Flora, Fauna & Fowl

I was biking on the weekend, around the reservoir and was just astounded at the beauty around me. Because of all the rain last week, the fields have lots of temporary ponds and the frogs were raising a chorus in the early morning sunshine. As I came around a corner, a deer daintly stepped through the new grass and passed by 10 feet from me as I stopped and marvelled at its lack of fear. The swallows were out in full force, hundreds of them swooping over the river as they gorged themselves on the healthy crop of mosquitos. The prairie dogs were nibbling on grasses and probably trying to dry out their burrows. There were Canada Geese and ducks and sparrows and a variety of other birds that just chirped and twittered from the bushes. Even though I live in a major city, it's always amazing to me how much wildlife still manages to survive and thrive!

And spring is definitely here. The aspen and cottonwood leaves are getting bigger by the minute. The crocuses have already passed and gone to seed. But me thinks, it might be about the right time for violets to be peaking through last year's leaf litter. Even the dandelions look cute and healthy and are a welcome addition to spring. Actually... when you think about it dandelions look cute when they're in flower and when they're in full puff-ball mode. They don't look so cute in between those stages and after the puffballs are done but... they are beautiful in their own right.

I suppose we just have to have the eyes to see the beauty around us... because it is everywhere... if we only look and see.

Books

There was an article on the news the other day that said ebooks are outselling paper books. The demise of paper books (real books) is at hand? Is it possible?? Could it really happen? I see more and more people reading their ebooks or their tablet... and it makes me wonder. So far, I have resisted the urge to buy an ebook reader... having quite a backlog of unread books to work my way through at the moment anyhow. Plus, I do like to buy recycled books at the local second-hand bookstore. I can trade in my old books and get some "new" books for me...

But still, at some point... it will make more sense to get an ebook reader... At which point I will be faced with the ultimate dilemman for an avid reader and book lover... what to do with all of the "real" books on my shelves!?

To be honest, I have decluttered and let go of a lot of my paper back books over the years. As I read books, I continue to purge and let go of ones that no longer hold my interest. But... to let go of all of them? What would I put on my bookshelves??? What would I do with my bookshelves?? My rooms would look so bare without all that furniture! Or are we headed to a world of minimalism... no CD racks... no book shelves...

Hmm... for now... I debate and dither... It is enough for me to be letting go of CDs... we'll give the books a while yet!

Music

We have gone through quite a progression in my time in regards to music. I remember reel-to-reel tapes. Then there were 8-tracks. We had 78 rpm records, then 45 rpm and then 33 rpm. We had cassettes. We had CDs. And now we have digital music. All in the space of 45 years or so! How is a person supposed to keep up!

I've thinned out my record collection quite a bit in the last decade or so. I transferred a bunch of them to CDs, including all of the 45s. I got rid of my cassette tapes a while ago. The 78 rpm records from my Dad went to Value Village years ago. Which leaves me with hundreds of CDs. They are neatly arranged on shelves... but the truth is... I hardly listen to them anymore! Somehow it's too much trouble to go and find a CD and put it in the CD player, especially when I'm working in my office. I have a bunch of songs on my computer, and I tend to listen to them... or to the radio.

So, in the interests of increasing my music library... and decluttering... I am transferring all of my CDs to the computer, into iTunes. It's not that hard, and once I'm done, I can put them all on my iPod and take them with me wherever I go. And get rid of the hundreds of CDs... hmmm...

Get rid of the CDs? But I spent so much money on them!! Yes, I'll have them in my computer but... what if that crashes? What if I lose all that music? Ahh!! Isn't that the way it goes with any sort of decluttering... I might need it some day! The truth is, I hardly listen to them anymore in the form that they are in... they take up space... I have outgrown some of them... and isn't it time to just let them go? There are many second-hand music stores that would possibly buy them... or at least some of them... and then there is always Value Village.

It would be quite the feat for me to let them go... and I dither over it. But... I think it's time... I think... maybe... It is time!

Rain Rain

Somewhere along the way this past week, we got transplanted to Vancouver. It's been raining pretty steady since last weekend, with 5 cm some days. Let's just say, enough now! It's good for the forests, but maybe mother nature could spread it out a little bit! Send some a bit north for the high risk fire zones! Anyhow, I haven't been out on my bike for almost 2 weeks and I'm missing it. Today was not too bad, so I'm thinking tomorrow might be a good biking day.

Spring has definitely come, although there is always a risk of frost, so tonight we're going to have to cover up some tender plants. We put a lot of effort into them and it would be a shame if they all bit the bucket because of a touch of frost!

Rain, frost, snow, sun, clouds, fog... we get it all... which makes for interesting weather forecasts! You never know what might be coming. Which is a good metaphor for life as well. Never know what is coming, and sometimes you just have to roll with the punches and be prepared for a bit of frost!

Traffic

I was driving to Starbucks and in the opposite lanes, there was an on-ramp that has two lanes, merging into three lanes of traffic. The on-ramp is usually a bottleneck area anyways, but today there was a fender bender that had the two lanes down to one lane. Which meant that traffic behind the bottleneck was well and truely backed up... hundreds and hundreds of cars as far as the eye could see.

Which makes me think... one person's inattention or impatience... leads to a minor fender-bender... which inconveniences 100's if not 1000's of people. How does that work? One person trying to get somewhere 10 seconds faster, means that all of those other people are going to get somewhere minutes, maybe hours later... When you add up all that lost time, it's actually pretty impressive.

A good lesson for all of us... our haste to get somewhere, could affect a gazillion other people... The question to ask our selves... is it worth it?

Cats & Birds

Well, talk about bird-brains... We've had a robin hanging around outside the office window the last few weeks. It started by knocking on the window, fluttering and bumping, trying to get in. I thought it might be attracted to the lights... but no. Attracted to the mirror in the dining room... nope. Attracted to something? Not sure what. I called in reinforcements... namely the two cats. Well, they were very happy to knock back against the window but it eventually turned into a staring contest. Robin... meet... Rascal (on a leash).

The upshot is Rascal now knows the word "bird" and will come running from anywhere in the house to say "hello". It makes for office entertainment... but also papers all over the floor and tipped over house plants. But it does keep the felines entertained!

Not sure what the robin is up to... something for sure!

Crocuses

For all of my life, crocuses have been the primary harbinger of spring. Crocuses pushing up through the seemingly frozen earth. Crocuses sticking their cheery heads through a spring snowfall. Where I live now, I don't see a lot of crocuses. People seem to have tulips and daffodils, but not so many crocuses. Which is kind of strange but... that's the way it is.

Mind you, what we do have here, if you know where to look, is prairie crocuses... the wild varient of crocuses. For a while now, I've known of one spot on a slope in behind a big shopping centre. But the other week, I spotted some along my regular bike route. And ever since then, I've been meaning to bring my camera along and take some pictures of these beauties. Today is the day! I think I might even be able to get a picture in here of them. They are getting older and some are going to seed, but I found a few that are still very pretty.... I'll know better for next year!

For me, it is finding these little places of beauty that keep me riding my bike. I never know what I might find. Maybe it'll be violets next time... or the reflection of a stump in the still water of a lagoon... I might not live out in the bush, but there are still beauties of nature to be discovered in the urban centre.

Here Fishie, Fishie

I was in Saskatoon a while ago and at the place where I stayed, they have a fish tank with four fish. One very large gold fish or koi, a white gold-fish, another smaller goldfish with bug-eyes that look upwards and some bottom-feeding fish that makes very rare appearances. The fish with the bug-eyes is affectionately called Seymour... See-more... because of his big eyes. He's pretty cute but does get bullied by the big gold fish. The last time I was there, I noticed that Seymour's left eye is huge, and deformed. I couldn't even see the pupil anymore... and it looked like he might have cancer or really big, bad cateracts. His other eye doesn't look all that great either.

Now I'm not a big "fish" person. I don't understand people who keep fish as "pets". To me a pet is somebody that you can pet (duh) and interact with and play with. Somebody that you can touch without getting your hand wet. To me, a pet is a mammal! But, little Seymour broke my heart. It's pretty clear that he doesn't see very well at all, and I wondered how he's doing in the foraging department. He's just a fish, and yet he's a living creature. Part of me wanted to take Seymour to the vet... but I'm not sure what they would be able to do... other than putting Seymour out of his misery.

Which just goes to show me that even though Seymour is not what I consider a "pet", my compassion can still extend beyond mammal fur to something that I hadn't expected.

Space

So, I've lived in a lot of apartments, student dorms, houses, etc. Six hundred square feet, 960 square feet, 1800 square feet. Wherever I lived, I always thought I had more than enough space. Mind you, I've been more or less moving to larger places everytime, so that might be part of it! I've been reading various things on how to declutter and live with less. There's the whole idea of living with 100 items or less. There's the idea of renting vs. owning. If you own a house or condo, you generally need more "things" to maintain the place. I came across this other link the other day on tiny places. So there's this guy who lives in Barcelona in 258 square feet. That's 16 ft by 16 ft... or 12 ft by 20 ft. He has a kitchen, a bathroom, a double bed, a dining area and storage in that space. I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't seen it... so check out the youtube link. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=juWaO5TJS00&feature=youtu.be



Now, that is a little extreme, but it makes me wonder, how little space can we actually get away with?? Do we actually need the reams and reams of space that we currently have? Or is there a different way to live that has a smaller footprint? I'm not sure that I could live in a place that small... Definitely have to declutter everything more! But nowadays with ipods and ebooks readers... you don't need a lot of room for things like cds and books and dvds and photo albums even. It's all digital and that takes up so little space! Even cookbooks can be digital... TV's are slimmer than they used to be so take up less space.



It would be an interesting experiment to take a look at a minimalist lifestle... I'd have to let go of nic-nacs... and pictures... and house plants... and various things that just seem to be needed, but not really... would be an intersting experiment!

Sprucing Up

Our kitchen cabinets are a whitish-cream colour and the cabinet knobs are white plastic ones. The previous owners had presumably put them on... and they weren't really doing much for us. Plus, some of them were loose and no matter how much you tried to tighten them, they were still loose. Some were even cracked.

The other day we went out and actually bought some new brushed-nickel knobs... enough for the kitchen and the bathroom cabinets! The bathroom cabinets still have the 1970s handles on them! Anyhow... we started to take off the white knobs and their looseness was immediately explained. Whoever put them on used wood screws... which aren't meant for this sort of thing... and which really just mangle the inside of a plastic knob! Replacing all of the old white knobs went quite quickly and at the end of it, we have a much nicer looking kitchen! It's amazing what a few pieces of hardware can do... just a small thing, and yet it makes a huge difference. And all of it cost less than $100!

Which makes me think.... in our own lives, how often do we get by with things, and avoid making a few tiny changes that can have a significant impact on our lives? Not necessarily external changes... but internal changes... What little old things do we hang onto, even they are loose and not helping us, and serving no real purpose? Maybe it's attitudes we have or beliefs we have. The way we think about certain people. The way we believe that life is treating us.

What would happen if we started to make a few small changes and replace some of those out-dated thoughts with something different?

Toilet Troubles

So, our toilet stopped working. The inflow thing stopped working, so the thank wouldn't fill up. Rather than get a new inflow thingie, we decided to go out and buy a new toilet. After a bit of internet research on Rona and Home Depot, we went to Home Depot and bought a $169 toilet.

Nowadays, there is a lot of incentive for people to get rid of their water-guzzling toilets and replace them with low-flow models. Any toilet with a tank bigger than 13 litres is considered a gas guzzler. There are all sorts of eco-efficiency scales, but the toilet we bought qualifies for a $50 rebate from the city as well! So bonus all the way around.

A few days ago, we removed the old toilet and installed the new toilet. I had watched a toilet installation before... but this was the first time I did one... and it went pretty much without a hitch! So, we have a new 4.8 litre low-flow toilet. It's tiny... like I mean... tiny! The tank looks to be half the width of the old one and it flushes so quickly and fills up really fast as well.

Part of the city rebate program is that you have to measure the water capacity of your old toilet and then make it unusable. So I measured the tank... the width... the water level height and the depth from front to back... Let's see that is... hmmm... 22.4 litres. I did the calculation again and yup... We had the Cadillac of toilets... a real 12 cylinder water guzzler! That means that every time we flush today, we save 17 litres of water or thereabouts... We save 4 milk jugs worth of water everytime we flush now... amazing...

Which means we need to look at the toilet in our spare bedroom bathroom... it too is a Cadillac in the toilet department... Might be time to buy another toilet!

VPA

What is a VPA you might ask? I did too... it turns out be a Virtual Personal Assistant. You can hire one through an online company like getfriday.com or redbutler.com and go from there. They can do all sorts of things for you - organize your calendar, handle appointments, book travel plans, database management, etc. And the best thing... they're cheap... $1 to $3 per hour! What a deal!

The only thing with them is... they live in a Third World country somewhere. Where $1 per hour is a lot of money but... somehow it doesn't seem ethical to me... Somehow it seems just one step up from slavery. So there are sweat shops in the Third World where people get paid a pittance for a day's work... but we don't really think about that too much when we buy our jeans or sneakers. But now... this would be you hiring a personal assistant and you paying them a pittance... it's a step closer to us.

I wonder about it... maybe $1/hr is a huge amount of money for people over there? Or maybe not? Lots of companies are outsourcing services to the Third World - call centres, customer support, phone sales, etc. Does that make it right? I just wonder sometimes...

House-Sitting

I was reading an article in a magazine the other day about a couple from the interior of BC who don't own a house or rent a property, but who pet-sit and house-sit permanently. They run a small publishing company, and when they moved from the Lower Mainland to the interior, they stayed with friends while they looked at properties. Then, they heard about some people, Snowbirds, who were looking for someone to house-sit and pet-sit while they spent the winter down south. So this couple moved in and had a 4 bedroom, 4 bathroom house at their disposal for 6 months. It took off from there, and they've been doing it every since. They house-sit or pet-sit and their payment is free accomodation. All they have to do is pay electricity, gas, telephone, etc. Which seems reasonable. It's a win-win situation for the home-owners and for the couple.

So, there are websites out there that link up homeowners and housesitters. Go figure. It's apparently a hot new trend. A great way to find a holiday home if you want to go to Europe and plan to stay put in one place. A great way to see the world... Hmmm... what to do with all your own furniture though? Storage locker? Or sell it and start anew at some point? All sorts of possiblities.

http://www.housecarers.com/
http://www.mindmyhouse.com/
http://www.canadianhousesitters.com/

Rent vs. Own

I've been reading some minimalist blogs and here's the thing. Lots of them travel a lot for business, so they've actually given up their apartments or houses and live out of a suitcase... Is that even possible?? I could see how you could save a lot of money on rent... and probably even more on a house... What is the difference anyhow, between renting and owning?? We all think that owning is the way to go, because your equity goes up, but my financial planner actually told me that historically, over time, property only goes up 2% per year. So if interest rates are more than that... you're actually losing money! Plus... you put a lot of maintenance into a home... So... what is it... better to rent or own? Since lots of people nowadays buy condos because they are well within their price range... let's take a look at them first...

Own:
Mortgage - $1600/month
Condo Fees - $350/month
Prop Taxes - $2000/year
Maintenance - $1000/year (everything from furnace, vent, fireplace cleaning to rainyday fund for a new furnace)
Prop Ins - $350/year
Heating - $120/month
Electricity/phone/cable/internet - you'd probably need to pay in a rental anyways, so let's leave them out of the equation for now...
So that is a grand total of: $2239 per month... I had to do the math twice because that seemed ridiculous.
That is the cost of owning a condo... Owning a house would be slightly less, around $1900/month because there aren't the condo fees.

Rent:
No mortgage or condo fees
No Prop Taxes or maintenance
No Heating as usually it's hot water heat and included.
Contents Insurance - sure... maybe $250/year
So out of all that what could you rent for under $1900 or $2200 a month?? And what could you do with the leftover money? Invest it at 8%/year?? Or even 6%... Huh... Sure, you get part of your mortgage back when you sell the house, but really, when you look at it, you're paying an awful lot of interest in those first 10 years of a 25 year mortgage, which you'll never get back.

Now... if you don't own or rent... but live out of a suitcase and travel for business... what could you do with all that money? Quite a bit I think!

Shimmer of Green

Well, the reservoir is finally ice free... what with +22 C lately, I would think so! And there is a consistent shimmer of green that is starting to appear everywhere I look. I wouldn't go so far as to call them leaves yet... but they are coming. Riding my bike through the green shimmer makes me want to get my camera out to capture this tentative nudging of spring. The pussy willows who are in various stages of advancement. Some are still beautiful, others are already flowering. The tender blades of grass pushing their way up through last year's dry grass and leaves. The tree buds that are getting pudgier and pudgier, almost ready to burst. It's just on the edge of bursting forth... another week and we will be in full-blown spring! Although it is one the latest springs I can ever remember, it is also the one that is the most eagerly awaited!

The Future is Now

So there was a thing on the news a few days ago, about how they are making cell phones that are as thin as a piece of paper. These are just prototypes of course. But you can scroll through and get your contact list and make calls. It's only a short step from there until we have computers that are as thin as a piece of paper. I don't know about you, but I like the idea of writing on a piece of paper. I don't always have my laptop with me, haven't gotten a blackberry yet. There is something hands-on about the act of writing... Can you see the possibilties with a computer as thin as a piece of paper. You could have it in a book cover. Maybe multiple sheets of "paper" for the one computer - with hand recognition software. I wouldn't have to copy our my to-do list everyday... it would save it from one day to the next and I could make modifications. Just flip back and forth from one day to the next. I could delete things on one day but not on the previous days... I don't know... I just see possibilities coming up in the future.

It's interesting to look back to when I was in high school and the first Apple computers that we worked with and the Commodore 64. Even 25 years ago when computers were just starting to become popular. How far we have come today. Cell phones nowadays have more memory than my first computer. They can do way more things too. And that is only in 25 years. Imagine where we will be in the next 25 years! Can't even imagine it... but it is coming...

There is a real evolution in computers and technology. Which remindds me of evolution in nature. The time-line is a little bit different but... Could the dinosaurs have imagined what those little mice mammals in the bushes would become? Can we imagine what will come in another 60 million years? The future is now... and we are creating the future in our own way. We are the creators of technology and directing its evolution. The corollary would be that... God is our creator and directing our evolution...

Morning Pages

I've been using the 750words.com site for the last while to do my morning pages. And it works very well! Better than writing on paper for 3 pages. Maybe it's because it goes a lot quicker. I can do my allotment of 750 words in 10 minutes or less, whereas writing 3 pages on paper takes me about 30 minutes. So, my fingers can actually keep up with my thoughts more when I'm doing it on the computer. Plus, I can just write and when I hit 750 words, it will tell me and I don't have to worry about keeping track at the bottom of the page. All I have to do is show up and write - which is what morning pages are all about.

The website only has about 600 users at this point, which surprises me, as I would think a lot of morning pages people would like to take advantage of this. But... mabye some people are purists and just like the idea of pen on paper. I know that I prefer that for certain things as well, so, I can understand. Now, we'll see how long I can keep my writing streak going.... A whole month maybe??

It's nice to just be able to go "bleugh" on the computer screen and get all the random thoughts out of my system and not have to worry about spelling or who's going to be reading it or anything like that. It certainly does what morning pages are supposed to do. I know that Julia Cameron strongly recommends the pen and paper approach but... I don't know... in today's day and age, well... maybe this works too.

Out of Routine

Well, that just goes to show me... routine`s are nice, but don`t count on them! This morning, the 750 words site wouldn`t let me log in, and a bunch of other people as well. So... I feel kind of at loose ends. Plus I`m out of my other routines as well... Got up later than usual, and everything feels different today.

Funny how that works. We get into a routine and get comfortable with that, and then something comes along that upsets our apple cart and we need to regroup and readjust. I am missing my morning pages though. Of course, I probably could just open Word and type up a blank page storm for 750 words but it`s not quite the same thing. You see, on this 750 words site, you start to get a streak going if you don`t miss a day, and you get points and little badges. If I miss today, then I`m back to step one again. Silly little small things perhaps, but it just goes to show you that we humans do not need a lot of motivation to get something done. Even virtual things which mean nothing in the real world, are enough to get us going. Hence the popularity of computer games! People could be a Wii Tennis Champion in the virtual world... but it really means nothing in the real world... but someone it gets them coming back to play wii tennis in front of their television or computer. Kind of odd, isn't it? Yup... we will do the crazies things for the oddest of reasons. And we will not do the most sensible of things no matter how good the reason. Yeah... go figure that one out!

May showers bring June flowers

So we're a bit behind with spring, it's still coming... or actually it might even be here. I saw my first early tulips yesterday in a warm corner of a sheltered garden. I went to my first garage sales the other day. We've had spring showers as well. And the first green leaflets are getting bigger and bigger.

There's something about spring that is so very reassuring. The cycle of life is starting again. The newness of spring is refreshing. The old brown grass is replaced by fresh green tender shoots. The old brown leaves that have clung to trees all winter are finally letting go and making room for new leaflets. Spring is a symbol for our own lives as well, as we let go of the old things and make way for the new things. I wonder how often though, we tend to want to hang onto the old things. We don't want to let go of them. We don't make room for something different. It's sort of like winter not wanting to make way for spring. Seems kind of silly and pointless really. It can be delayed but spring will always win out. That's the cycle of the seasons and the cycle of life.

It's a good lesson for us to take away this spring, as we look around our houses and get ready for some spring cleaning. What do we need to let go of? How can we make some space? And what about in our emotional and spiritual lives? What old attitudes are we holding onto that need to be let go of? What old grudges and regrets and hurts and resentments. There's probably a few things lurking in the dusty corners of your mind and your heart. Isn't it time to make some room there so other things can show up?

What's the Point

I'm happily ensconced in Starbucks, in a nice comfy chair and there are four other comfy chairs around me. Another woman comes in, puts her stuff on a chair and a sidetable and goes to order her drink. There seems to be some issue, so she comes back for something and then returns to the till. After quite a conversation she comes back and I can tell she is pissed off. She grabs her stuff and starts to storm out. I had noticed earlier that her sunglasses had fallen on the floor behind the side-table. So as she storms by, I'm trying to catch her attention saying "Excuse me", when I finally do, she turns with a very pissed off look on her face. I quickly tell her about her sunglasses, and she changes course, comes back picks them up, mutters a thanks, and storms out the nearest door.

From the snippets I can hear from the barristas, there was some issue with her Starbucks card and they tried to explain things to her and she wasn't getting it. But my question is... what's the point of the storming out? What's the point of getting pissed off like that? What's the point of making a scene? At least she didn't swear and yell at them, which is definitely something. But I know that when I'm pissed off, all of that stuff doesn't really make a difference. There's really no point to it. Storming out and not having my hot chocolate would put me in a bad mood for the rest of the day. So, why not just go with the flow and roll with the punches?

But it's amazing how often we get into an upset over something. Little things, big things... waiting in line too long at Safeway... getting cut off in traffic... finding something sold out... whatever it might be... we get upset... It's natural. But then we can learn to live in the upset, or we can shift out of it. Living in the upset is painful and all about suffering. Living in the upset and making it bigger and deeper and wider is just yucky. But we have the choice. We can get upset and then shake it off... or we can start to wallow in it deeper and justify it to ourselves that we have every right to be upset and anybody else placed in the same position would be upset too... and we have every right to stay upset and keep being upset.

Yeah, right....

To Bike or not to Bike

Well, the reservoir is slowly becoming ice-free, so spring must be here. It's still around 0C in the mornings though. But the buds on the trees are slowly starting to unfurl. I wasn't here last spring and can't remember the previous spring so... for me this seems like a very long winter and a very slow spring and maybe even a short summer. I've heard various predictions - long hot summer, short wet summer... I guess we'll just have to wait and see what Mother Nature brings us.

One thing with the weather is this... I can't keep waiting for the weather to be right for me to do things. I get on my bike in the mornings weather it's warm or chilly. If I keep waiting for it to warm up, it will be August before I get on my bike! Of course, the weather is always a great excuse for not doing things, or for putting things off indefinitely... It's part of that little procrastination habit that we've all picked up. We look around and find all sorts of reasons why we can't do certain things... we can create excuses out of the smallest thing.

For me, the nasty thing with excuses is... I don't even realize that is what they are. They camouflage themselves as reasonable comments. They hide as justifications. They lurk in the shadows and I think that they are actually quite logical. But when I realize how they are keeping things from moving forward... well, then something can start to happen.

Just Do It

So, I've been mentioning these items on my to-do list, that have been living there since before September last year - which is a good 8 or 9 months. They lived there for so long because other things were always more important. They were too "complicated". There were too many pieces to do with them. They were just plan tedious. I always figured they would take too much time. Yada, yada, yada...

Yesterday I actually managed to complete several of them. To be fair, I've been plugging away at them for the last couple of weeks or so, but yesterday, I was actually able to scratch them off of my to-do list. That is quite the sense of accomplishment! And it creates an amazing sense of space for me. Something that has been hanging around, nagging at me... is finally done. It didn't take as long as a I though. It was a bit tedious, but I just need to put one foot in front of the other and take one step at a time. In doing that... it finally got completed.

I don't know why I do this to myself... let things hang around for so long. Having things on my to-do list for so long drains my psychic energy, reminds me that I have unfinished things hanging around my space and just contributes to a feeling of clutter and being overwhelmed. I guess it's the whole procrastination thing... We all do it to a certain extend... all put things off when we should sit down and do them. Sometimes with things, we think that if we put them off, somehow it will get better. That doesn't always work... Think of taxes! Not a good idea to put them off for months and years! Far better to just do it... because it's only going to get worse in the long run. Things generally aren't going to get easier or smaller or less tedious if we put them off. At least not in my experience...

News News News

I have a bit of a confession to make... I'm kind of addicted to news. At least online news. I'm always checking the news websites - cbc, ctv, cnn, bbc. I'm looking for new things all the time. If I have a lull in whatever I'm doing, I'll check the news. If I get bored, I'll check the news. First, of course, I'll check my email to see if there's anything new there. But if there isn't, then I'll check the news. Over and over again. Maybe I missed something the first time. Maybe there's something new up! it's actually kind of annoying!

In the mornings, I can spend 1/2 hour reading the news. I know that some people read the newspaper, and I can say that is what I am doing as well. But during the day, I'm also checking the news... and my email... and my favourite blogs... I think it might be time to do what others have suggested... just limiting online email/blog/news checks to specific times. You know, check your email twice a day or four times a day. Not every 10 minutes. That's the thing with email, it's always coming in... the door is always open. It's sort of like getting mail, real mail. I know when the letter carrier is coming, usually mid-morning, and I go out and check the mailbox and it's done. But what if the letter carrier came all the time, sometimes with mail, sometimes without mail. I'd be out there every 10 minutes or 1/2 hour checking the mailbox. That seems kind of silly, and yet it's what we do with our email inboxes. We're checking it all the time. Because if someone sends us an email, they often expect that we will get it immediately, and they want a response pretty much immediately too!

Maybe it's time to go on a news/blog/email diet... just check it once in the morning, once at lunch, once in the eveing. And in those moments where I'm feeling bored to try something else... maybe write something... write a blog, write a letter. Do something rather than just sucking in more information... Maybe I'm an info-addict! Maybe we all are info-addicts. Whether it's Twitter or Facebook or whatever... we all seem to be addicted to something in that regard... Maybe it's time to ease up and ease out...

Minimalism

Hmmm... this idea that I came across on the web struck me as interesting. The idea of living with 100 items or less. Can you imagine trying to pare down your possessions to 100 items or less? And yet apparently people are doing this. They are selling their house and their car and most of their possessions and living with less. They are renting apartments, using laundromats, buying Kindle e-book readers, ditching their TV and cablevision. In today's digital world, there are all sorts of ways to downsize. If you have a laptop, you don't need photoalbums or cds or a music player or bookshelves or books. You can have it all digitally. That in and of itself reduces an enormous amount of clutter, much of it sentimental.

I came across the article on http://www.lifehack.org/ where she talks about the 100 items or less lifestyle.(http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/6-easy-tips-for-living-with-100-items-or-less.html).

Then there is a guy named Andrew Hyde who travels a lot as an IT professional and who has gone to 15 items or less (http://www.lifehack.org/articles/lifestyle/extreme-minimalism-andrew-hyde-and-the-15-item-lifestyle.html). I've travelled to Europe for 4 weeks with a bit more than that. It's true, you can get by with quite little for quite a long time, but I'm not sure I would want to do that for years and years. Mind you... it would free up a lot of financial resources to travel and do the things that I love. Think of the time saved in not having to do home repairs, or dishes or mowing the lawn.... There are possiblities in this...

Fancy Technology

I'm sitting here in Starbucks and well... the guy next to me who just sat down has a very fancy laptop. It actually wants him to press his finger tip onto a sensor pad to unlock the computer! Wow... It is running Windows, I can at least see that much. The screen is also rotatable and flips around so that when it is closed he can use the computer as a tablet. Right now, he is sitting there, using a stylus to write notes into some program, actual handwriting notes.

Hmmm... I think that I'm pretty computer savvy with my little laptop, but I get a sense that there are a lot of things out there that we regular people don't see! Mind you, I'm a bit slow in the area of cell phones and smart phones. I still have just a regular cell phone, while pretty much everybody else seems to have an iPhone or a Blackberry or something similar.

I guess the truth is, whatever we can imagine, well, it might already exist. If it doesn't already exist... it's probably not too far away! Imagine 20 years ago (1991) and how the internet was just getting going and computers were so pathetic. My first computer had a 650 KB RAM and a 40 MB harddrive! Amazing... Nowadays, most smartphones have way more memory than that... With all this technology, it's definitely keep up... or get left behind!

Morning Pages

If you read any sort of meditation or writing or self-help type of stuff, most of them will tell you to journal. Now, when they say to journal, they don't mean necessarily having a coherent, it-has-to-make-sense type of journal. They're talking about just sitting down and writing whatever is there, complete with spelling mistakes and whatever else might come. Julia Cameron, author of The Artist's Way, recommends what she calls Morning Pages. They are 3 pages of long-hand writing to just get it all out on paper. Do it first thing in the morning when you're still groggy and not thinking clearly. Just get it all out of your system, all of the things you need to do today, all of your worries and concerns and fears. Just get it out.

Then, once that's done, you can get on with your day and the serious business of real writing (if that's what you want to do). So, I've done morning pages off and on, but they don't seem to always be consistent... or I don't seem to be consistent. In my surfing of the net the other day, I came across another option, which I like a lot. It's called 750 Words (http://750words.com/). Just sign up (you can use your Facebook account for this), and you're good to go. At 250 words/page, the guy figures that 750 words is 3 pages. So, you can just sit and type in 750 words and it'll save it for you (safely and securely). Over time, you get points (always a bonus!) and it will keep track of some stats for you. It's very easy to use and I am liking it a lot! (I think I said that already).

I like the fact that I can do this on the computer. I type way faster than I write long-hand and my fingers can actually keep up with my thoughts. Maybe others are purists about having to write it all on paper, but I like this idea. And so far (2 days into it), it's working for me!

So if you've tried Morning Pages and find yourself struggling with the whole paper thing, give this website a try!

Death of Osama bin Laden

So, he is dead. Killed in a military raid on a mansion in Afghanistan. Shot in the side of the head and apparently not identifiable in the photos of his body. Buried at sea a day later. DNA samples are being sent off to be verified. Interesting. If it is Osama bin Laden, does that mean that the leader of terror is dead? Does that mean terror is dead? Probably not...

There was a book in 2006 called The Starfish and the Spider (http://www.starfishandspider.com/), all about the power of leaderless organizations. The idea is this. If you have an organization like a spider and you cut off a leg... the spider will survive. If you cut off the head, the spider will die. There is a very clear head in a spider-like organization. Get rid of it, and you've killed the organization. But then there is the organization that is more like a starfish. Cut off a leg of a starfish and... the original starfish will grow a new leg... In fact, in the face of predators, a starfish will often shed a leg... and then grow a new one. There is no "head" with a starfish... So in a starfish-like organization, like terror cells, well... you may have cut off a leg but a new one will grow back. There isn't one person who controls things... there are cells that take things on... There is power in a starfish-like organization...

So getting rid of Osama, while it might seem like a victory, isn't really anything like that. But time will tell....

Sun Rising

So, I'm trying something different today... getting on my bike at 5:45 am and riding to Starbucks, then coming home and continuing my day. I usually get up early anyhow, but then end up sitting at home and reading the internet news and frittering away time. So why not try something different. I'll get my bike ride done in the early morning. I get to have my Starbucks when it's still cool out and a hot chocolate seems reasonable (+25 is a bit warm to have a hot chocolate!). Let's see how it works. I'm not sure about the rest of my morning routine but... let's give this a whirl.

This morning, I wondered if I should take my camera along, as the sun was not up yet and sometimes there are some cool shots... but I didn't... and now I'm kicking myself! The sun isn't up yet, but along the horizon, above where it is, there is a column of light rising into the sky. It looks like it might be some variation of a sundog... and I don't have my camera! Sigh... That will teach me... I should always trust my intuition on that sort of thing...

Just googled it as "sun column" and yup... that's exactly what it is... another atmospheric phenomenon, similar to sun dogs and caused by ice crystals in the atmosphere. Cool... never seen one before... But this means that we have ice crystals in our atmosphere in early May... sigh... Still waiting for spring to spring through the door and take the stage with strength!

Creating Space

This week I managed to clear quite a few "long-time" residents off of my to-do list. Some of these things have been languishing there since before last September! This week though, I tackled them and completed them. There is a huge amount of satisfaction in being able to scratch them off my list. It creates a great feeling of space, both psychological and physical. I've had some of these things taking up space in my office, getting pushed from one corner to another. Now, I can clear them out and put them away... A great sensation.

And completing these things, gives me space to complete other things as well. Which is a nice little positive-feedback loop. Much preferable to the other one... the one where I start to let things accumulate... and the more they accumulate, the more other things begin to accumulate. Until finally, I'm drowning in my to-do list and feeling overwhelmed, closed-in, frazzled and overworked. I spend hours just frittering away time because I feel so overwhelmed... which just makes me feel more overwhelmed... Nasty little cycle.

The trick always is to break the cycle. To just start with something... one of the something's that I've been avoiding for so long. Maybe not the biggest something, but it doesn't really matter how big or small it is. All that matters is that I start somewhere. If I start with something small, then I can clear a bit of space and move on to something a bit bigger... Which creats even more space.

It's that little movement of starting... that's where I get stuck. I don't start. I sit there and dither for a while, or do anything and everything but that. I dodge the issue. I side-step it. I push it around on my desk. I organize my desk. I organize everything but the very thing I'm supposed to be organizing. UGH! So, what is that lack of "starting-ness"? I don't know... probably a form of procrastination. It'll be too hard. It'll take too long. It'll be too big. I need to prepare more. I don't have all the information that I need. I don't know what to do with something... All of these things sound a lot like excuses, because they are! I get stuck in my excuses and my justifications... and it sucks me down... Step aside excuses!!