner or later,
      they’re going to change it. "
  @ How to Properly Label Those Photos You Inherited — AncestralFindings.com f(Megan Jean Bouchard et. al.)
  @ 'Granny pods' can be the end of nursing homes — the interior is a dream

0106We
  * up 6:37; W=197.8; dishes, ..., laundry
  @ VCS friendly, patchable, document line wrapping -- DustyCloud Brainstorms (LWN)
    wrap each sentence separately with the wrapped lines indented 2; separate paragraphs
      in the obvious way with a blank line.
    Plays nice with version control.
  @ The American Workplace Is Broken. Here’s How We Can Start Fixing It. (ysabetwordsmith)

0107Th
  * up 6:10; W=197.8; laundry, dishes
  @ The Orphan Tsunami of 1700: Japanese clues to a parent earthquake in North ... -
    Brian F. Atwater - Google Books 
  @ Kindness In Music - the collection - Porcupine Burrito
  @ Did My Doctor Miss My Cancer Because I'm a Woman?  Chronic pain, too.
  : YD has solid plans to move out at the end of February.
    % feels rather weird.
  & Sometime a little after midnight Colleen noticed that her grab pole had come loose.
    Couldn't find the wrench, so went downstairs and got vicegrips.  Not really big enough
    -- I couldn't get them anywhere near closed -- but sufficient.

0108Fr
  * Up 5:40; W=198.4; laundry
  * leave work 4:30ish -> 4:10, and it was just about perfect
  * 6pm Take kids to other parents so G can take N to dinner and airport
  @ Bones Unlimited - Dr. Fred Edmunds Complete Course

0109Sa
  * up 7:15ish; W=198.4; laundry, shower, dishes
  ! depressed and not liking myself much.  Skipping my 50th HS reunion was stupid.
  * 11ish SouthCenter with C and E
    Half Price Books (E dropped off a box of discards), Blue C (because Miyagi, next to
    the bookstore, wasn't open), Container Store.
    % We were going to go to Costco, but I couldn't find a parking space and was,
      apparently, seconds away from freaking out.  DO NOT LIKE
  * finished Things to Make and Do in the Fourth Dimension.  Started
    Scaling Down and Tiny Homes
  * Dinner:  baked beans with Polish sausage, salad (!)

Comments

[kyrielle]

Question: have you heard of Habitica, and is it something that might help you? (Short form: RPG-esque gamification of habits and to-do lists.)

I'm also about to check out You Need A Budget which came recommended and see if that gives us a better handle on our spending.

[mdlbear]

No, I hadn't. Sounds like Habitica could be useful, though there's also the possibility that my lack of interest in gaming will get in the way. Um... yeah; looking at it, it doesn't excite me.

YNAB is maybe worth a try, too, but... In both cases, I'm somewhat worried about websites that look like they're collecting even more information than Facebook.

I do need to go through a budgeting exercise again; I've been slacking off.

Meanwhile, I just finished reading Scaling Down : Living Large in a Smaller Space: Marj Decker, Judi Culbertson, George Booth. Definitely useful.

[kyrielle]

*nodnods* Habitica will work well for a certain subset of people, and be totally the wrong model for most of the rest. What it knows about you is dependent on what you decide to track and how. (It knows a fair amount about my day to day life, but I'm sure I could 'encode' tasks I didn't want it to know about if I was worried.)

YNAB - it was mentioned on AskAManager, with a 34-day free trial - apparently can be used in a mode where it's not linked to your accounts at all and you enter your data, but obviously if it's going to fully track your budget in a useful way, it's going to end up knowing a lot about you.

[freyjaw]

Happy anniversary!

We'd like to get organized but we don't have any energy. So many things are in boxes in the basement.

[amaebi.livejournal.com]

Maintaining forward momentum, mostly, regardless of headwinds, +1000.

[mdlbear]

:) Thanks.

[andyheninger.livejournal.com]

Happy Anniversary and New Year!
Give my best to Colleen.

[mdlbear]

Thanks! We miss you -- if you're ever in Seattle, be sure to drop by.

[gorgeousgary]

Happy anniversary to you and Colleen!

[filkferengi]

Happy Anniversary! I'm glad y'all are still having fun together!