I found the perfect little dress to go with those strappy little shoes. And it’s only $700! Seriously, I do like the flowing femininity of this Paul & Joe dress, but I need more, umm, fabric. I am way too old and way too flabby to rock the flesh belt look. And umm, my thighs? They, uh, they, uh, they sorta extend past the tops of my kneecaps, iykwim. And if you are over 38, I know you do.

My friend Ang. mentioned the other day that she was itching to sew. I didn’t tell her at the time, but I am feeling the same urge. Maybe it is the fact that it’s spring, a time for new things. She didn’t know what she wanted to make, but I do. I want to make something for me, something soft and feminine. Something chiffon and flowing, perhaps with a self-sheath. Something light and gossamer that makes me feel like a butterfly. Something so lovely that where my thighs actually end doesn’t even cross my mind. Something so beautiful that it makes me feel beautiful to wear it. Only it has to cost a lot less than seven hundred bucks!

In other thoughts, a woman came through my line today at work, and she was buying shorts for her son. They happened to be plaid, and I love me some plaid pants, so I mentioned I might have to look at some for myself. And we got off discussing the current state of women’s fashions, and how most of the shorts are indecent, so that men’s shorts are a good alternative for gals who desire to maintain some level of modesty. She said that she had tried to explain to her daughter that the clothing designers were just not interested in helping her daughter “maintain her integrity”. That phrase really struck me. Maintain my integrity. That leads to a few other thoughts that I lack the mental capacity to fully iterate at this time, but I do want you to remind me that I was going to talk a little bit about sinning because we are sinners sometime in the next few days. When I can think a little better.

So, as I was going through my feedreader this morning, I saw this from Booking Through Thursday:

Happy New Year, everyone!

So … any Reading Resolutions? Say, specific books you plan to read? A plan to read more ____? Anything at all?

Name me at least ONE thing you’re looking forward to reading this year!

and I decided to use it as a springboard for my yearly goal post, because, yes I do have reading goals, and lots of other goals, too.

This year, I want to read the rest of the Harry Potter books. And my TBR pile. In fact, I am going to set a lofty goal of a book per week. Crazy, right? If I aim for the moon, perhaps I will reach the stars.

This year, I want to use up the craft stuff I already have, and not buy more.

This year, I want to exercise. In fact, I want to be able to play the card squat game up to 10 cards by the end of the year. I’ll have to post a video of the card squat game so you will know that this is a serious event.

This year, I want to learn to play guitar. I have the instrument, I have the learning dvd. All that remains is to make and take the time to learn.

This year, I want to clean the house. I’ve kept hoping for something bigger, but it hasn’t happened, so this year, I am purposing to make our stuff smaller.

This year, I think I want to do project 365. I guess I need to make up my mind, huh? I used to do a photo a day, and it was a love/hate relationship for me.

This year, I want to send my kids to booty camp. They need to learn to do what they are told, come when they are called and speak when they are spoken to.

And on that note, I guess I just committed to Project 365. I may or not actually scrap the pictures in a book, but here’s the first one.

Notice the five booty camp recruits. (The other two are not yet home from a retreat.) Notice that one girl is holding a HP book, and one is holding 10 cards. Notice that my oldest son is holding my guitar for me. Notice that the girls are sitting on the clean counter I cleared last night. Maybe I should try again. I forgot to have some one hold craft stuff.

There, that’s a bit better. This time I included the craft stuff, and there are two children holding five cards each, (DaBaby lowered hers as I snapped) since I could play card squat through five cards when my nephew and sister taught it to me.

Please note that there are no goals here about money and there are no goals here about people who are beyond my control. I have no idea about my finances at this point, and I have learned that making goals that involve other autonomous people is setting yourself up for big fat failure.

IF I was to set one goal that involved others, it would be going to see Ang. this year. But that means I have to have a sitter, and a sitter falls in to the category of “other autonomous people”.

The other day, my magical friend Trevor tweeted about an article he was reading. I clicked over and found this: Best Buy smashes the clock. I glanced over it, more because he was interested in it than anything else, until I got to this part:

People at all levels stop doing any activity that is a waste of their time, the customer’s time, or the company’s money.

Now, I reread that a couple of times, and then I remembered what I had posted about never being still, and I then I reread that sentence again, and I realized that if I better corralled my “work” I would have more time to just be.

For instance: sitting here, waiting and hoping for work to show up is not work. Looking two or three times a day is sufficient.

Same with email: I doubt the president is going to email me for my opinion before he launches the nukes, so I don’t need to be available by email at all times either. I can open it up and delete that spam three times a day, reply to my two real emails and close it again.

And tabs: I had been leaving tabs open until I “got a chance to read them”. Done with that, too.

So here is my new plan: In the morning, I open the email, and go through it deleting, deleting, deleting, and dealing with anything that needs a reply NOW, and then closing Thunderbird. I check my message boards, and then I start working my Google calendar. The calendar holds internet and non internet stuff, but I want to knock out as much internet stuff as I can before lunch.

After lunch: school, then finish up internet. Finished means that the only tab I have open is my Google calendar and that my inbox has nothing from today in it. Eventually, it will mean that my inbox is empty, but I still have some stuff in there from before; 28 actionable items, in fact. This entails opening Thunderbird again, of course, and deleting a ton more junk to get to the few real emails.

When I am done I move away from the computer. This is the most important part! (If I am here, I will be “busy”, which we both know usually isn’t true, but it sounds good, right?) And I don’t come back until the first bedtime at 8pm or later, depending on what is going on here at home. At that time, I can read feeds, make sure there’s nothing left on the calendar, and check email and message boards again, too.

I still need to figure out when I want to clean and read the Bible, but I am betting those things will fall into place pretty quickly.

Oh, I forgot the goal report: We’re not going to talk about my weight this week, since i forgot to weigh this morning when I got up (oops) but I can happily report that I moved 10 books this week, in the form of reviews on my knitting blog.

Several days ago, Laura from Organizing Junkie posted about her blogging notebook. I mulled that post over for several days. In fact, I left the tab open and I looked at it almost every day for a week. At roughly the same time, I reread an article on editorial calendars that I had read a while back, and suddenly things began to gel. Once I had figured out all the things I needed to keep track of I put pencil to paper. This is my second week on the notebook method, and here is what the set of pages I have used this week looks like. I took the picture this morning, as I was planning my day, after I decided that today’s post would be the notebook.

You can see it gets pretty messy by Friday, LOL. But I have to tell you, I have gotten more work done this week that I have in the past month, just because I am no longer spinning my wheels wondering what I am supposed to be doing.

On the left is a list of reviews and blog posts I need to write, across all my blogs. Beside this is my to-do list. I know that it looks like I have not done a lot of it this week, but I can assure you that the checked off items were biggies, and took several hours of sustained effort each. On the right are my daily trackers. I use that side to keep track of: which girl is cleaning the kitchen today, which boy is cleaning the small bathroom, what three household chores are the priority, how much money I make (hey, I’m keeping it real), the daily posts on my three main blogs, which other blogs I am posting on, what’s for supper, and my daily calorie and saturated fats count. I decided recording the number of potty runs was a bit much, though if I ever get to go alone, I may note it. In the back of the book are lists of post ideas for all my blogs. When I read, it is beside me so I can take notes. The notebook goes where I go, except to bed, because when I go to bed, it’s to sleep, not work.

I do think that I will make some weeks up in advance, probably by running a block of Monday through Friday across the top of the left hand page. That way, it won’t be such a hassle to note when the next post is due on the non-daily blogs (that’s what is making the review and posts column so long). Any questions?

Not me. Actually, I am buzzing around this morning kicking butt and taking names. It’s a good day, LOL. But the other day, my sweet husband, who has been doing field service for many, many years looked at me and said “I’m tired. I never thought I would say it, but I am tired of driving around, tired of the road, and I am ready for a simple job that I can go to one place, put in my time and then come home.” Truly, I never thought he’d say that either. But he did, and he’s putting in applications to that end. Of course, that’s going to change our financial situation yet again. With the price of gas, which we are paying mostly out-of-pocket, I am not sure if it’s going to be better or worse, but in any case, it’s time to get our financial ducks in a row. His friends are beginning to retire, and I’m thinking he’s probably going to want to do the same sooner rather than later.

Anyway, I took a financial test online, and it wasn’t pretty. We aren’t needing Debt consolidation or Debt relief so much as we are needing to plan for the future. And the future just got a lot closer than I thought it was with his announcement last week. And because he is older than I am by quite a bit, we will not be retiring together, so I am also needing to look at finances over an even longer period to make sure that when I am ready to retire, I have what I need to avoid a financial crisis. The cold hard truth is that I will most likely spend the bulk of my retirement years without my husband. If I need Debt help, I’ll have to rely on my children, and I don’t want to have to do that. Nor do I particularly want to be thinking about this prospect at 41. It certainly seemed a lot further away at 25 than it does today. Today, it’s a little bit scary, and I am trying to squeeze all I can from every precious day.

Well, boys and girls, it’s time to start thinking about September. See, in September, I am going on a trip. I am going to Orlando to hang with people I like and try to avoid people I don’t, and right now, I am not quite sure how many of each there will be, but I am sure that the wonderfulness of being with those I do will outweigh the stress of seeing those I don’t. How’s that for a round about thing??

Anyway, the big decision is how to get there. I was going to ride wih a friend, but now I am not sure if she’s still planning to drive, so I am looking at flights and comparing them to car rental. I’ll have to calculate the cost of gasoline into the occasion, but that may be a possibility.

Advantage is offering up to a 50% discount on luxury and convertible car rentals. I’ve always wanted to drive a red convertible. Too bad that I would look like Broom Hilda before I hit the highway. Unless I wore a head scarf, which is an idea, but somehow doesn’t sound quite as fun and freewheeling. They have other car rental discounts, too. Too bad I’m not in Florida his very minute wanting to get to Ang. I could do that for a buck a day!

Back in November, when Ang. and I finally met in person, it was a totally awesome thing. I know I didn’t blog much about it, but, it was because I had a very difficult time finding the words to say. We had grown to know each other so well over our years of internet friendship that being in the same room together only meant we got to give our fingers a rest and jack our jaws instead. We even said BRB now and again. And when we got home, we agreed that we should not wait such a long time before having another IRL meetup, and we discussed meeting this spring in Pigeon Forge. I used the HotelsByCity website tonight to try to find cheap hotels and I was pleased to see that we can get a room for about 65 bucks a night during the first week of May. We could get them even cheaper if we go right now!

Unfortunately, that isn’t financially possible for either of us, but if I could anywhere I wanted to right now, it would be Pigeon Forge with Ang. I’ve had a miserable 2 months, and I need a get away. In fact, I probably need a good cry, too, and I know she won’t laugh when my mascara runs. I know they say only time can mend a broken heart, but coffee with a friend can go a real long way.

Today, I have stuff to do! I have one basket of stuff to deal with from my desk, and then it will be clean. I plan at that point to begin tackling the massive to-do list that I made a couple/three/six weeks ago. Also, I will be grabbing some freshly sharpened pencils and begin filling in my new calendar. I really dislike using pens in my calendars, because I don’t like scratching things out. I’m a check off done and erase changes/errors kind of girl. See previous discussion of my anal tendencies for more on that. I apologize in advance for any folks who land here from a search engine and don’t get the eyeful you were hoping for, but a girl takes her traffic any way she can get it.

Ok, so that’s my day. Plus laundry. There’s always laundry.