Chronicles of Nani - Plan B

The best laid plans of mice and Nanis…

When we last left our face in the recliner talking about home health aides, things ended with the happy announcement phone with an aid that was going to come in every day while my husband was away. Now is where the “best laid plans” mine comes in.

The nurse who was coming in to do aide work for the week is terribly allergic to cats. I don't usually think about the cats first I worry about the Hoyer lift first

So we had to come up with Plan B, definitely some thing I learned and taught my nieces about from Stephen Covey’s 7 Habits Of Highly Effective People Book. "Always have a back up plan.”

That works for any plans anyone has, but it also works for when you suddenly find that you have a chronic illness or you end up in a wheelchair. That's definitely a situation where your best laid plans for life change.

It also prompted me to look up the phrase "the best laid plans of mice and men," because I was curious about exactly where it came from. A Scottish poem written by Robert Burns in 1785. It's fascinating how many books, other poems, movies and even a Jethro Tull song have mentioned parts of that poem or parts that are translated from that poem. The Wikipedia page (It's not a very long page) is worth reading just to find out how many things you've heard it in. Very cool!

Stephen Covey’s Seven Habits:
www.franklincovey.com/the-7-habits/

Robert Burns’ poem To A Mouse:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/To_a_Mouse

Mentioning Many Things

Yesterday was election day. In odd-numbered years the ballot is smaller and the lines at the polls are too. After our mayor died earlier this year, the interim mayor, Paula Hicks-Hudson, won the special election and is now our duly elected mayor. I kind of knew where I was going with my vote, but I was swayed away from voting for Mayor Hicks-Hudson with what I considered a major faux-pas when she addressed Halloween and the weather with cold and forecasted rain during trick-or-treating time. She had no intention of postponing the time and it’s not me worrying about the kids that made me talk back to the TV. She could have said it was bad for general scheduling. She could have said after the last couple of years it sets an erratic precedent. Heck, she could have said with the election so close I just have too much going on to address it - get wet or go to the mall. It would have been a TON better than what she did say days before the election. Her defense for not changing the time for trick-or-treating started “In MY day…” She went on to talk about being from the area and going out in the cold and rain and all, but the parenting mindset is different now and I’m from this area too; it’s been colder and rainier than it was when I was a child. But the big thing with saying that so close to the election is that I don’t want to vote for someone who freely admits that “their day” was 50 years ago. I want to see my city move forward with someone who’s day is TODAY.

Oh yeah, and don’t start pointing fingers at parents “who should” put coats on their kids; the idea of a kid, regardless of what their told, not wearing a coat over a costume is as old as a child catching a cold not buttoning up her coat because Zuzu didn’t want to crush her flower.


In issues, I’m sad that the citizen’s initiative to legalize marijuana for personal and medicinal use was voted down. For me personally, I wanted to see the medicinal use be a legal option for people with chronic pain. I don’t think that’s necessarily me, but I have a number of friends who qualify. The recreational use wasn’t a big deal to me, but I don’t drink much either. Pot is less inhibiting than alcohol and not addictive. It would have been available for 21 and over, like booze, and couldn’t be smoked in public places except in designated smoking areas, like cigarettes, which are also more harmful and addicting. It saddens me that misinformation swallowed by people who don’t use a product makes it unavailable to people who could medically benefit from it and keeps it illegal, high-priced and often dangerously laced to make the profit higher for the illegal sellers for the people who will keep using it anyway. Score one for the pushers.

I am quite happy that the issue that creates a bipartisan process for drawing districts passed comfortably . I will admit the 800,000 people who think gerrymandering is a good thing frighten me.


Books!

November promises to be an exciting book month in Naniland! I just finished the last book in the Rare Traits trilogy. I love those books; David George Clarke is an incredible writer! I hope to read more from him, maybe even a fourth book in the trilogy? Douglas Adams did it. The hitchhiker’s Guide trilogy had 5 books. Sure, that works for that trilogy because it’s humor, but the point is that more than 3 books in a trilogy is not unprecedented.

I’m currently reading Hell’s Corner, the last book of David Baldacci’s Camel Club series and I have a list of new in November stuff now! I’m definitely set for reading material through November and likely into December. An e-reader fixes my dyslexia problems but it doesn’t make me a fast reader. I’ve always enjoyed the fact that although I read slower than an average person who reads a lot, I only have only ever had to read once because I have great reading comprehension. That was a plus all through school and a godsend in college where the reading assignments were multiple chapters to discuss in the next class a couple days later. Considering I never took a semester that was only one class, TGFRC! It didn’t take any math skills to know the reading comprehension scores on those standardized tests were essential for-multiple chapters + slow reading + dyslexia to equal success!

My preorders on parade started on November 1, when I got the email telling to refresh my Kindle app to load Pyramid Deception by Austin S. Camacho, the new book in the Hannibal Jones series. If you’ve read any of my book reviews, you know I love me some Hannibal Jones! Two days later Alan Jacobson, my favorite current author, released The Lost Codex and on November 17, David Baldacci’s The Guilty, new in the Will Robie series will be released. I preordered The Guilty and The Lost Codex both in early September. So if I fall off the radar for a while, it’s because I’m sitting in my recliner with the reading apps on my iPad IV tapped into my brain! Okay, maybe just relaxing with Buddy Bat (my iPad by name) and coffee in the IV!

And score one for Nani for name-dropping 5 authors I love in three paragraphs! ;)

Saturday is International Digital Scrapbooking Day

One would think that one of the good things, aside from more reading time, about being more of a shut-in the past few months has been more scrap time. (Although there have been a lot of days where I’ve somehow been on the phone so I can to try to break free from the mobility siege or cleaning things.) While I’ve been able to do more scrapping, I have looked but not bought anything new, choosing to save my monthly scrap-stipend for right now! I’m emptying my wish lists and the saved scrap allowances for the %40-%50 off sales! A few stores have already started great sales that run all week; great to get kits now and use them for chats and games on Saturday.

I’ll end today with a few recent layouts I’ve done. I’ll be enjoying some new scrap toys very soon! :D

Carla’s greeting card from Halloween:

Credits: Black Cat by Little Rad Trio

From our casino night when the girls turned 21

Credits: Class Is In by Just Because Studio and LJS Designs

My annual homage to pumpkin and spice and fall things nice!

Credits: Pumpkin Passion by Lindsay

And finally, I did this one with a leftover pic from our reception weekend in 2009 to commemorate our 6th anniversary last December.

Credits: A Love Like this by Pixelily Designs, beautiful On The Inside 

by Aprilisa Designs, Hazel by JayaPrem’s Hangout, Tenderly by

 Craftastrophic Designs, Template by Oklahoma Dawn

I Am Defined

Happy Sunday everyone! Unless you’re reading this tomorrow or on any day that’s not today or some multiple of seven from today, then happy whatever of the six other days this happens to be.

I have finally been defined with a definition I agree with. For years and years I’ve taken forms of the Meyers-Briggs tests, including the all out test that I took for a job interview many years back, and the results always start with E, calling me an extrovert. I’m actually consistently an ENTJ; Extrovert, Intuitive, Thinking, Judgmental, and the description of an ENTJ fits me pretty well except that I am not that outgoing. I’m outgoing when I need to be, when I have to, but I treasure my alone time too. As a rule, extroverts can’t stand being alone. I took a test online that tells what kind of introvert or extrovert a person is, because I love taking personality tests no matter how corny they are although this one is less corny than others I’ve taken, and it doesn’t call me an extrovert. According to my results I am an outgoing introvert. Which if you look at this description; 8 signs you may be an outgoing introvert, it fits me perfectly. And I love the fact that it doesn’t call me an extrovert.

I’m in the midst of a reading dilemma. Remember I said I was going to have an upstarts book and an ereader book going at the same time? Well, I did that. If you look at my Good Reads widget on the right, there are 2 current books listed. One is a hard cover that I got in a book swap and one is an e-book, young adult fiction. I read the Harry Potter series, and the Trylle series in the beginning of 2013; don’t judge! ;) But my current problem is that I’m just not really into either one. They’re both okay, but nor riveting at all. I have a Baldacci paperback in waiting and thanks to Christmas gift cards for both Barnes and Noble for the Nook app and Amazon for the Kindle app, both on my iPad, I have a couple lists of loaded and ready to read books on the tablet. I have a goal of averaging 2 books a month and I’m not even half way through either book with only a week of January left! January and February are usually good reading months for me. I have to come up with a plan to get myself some reading time so I can catch up and start some bocks I’m more likely to MAKE time to read.

I was talking to a friend from our MS support group about the things that make MS easier to live with today than it would have been years ago, say in the 1940s when it was first diagnosed and recognized as an actual disease. Without MRIs, there was no apparent scarring of the myelin to see on the brain or spine images and while it wasn’t a death sentence for sure, it did affect life expectancy just because they knew so little about it. So much about diagnosing and understanding the disease has improved in the many years since then.

The first disease modifying medication was approved for use and became available in 1993 and more medications became available after that; all injectable. The first oral medication was approved in 2010. That was my first choice in 2011, anything to avoid needles. There are 10 medications an MS patient and their neurologist can try, depending on what side effects you want to chance. But just think;25 years ago there were NO options. You were diagnosed, treated the symptoms as best you could and you knew the disease was going to progress with no way of slowing it down.

Back in that day, just prior to a drug for the disease, it wasn’t considered a disability. In fact the ADA was a baby in 1990 with members of congress that still didn’t want it to pass. We MSers were still destined to end up in wheelchairs and there were still people fighting tooth and nail not to have to widen a door for those chairs or anyone else with a wheelchair, walker, cane or just limited mobility or allowed mobility for breathing or heart conditions. We have advocates and are encouraged to be self-advocates in the fight to continue living instead of just existing as helpless invalids; we became legally valid!

But we really acknowledged the internet, tablet, smart phones. The internet means we aren’t hopeless and lonely when we are at home. The incredible ability to reach out to others like us and be cyber support is fantastic. I couldn’t live without my iPad. With the numbness in my hands that has me dropping things all the time and unable to write having my planner and several reading apps in one device, with a padded cover and replacement insurance on it, is such a blessing It also has a notepad, radio and MP3 storage, camera and my social media apps. And it has speech-to-text for every app I’d type in, a godsend for the times when my “fumblehands” just aren’t up to hitting the right keys. This is not an ad for the iPad. It’s an acknowledgement of how technology makes disabilities less disabling. There have been many times in the past year that speech-to-text software,, like Dragon on my PC, has written this blog!

It’s just amazing and wonderful. How many times did I watched Star Trek episodes where someone was carrying around a tablet with information essential for their job on it? I’m just waiting now for the hypo spray that will zap my MS all together? THAT’S something I’d take to our support group for “share and tell!”

My final note today is for everyone in the areas where the current storm is headed BE CAREFUL! The nasty winter storm the Weather channel is calling Juno is supposed to dump a TON of snow and nastiness on the east! We have relatives and friends that are expected to get in excess of a foot of snow. My friend Edna of Miss Edna’s Place will be seeing it in her part of New England as well, what she describes as feet of inches predicted on TV. If you are in the areas getting snow and hurricane winds, stay as safe and warm as possible and the rest of us please send good thoughts and prayers for them. We’ll get a few inches in Toledo and I’ll complain as I see it falling but then I’ll remember that I don’t have it so bad and check Edna’s blog or ask David if he talked to any of his brothers.

My Calendar's Been Full!

It’s been a busy week, well the part of the week I’ve been home has been busy. It’s been just over a week of ups and downs. While the downs have been really down there have been enough ups to even them out and then some. So I’m a pretty happy Nani as usual.

To sum things up just a little bit after the water came back I got all those dishes done, I enjoyed nice showers and brushed my teeth twice a day. Yeah I know that sounds not even blog worthy but after almost 2 weeks without running water that’s a pretty bright star in my world. After my physical therapy appointment last week I was waiting for the bus and reading in my current book. I was about 50 pages in when the bus arrived. Later that night I grabbed the Nook to read some more and… nothing! After troubleshooting on my own and then calling Barnes & Noble customer service it was determined that the Nook had died. After the initial panic it was time to make decisions.

I’ve been researching different tablets since November and chose the one I wanted and what accessories based on all that research. I made that decision around the end of January, so it was three months of work. The whole point of wanting a tablet is to have my e-reader and planner on the same device. I also know me well enough to know that if that device offers more I’ll explore it and probably put some more on it. So I needed a device that could do both things I need to do, including that the reader MUST have a greay background with black print available because that combination is what made my dyslexia disappear when I read for fun. I’ve become a relatively voracious reader now and I can’t go back. As I got near point of choosing I needed to know not only that I could have the right reader and planner style but I researched the variety of apps, quality of photos and amount of storage I might need.

I choose the iPad. It has the added bonus of being an Apple product and I miss my Mac! I also already know how to get around in iTunes. I want the 32 GB one with 4G capability in addition to Wi-Fi. I’m saving money for it. I don’t have enough saved for the particular one I want yet. With the death of the Nook I had to decide between purchasing a previously-owned Nook, a different less expensive tablet or smaller iPad. When it came right down to it after spending three months choosing the tablet I wanted it would just be wrong to settle for anything less. So I replaced the Nook through Barnes & Noble’s “out of warranty replacement plan” for just over $30 which is unquestionably affordable compared to any lesser tablet than the one I want. The iPad I’ve chosen is worth the wait.

So the new Nook was on the way but David and I were taking a three day break to Maryland to photograph the Maryland Midland short line and I had no book! Some shots I’m just not able to get because the car or the wheelchair can’t get into a safe place to take the photo. Those are usually my reading times. I did have some magazines that I read for a while but it goes back to that black print on a white background and reading becomes a lot harder because of my dyslexia so I can’t read as much or as long. I can’t tell you how happy I was to see that box on the porch at midnight when we got home after driving home Wednesday. The first thing I did with it after registering the new device was to load my current book and get it the page I was on in my computer app. I can still read a little during the day that way but you can’t take the laptop to bed or in the car; too big and the battery just doesn’t last long enough.

David thought I needed to get out of the house and get some photographs the snow. I agreed to an extent although the thought of three days in the car and not being able to get out to stretch too often because of the cold and ice everywhere gave me some reservations too. My legs were very sore and absolutely rubbery when we got home but I do have some great photos in the snow.

Maryland Midland, March 4, 2014

That brings me up through Wednesday night. More soon, but right now I have a dinner-date with my new Nook!

Wish I Was A Bear

I’m walking around… Scratch that… I’m rolling around in a strange world. It’s not my world; it can’t be. The temperature would never, I mean NEVER, be much below freezing let alone below zero. But this morning, in this strange world where we had 9 inches of snow on the ground by the end of the day yesterday, it was 9° BELOW zero. I’m just not able to process these bits of information as fact, not in MY world.

I called our snow guy to arrange to have our snow plowed and shoveled before David left for work yesterday. I happened to be sitting in the dining room when he was shoveling the ramp. Of course it kept snowing until midafternoon and there was already another inch when David left but it was still a lot easier to drive through. When he came home you could almost not tell it was done all. There’s more snow in the forecast on Sunday so were just dealing with the snow in the drive and I’ll call to have it all cleared again after it stops snowing on Monday.

So I’ve been inside the house today and after looking at the weather I promptly got on the phone and started fixing the next few days. The temperatures next week will not go much above 10° until Thursday. The HIGHS are expected to be: 1 on Monday, -3 on Tuesday and then a “sweltering” 12 on Wednesday. When it’s that cold the MS and Raynaud’s work together to torture me! My legs and back muscles go into nonstop spasm. I canceled plans to meet Tori and Rina for lunch on their way home tomorrow so they be home and off the road that much quicker. I also canceled lunch plans with my friend Lissa on Sunday in consideration of two days of expected snow with further accumulation. I also postponed doctors appointments on Monday and Wednesday. YEESH!

So there’s my gripe for today. Yeah I know I’m griping about the same thing everybody’s griping about. Did you know currently in its 32° in Atlanta?! Incredible! I know they’re calling it Global Climate Change now but I want to go back and get my Global Warming. (Pout)

All this time indoors is giving me the opportunity to do some important things. But I haven’t been doing a lot of important things. (Smile) I am slowly working on cleaning up stuff around my computer, slowly. At least I have been keeping up dishes. (Bigger smile) Today I did a lot of reading. Well you know, two books a month is on my Projects and Goals list. You can look over on the sidebar; I’m currently reading Delusional Traits by David George Clarke. It’s book two in the Rare Traits trilogy. Remember how much I loved Rare Traits? Yeah. Delusional Traits is kinda like that. (Awesome Mr. Clark!)

Tonight I’ll do some scrapbooking since a page a day was in the Products and Goals list as well and so far in 2014 I’ve done exactly… my signature on Ginger Scraps which doesn’t count in my list of completed pages. I really need to work on that.

I did get all of my needed phone calls done today before I buried my nose in the Nook. That cleared up my schedule to pretty much hibernate for a few days. When David gets home from work I’ll ask him to bring a few containers of veggie soup up from the freezer downstairs (because hey, I just set them on the porch and they’ll keep frozen) and let that be my vegetables for a few days. I’ll go to the produce market or maybe just the grocery store on Friday after my doctors appointment when I’ll be out anyway. Expected high then is 26, maybe I should wear my spring jacket.

Well off to do that scrapping now. No matter where you are make yourself a cup of coffee, tea, warm cocoa or heck, it’s Friday night, whatever it takes to keep you warm! (I like to fill up the rest of my cup of hot cocoa with peppermint schnapps.) ;-)

Tid Bits

I have a bunch of short comments I’ve been writing down the past few days. I suppose any of them could be a full paper or editorial or even a long blog post, but I’m choosing brevity just now…over and over and over, which kinda defeats th idea of brevity. I LOVE irony! Here are the current Nani odds and ends.

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I didn’t mention this last Wednesday in my answer to the Hodge Podge question “What's the nicest thing a stranger has ever done for you?” I still don’t weigh one nice thing from a stranger above another because anything a stranger does for you that’s kind is a wonderful gesture. Strangers don’t “have to” and when they do it’s from the heart and beautiful.

There were 2 guys that helped me in Detroit. We were coming out of the park after the Division Series game a couple years ago and hit a rut in the sidewalk on the way back to the car. I was jarred and slipped out of the wheelchair onto the pavement. David was pushing the chair and there was no way he could have stopped me from slipping. I wasn’t hurt, but I was on the ground!

Two guys that were behind us walked up and asked if I was okay. I said yes and each of them grabbed an arm and a bend in my knee on either side and lifted me back into the chair. I thanked them and said I was good, just embarrassed. One of them told me it was the City of Detroit that should be embarrassed and they went on their way with a “Go Tigers” cheer.

I’d like to think they still would have helped me without my Tigers jacket. :)

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I usually read at least the first few comments after I read a news story online. I think I must like the burning in my eyes from the poison keyboards that also don’t have spell-check.

There are so many awful, spiteful and judgmental people in the news and they draw out their ilk to comment on internet news stories and discussion boards. But remember “Good person does something nice” is not a good news headline and even if they did post a story like that, the same people would comment about what a bad story it is and turn it into another “MY religion and MY politics are right because you’re a moron” page anyway.

Rest assured that those of us that don’t make news still vastly outnumber the ugly people who make the news and the armchair “experts” who insist on making it about their religious/political views.

A healthy self-image and balanced personality go a long way in keeping that need for anonymous attention and affirmation down.


(steps off soapbox)

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Last note, but never ever the least, today is the day that Alan Jacobson’s new Karen Vail Mystery is released! I finished The Ex Who Wouldn’t Die this afternoon. My review is coming soon on that one, but I did get No Way Out today and it does move immediately up in my cue for my next read!


There are my tids bits for now. See you tomorrow with the Hodge Podge!

2013 projects and goals

I did some refining and completing on the original goals post I’d written on New Year’s Eve. I guess I’d like to make my first goal to stay out of the hospital except for lab work! That could also be something out of my control, so I’m not making it a goal. One thing I was sad to learn when I was in “the joint” was that there are some bad levels showing on my liver panel. What that means is it may be a side effect of Gilenya, what I call my miracle drug that I’d knock off a liquor store to keep taking. I’ll be getting full blood work, including liver panel, done at the end of this week or beginning of next and my regular doctor and my neurologist in Cleveland will get the results, They said if the abnormalities weren’t just caused by the virus I had, I’ll need to switch my MS meds. I’ll deal, but it’ll mean I have to take shots instead of pills and pray it makes me feel as good. Shoot me a good thought or prayer that it was just the virus!

But let’s get on to things I can control.


Projects and Goals for 2013

"There is no happiness except in the realization 

that we have accomplished something."
Henry Ford

Organizing project:

One thing that blue end of 2012 taught me is that I need to redefine realistic in my planning! My biggest failure was the White Tornado Project. I accept that the project failed, not me. I am just not capable of doing the physical moving to reclaim storage areas in the house as livable rooms. And the truth is we weren’t using them as rooms so we weren’t missing anything.

For 2013 I am NOT putting that project back in the plan. David and I agreed that we need to reorganize some space in the kitchen/annex areas to make it more usable and free up space and that is the only organizing and fix-up project I have planned for the year. We have 2 very full and unused storage rooms and we’ll continue to have 2 storage rooms. I’m okay with that; I’m giving up one idea to help insure the success of a better one!


Blog goals:

I did well in committing myself to comments on other blogs and not having too many long stretches of time that I didn’t blog on Chronicles of Nani. I did not do so well with my desire to offer a scrapbook freebie every month and because I have a growing backlog of scrapbooking to catch up, I won't repeat that goal for this year either. I’ll offer a freebie when I can and I am inspired to do so. I am planning on offering a small non-scrapbook giveaway when I reach 100 blogger followers. I’m not going to make a huge deal about that until it happens. I want “my regulars” to visit because they enjoy my content and style, not just to try to win a prize. Besides, if I reach a number and then people unfollow me, well, what was I celebrating anyway, right?

I’m also going to commit some time early in the year to restoring Davlicious Recipes. I haven’t replaced the lost photos from the great Google Plus error and I want to bring it back to life and start adding new recipes. In keeping up with the “January Detox” that will include some simple and healthy recipes that offer great flavor, a good nutritional balance and fit in comfortable with Weight Watchers points system.

I also want to be more disciplined in keeping up content, even if it’s a short entry, on my MS bog and the cats’ blogs.


Reading Goals:

This is an easy goal, but I have to have some balance and I need to make some me time in my goals too. I was originally thinking a book a week, but there are some times and some books that make that rough, I read The Black Dahlia when I was in the hospital, It’s pretty long and actually not a book I enjoyed. I read the very end as fast as I could to get it done with. Now I’m half way through my second book of the year and the second week is almost over. It’s the book club book for the month at Ginger Scraps. So far it’s a cute book. Still, with other things to do now that I’m back to non-hospitalized life, I can’t see me finishing it in 2 days and I don’t want to put that kind of pressure on myself for something I do strictly for fun. So, my actual goal is 2 books a month. I’m going to make a point of writing a brief, non-spoiler, review for Good Reads as I finish books this year and I’ll repost those reviews here at The Chronicles too.


January Detox/Health and Wellness:

January detox is simply recovering from December. My plan there is to lose the weight I’ve gained through the holidays and really since August when I allowed myself to feel defeated for the year. That in itself is a daunting task, or could be. In the past and going forward I’ve had my best periods of wellness allowing myself to become food obsessed. If I am really concentrating on my food, how to make it balanced and how to make it taste great and look good on my plate, I stay more committed to being balanced and portion controlled. I also know that my chocolate cravings are best controlled if I make a point to include 25-100 calories of chocolate in my diet every day. Sound weird? In keeping track of that I found that there were days I didn’t meet that goal and “had” to have a Hershey’s kiss with my evening tea or decaf coffee. That's why I call Kisses “supplements.” Treating chocolate like a vitamin really has worked in the past.

Of course, any health and wellness plan must be custom-designed for the person living it. Read up and put the right plan together for yourself, or ask a nutritionist to help, but remember to never let someone else put together a “healthy” eating plan for you that you can’t stick with. If you don’t like the food and don’t eat it, it’s not healthy for you. Strive to find the right balance that will taste good and make you feel good; that’s the healthy plan for you! The way of eating that works best for me incudes lots of soup and a big bowl of crunchy veggies to munch on in the afternoon. And a little taste of chocolate every day.


Scrapbooking:

In May I presented Tori and Rina with the scrapbooks I’d been working on since early 2008 as their high school graduation gifts from me. Especially at the end with the editing and preparation for printing process I was pretty much doing nothing but those books. Then I had a smidge of burn out where I took a bit of a scrapping break, a slowdown. Now I look at my “to be scrapped” folders. I have the majority of 2008, from April on, all of 2009 (which includes our wedding reception and honeymoon) September to the end of 2011 and all of 2012. No, 2010 because I met my goal of having all of 2010 done by the end of February 2011.

What I’ve organized my folders to do for this year is that I am sticking to each current month. In January, I can scrap any pages from any year, as long as they are January pages. If in any current month I complete that month for all four years I have folders for, I can go back to work on open fielders from the previous month, but when that month is over, I move to pages for the next month. This way when I look out the window and see snow, I’m not trying to get myself in the groove of beach photos. The pages I’m scrapping fit my current world and surroundings. I think that will get my natural creativity working better.

I’m going to try to have a tally at the end of each month with how many layouts I got done, and how many folders I’ve closed. So far this month I’ve done the last week of Journal 366, the one allowable from last month and the week that just finished will always be okay to do from the last month to keep up with the year’s project. I’ve also done the first week on 20134 52 topix, 5 layouts completing 3 folders from 2009 with 5 to go and 2 layouts completing 2 folders for 2012 with 5 to go. 2008 and 2001 don’t have January folders. I only have one folder for 2013 right now. Since this is a smaller month as far as undone folders go, I might finish January this year!


Project 365/52:

I’m kinda pumped for this year after actually completing last year’s Journal 366! For this year I’m going to have a weekly theme and my layout will include photos and journaling about my week and how it relates to the week’s theme. I already posted my 2-pager for the first week’s theme; “healthy.” I’ll write and scrap this week’s theme tomorrow or Tuesday. The theme is “fresh fruit.” Tuesday starts “scrapbook” week.


Employment Goal:

Perhaps the most disheartening goal I completely blew off last year was the job search goal. I have always been a person whose external area reflects the internal balance. When my rooms were in order in my suite at my parents’ house, I was mentally in order and could tackle anything. I tidied my office before I went to Chamber of Commerce meetings with my business because if the office was straight, I had more power, more confidence at meet and greets. It enabled someone on the shy side to be more professional and aggressive. I’m trying to redirect that concentration to my computer now and it does make sense because so much in the job seeking process is done through online applications and email now. If my hard drive is organized and my desktop is clean, the confidence level should be up, no matter how many dirty dishes are in the sink.

With a change in insurance, the power chair process is on hold. I’m not going to wait for someday when I have a power chair to get to work on this very important part of my world. I’ll use the manual chair to go to appointments at the Vocational Rehabilitation Bureau and get started on evaluating my abilities. I have the determination and resourcefulness that can fit many places. Plus, hey I’m a disabled woman, a double click on the minority scale! I learned in one of my trade school classes some 20+ years ago that it was foolish to be “too proud” to take an opportunity offered to you because an employer needs to fill a quota you fit. It’s your opportunity to prove that there were even better reasons you were a perfect fit! With a decent job I can save up to get the power chair outright, to heck with insurance. I’d love to tell the insurance companies I don’t need them.


So there are my 2013 goals and projects. They are slowed down and toned down a little for me than in years past. I also have a few outs to accept a smaller accomplishment on occasion; as an example, while I have 2 folders that have January pages in them in the scrapbooking project, completing just one of them is a job accomplished As always and especially now, if a preferable goal can be met, I have the right to change a goal to better suit my needs. I feel cautiously optimist about 2013. I have many smaller goals that are parts of larger ideas, but no large goals will go totally unmet. Perhaps that meets the biggest goal of all; keep my own attitude positive and strive to always make meaningful contributions, no matter how small, to the world.

All of this, or something better.

And by the way, that goal to have these posted by midnight tonight? NAILED IT!