How To Stop Pushing Snooze

It's 9:48pm as I'm writing this, and I'm on a deadline. I have twelve minutes. Twelve minutes until I must turn off this computer.

You see, there's one thing that's majorly, MAJORLY on my "Can't List". I can't wake up to my alarm in the morning. I fail in ever so many different ways. Sometimes I set the alarm wrong (like set it for p.m. instead of a.m. - for whatever reason, p.m. is the default on my phone and sometimes I mess up and don't switch it). Sometimes I really think I set it right, but it doesn't seem that it goes off. (Though it's probably more likely that it goes off and I turn it off without realizing I've done so.) Sometimes...well, the rest of the time...I hit snooze a number of times before getting up. Sometimes a GREAT number of times, going back to sleep for seven minutes each time for an hour or something. WHY?!?! That makes no sense! It's not quality sleep!

Fliqlo screensaver, downloadable here

So, for the most part, I don't set an alarm at all, and I just wake up when I wake up, or when my children wake me up. Regardless, it's usually about 8 o'clock, but sometimes as late as 9. This method sets a poor tone for my day. I don't get showered and dressed before I have to do all the tasks for the kids. Sometimes Tyson gets home from work (he works nights) and goes to bed in our room before I can get ready in there, or before I can even get in there and get my clothes and supplies to shower and get ready in the other bathroom. So there I wait, trapped in my house all day in my sweats, worried about disturbing his sleep, wishing I had gotten ready or at least put on a bra!!!

I read about a method for improving this alarm clock problem, and I'd like to try it sometime. It's from the blog of coach Steve Pavlina, and it involves practicing waking up to the alarm during your awake hours until the proper reaction is ingrained as a habit in your subconscious. Here's the method: How to Get Up Right Away When Your Alarm Goes Off.


In the meantime, I know that one of my main problems is that I stay up too late in the first place. I have always been a night owl, as any of my family or friends will attest. I enjoy and savor those quiet, dark hours when everyone else in my house is asleep (or at work). Or I love those noisy, boisterous hours when I'm out late at night having fun with friends. But I must admit I pay for it again and again when my days don't run as I'd like them to. I truly do enjoy those mornings when I'm up with the sun and I can put myself together and collect my thoughts and prepare to meet the rush of the day.


So I'm setting a goal to turn the computer off by 10pm and to be asleep by 11. {Monthly Girls' Night In gabfests with my girlfriends of 20+ years are completely excepted!!!} I've already gone over time here by a few minutes, so I must end here.


I'd sure appreciate any tips anyone can give about going to sleep on time and waking up on time! Share in the comments if you have any input. I'm on my way to a CAN'T to CAN here!

A Year From Now...

Hey people! I am taking a couple days off from lengthy posts so I can clean my house, parent my children, and put in some DIY time on numerous projects. I wanted to share with you the quote I mentioned in my welcome post.

"A year from now you will wish you had started today." Now, I've searched and searched trying to figure out exactly who this Karen Lamb is, or where the quote originally came from, but I can't find it. I do think that it was the people from the Making Things Happen workshop that put the quote on the red background you see above, but I still don't know exactly where the quote originally came from.

But that's all beside the point. The point is, the quote stuck with me and I knew it was time to make some changes in my life. I wanted to write regularly again. I wanted to have something that was mine. I wanted to learn. I wanted to be my own person, not just an accessory to someone else's life (a position I had relegated myself to, mind you).

While searching around for the source of the above quote I came across a couple of blog posts that are worth reading. Wish I had written them myself, but these are the types of things I WON'T be writing for at least a couple days. I hope you enjoy!

Get Fired Up: How to Make Things Happen, Vol. I (from the blog of Lara Casey)

A Year From Now (Hands Free Mama)

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So, I'm curious...what is the thing YOU are thinking about starting or doing? 

Yup, I "Designed" This Header in MS Paint

You know, it's really hard to be a copywriter with no graphic design skills. For years I have worked with designers. Some of them were even talented designers! I have developed a fairly decent eye for what looks good and what doesn't. And perhaps somewhat of a snootiness about things that aren't well-designed. That's why it hurts, HURTS, that I can't make things on my blog look the way I want them to because I lack the skills, knowledge, talent, and computer programs to design anything properly. Still, banishing perfectionism and giving things a try is what this blog is all about.

So it has come to this. I "designed" my new blog headers in MS Paint (the one "graphics", haha, program on my computer). I had other options. I could have paid someone to do a better job than I did. I also could have downloaded a cheap or free template from the web. The problem with option one is that I can't spend money on my lab projects right now, and I don't want to wait around with things looking as (bad as) they have been looking until I have the money. The problem with option two is that I want something to be "mine". So I'm left with that old graphic design triangle:

Pick Any Two
(and don't even get me started on free logo "contests")

I picked Fast and Cheap. But again, that triangle above looks like something I would make in Paint. (If I had a LOT more skills in Paint.) A designer might express it like this:

by Colin Harman, available for purchase at www.colinharman.com

Or like this:

by Katrina Wolfe, found on her website here

I'll likely try to redo the Lisa Loves Logan header as soon as I can take a better picture or figure out something different, but I expect you can count on the header on this blog to stay this way for a good long time. Because you know what? I kinda like how it turned out. I'm going to go ahead and consider this an official "CAN'T to CAN". I definitely still hope to take some graphic design classes and/or do some self-teaching someday to move my skills further into the CAN column, but for now I'm going to pat myself on the back and say thank you to trusty Ol' Paint.

P.S.: I freely welcome tips from any of you non-designers out there about how you do design-y stuff like this. Also, if any designers want to throw me a bone and put me in the "only if I like you" category shown in the poster immediately above, it wouldn't break my heart.

P.P.S.: Did you notice I have a real domain now? I'm moving up in the world! Just in case you want to let anyone know about my blog(s), or link to it anywhere, just remember you don't need the "blogspot" anymore.

Being Grateful For...DIRTY DISHES?!?! {{{In Honor Of Wendy Partridge, 1978-2012}}}

What's your least-favorite household chore? You know, the one you dread the most and put off if you can?

For me it's the dishes. Not so much loading the dishwasher, but just the things that need to be hand washed in the sink. I don't know why I dislike it so much or why I procrastinate this chore. I don't mind doing a sink full of dishes at someone else's house, and at my house there usually aren't more than a few to do at a time, so it really doesn't take long. The warm water is even kind of relaxing. But still the prospect of doing the dishes gets me procrastinating every time, and I always say I can do those dirty dishes "later".

(Not my sink or dishes, photo copyright Miss Pupik, found on flickr here)

However, I've recently been enlightened to a new way to think about dirty dishes. I can be thankful for them. I'll tell you more about this new viewpoint in a minute, but for now I want to leave those dirty dishes in the sink and talk about something more personal and sad that happened this past week.

Wendy Partridge
1978-2012

A childhood friend of mine, Wendy, passed away on Wednesday. Her death was due to cystic fibrosis (CF), an inherited chronic disease she lived with, fought against, and I suppose she would say learned from since birth.

Amazing. Miracle. Angel. Strong. Christ-like. Teacher. Hilarious. Example. Friend. Beautiful. These are the words people use to describe Wendy, and they're all true.

Wendy moved into my neighborhood during our late elementary school years. She was one year behind me in school, but we were just a month apart in age. We went to all our church classes together and often played in the neighborhood and sometimes at each other's houses. Wendy always had a cough and had a hard time breathing. CF primarily affects the lungs. Thick mucus forms in the lungs, causing extreme breathing difficulties. CF affects other organs as well. Over time the lungs and other organs lose their ability to function and the patient dies of the disease. It is a painful way to die. When we were kids that was one thing always in the back of my mind about Wendy: she was going to die. I was terrified about that.

You see, treatment and life expectancy for those with CF have improved greatly over the past 60 years. In the 1950s a baby born with CF would most likely only live a few years. When Wendy was born in 1978, the median survival age had improved, bur it still was under 18 years. Wendy and her family didn't know if she would grow to adulthood. If she would be able to serve a mission for our church, get a higher education, join the workforce, or have the opportunity to date and perhaps get married. Another CF patient in my grade at school died while we were teenagers. Wendy's time was always borrowed. That she lived and worked until age 33 is quite a miracle. (In case you're interested, the median survival age for CF patients born in 2009 is 38. So much improvement over the past 30 years!)


During our childhood Wendy was often in the hospital. I remember several trips our church classes took to visit her there. We would have our lesson in her room. These were tender experiences for me. Wendy's nurses would perform a fairly violent percussive massage technique on her back to break up mucus in her lungs. It looked painful. She was brave. She always had a sunny disposition and a smile. I never heard her complain.


After we graduated from high school Wendy and I worked together in church for a few years as co-teachers of three successive classes of energetic seven- and eight-year-old children. I'm sure Wendy surpassed me as a teacher in every way. She always had a strong testimony of our Savior Jesus Christ and a natural and unselfconscious way of sharing that testimony with others. She shared her testimony out loud, and I was blessed to hear it often over the pulpit in our church services, but she also shared her testimony by her example.


Now, I don't want to make Wendy sound all pious and boring. She was funny! She had a sweet and quirky, somewhat sarcastic and self-deprecating sense of humor. We had some fun times co-hosting class parties at her house for our little students. (Class parties are a well-worn reverence reward for primary children.) After a few years as primary teachers together, we both moved on -- me to a church congregation specifically for young adults, and Wendy to a mission for our church. Yes, she was able to serve that mission she desired, and I can only imagine how many lives she changed.


Our paths crossed again after her mission for a while, but then I moved out of town and my parents did too, and we lost touch. The advent of Facebook put us back in touch with each other, and over the years I have enjoyed reading Wendy's funny status updates there.


While I was living in Pennsylvania I learned her health was really beginning to fail. A few friends planned to visit her as a class reunion of sorts, but I couldn't attend due to distance. I don't know if they ended up going. Her health improved somewhat and she was able to continue working.


A couple of weeks ago she posted saying that she had had to leave her job, and that she was receiving hospice care. The end was near. I wrote to her privately about coming to visit her if she was up for it, and started reaching out to other friends who might want to visit with me. At first Wendy sounded like she might not be well enough for visitors, but then on Monday this past week she wrote and asked me to set it up. I wrote back and asked if Thursday would work, but a day or two went by and I didn't hear back. I went to her sister's Facebook page, thinking I would check in to see how Wendy was doing. Instead I saw the first of many condolence messages that would soon be flooding in, "I'm sorry for your loss."


Wendy had died, and I was too late.


In the weeks leading up to Wendy's death, her sister posted some links on Facebook about Wendy. One was a short video made about Wendy by a friend of hers, which I highly encourage you to watch, and the other was a link to a blog of Wendy's on a CF support website, where Wendy talks about the approaching end of her life. Here's a passage from that post. She posted under the name "stillkicking".


"...Well my friends, I don't know how much longer I shall be coherent enough to write my ramblings.  Also I don't want to focus on the negative side of dying.  It is a painful process.  But I never walk alone.  I thank the Lord that He is there helping me with each painful step.  


To close, with one last final sarcastic remark.  I wrote my own obituary, but my family doesn't want to use it (shocker), so I'll post it here  


"Now we lay her down to rest, a load of mucus in her chest.


Since she died before she woke, that's one less day she'll have to choke"


Happy coughing everyone, and be sure to laugh a little, cry a little and just enjoy the journey  God bless you all!"


How do you like that obituary? It's great! A taste of Wendy's humor.

I enjoyed that post a lot, so I clicked through a few of Wendy's other posts, and one really hit me.

Okay, Back to That Sink Full of Dirty Dishes

One of her posts was about doing the dishes at her house, and a sprititual experience she had while doing them. Wendy says it best, so I will put her full post here. Please read it. I promise you will be touched and have your eyes opened to a new view on work, trials, and what you think you "can't" do. Understand that Wendy was living at home with her parents, so the sink full of dirty dishes she describes likely weren't just from her.

The Lord Works in Mysterious Ways

Posted By: stillkicking @ 04/11/2012 03:26 PM

So as things have been getting tougher lately, I'm pretty darn sure my days are numbered, and I don't think there's that many numbers in there  Anyway, it's been particularly hard with the "air hunger" games  I just can't get enough air, even on higher O2 flows.  It's a horrible feeling.  Plus all the other lovely CF things, exhaustion, coughing, constant aching, AKA crappy lungs.  Last week was particularly difficult and it was all I could do to make it to and through work each day. I started wondering and praying to know if it was a battle I needed to continue to fight, or if I could quit.


I work for a small business, so I only have a 6 month cobra extention.  Medicaid qualifications in my state are particularly difficult, I would have to wipe out all my savings and retirement before I'd qualify.  That idea doesn't thrill me, so I haven't wanted to go that route.  Anyway, come Saturday, I was still having a great difficulty with the air hunger and feeling awful.  There was so much to do and I didn't feel like doing anything.  I was however, thanking the Lord for a weekend to rest.


Well that evening there was a large pile of dishes that had been sitting out all day, I thought, I can't do much but I can at least, do these dishes.  As I began I immediately got my answer from the Lord about my work situation.  The Spirit whispered to me that work is a blessing to me not a curse.  He knows it's difficult but it also helps a great deal in taking my mind off the suffocating feelings of this stage of the disease.  I see how that is true, even while doing the dishes I immediately "felt" better, mentally wise.  I was able to focus my mind on something besides breathing.  Yes, there will be days where I have to rest, many of them, but inasmuch as I can work, it will be a blessing to me.


By focusing on others and serving and contributing whatever I can, even though it may be a great deal less than I used to, is what feeds and drives the spirit inside us, and the spirit can then drive the body further than it otherwise would go.  How grateful I am to a merciful God who pours out His blessings upon me and then opens my eyes that I may see them for what they are here and now.


Now please realize I'm not suggesting or recommending anything for anyone else.  This is my blog, and my experiences - you can go have your own  But for me this has been a big help and I've seen more and more each day at work this week, how much of a blessing it is to me, even when it's difficult


Happy Coughing everyone


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I really can't add much to what Wendy said. All I know is, I will never look at my dirty dishes the same way again. I will always, always think of Wendy standing at the sink, gasping for air, washing those dishes and thanking the Lord that she could wash them. She is right. Work is blessing, trials are blessings, and WE CAN DO HARD THINGS!

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Wendy Partridge's Obituary and Funeral Information

One of my favorite articles: The Blessing of Work ("Work is not a matter of economic need alone; it is a spiritual necessity..." It includes direction on how to apply your interests and talents to your work and how to teach children the value of work.)

Video about Wendy, "The Joys of Adversity"

Visit the website of the Cystic Fibrosis Foundation to learn more about cystic fibrosis, get involved in increasing awareness and research, or make a donation

http://www.cff.org/

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Thank you for reading. I'm interested to know, what's one positive lesson you've learned from someone in your life who is now gone?

CAN'T to CAN: Lisa Loves Logan

I am starting ANOTHER another blog, oh yes I am! Visit me at Lisa Loves Logan to learn about all the great things to see and do in Logan and greater Cache Valley, Utah. So far I have waxed poetic about mini donuts, since I hope to be eating some today at Summerfest.

I'm labeling this in CAN'T to CAN because this is yet another blog I have meant to do for a long time, and now I am. Stay tuned for my review of a recent meal at The Black Pearl, a heads up about U-pick strawberries in Hyde Park, and a write-up about some of the coolest houses in town, plus more!

See you there!

When I Said I'd Write Every Day..

When I said I'd write every day, I wasn't talking about weekends. Especially not vacation weekends. We are back from a little trip to Cedar City for a reunion. I have two posts almost done, but I am falling asleep at the keyboard so I will let them go for now.

Briefly, in CAN news, I took all three children on a multi-mile hike on Saturday without their daddy, and I took all three to the pool today by myself. Remember, their ages are 4, 2, and six months, so this is no small feat! We had a great time both times. These are the types of things I usually think I CAN'T do, because I think of all the things that could go wrong, or I think about how stressful and non-relaxing it will be. But in the spirit of saying farewell to can't, I jumped in. Okay, I didn't go completely alone on either adventure. My brother-in-law and sister-in-law were on the hike with us, and a friend and her two kids went to the pool at the same time today. What fun!

What to Store in 72 Junk Drawers - My Beloved Card Catalog

I know I said my next post was going to be the FFA Challenge, but I decided I wanted to have something of mine up here first so instead I'm going to post an ode to my card catalog. Like I said in my CAN'T list, one of my downfalls is being organized. This is something that helps me.


(P.S., I'm sorry the pictures are small and some uncentered. Will try to fix later!)


Behold, in all her glory:

Now, some of you youngsters may not even know what a card catalog is, or what its purpose was/is. I'm not in the mood to give much of a history lesson right now, but I will say that this is how we used to find books in the library before computers became commonplace in libraries. Little cards filled all the little drawers. The cards listed all the materials in the library, searchable by title, subject, and author. With the advent of computerized catalogs, the old card catalog files became mostly obsolete. Some strange people now like to purchase them and repurpose them for use in the home. I've been wanting one for years, and about a year and a half ago my dream came true and I bought a card catalog formerly used at the College of Eastern Utah in Price, Utah.

Card catalogs come in all kinds of shapes, sizes, and materials. Mine has 72 drawers, so it's a rather large one. We were living in a tiny basement apartment when I purchased it, so I couldn't even bring it in the house. If I had asked my husband to move it down the stairs to the apartment...well, let's not go there.

I finally was able to set it up when we moved to a different basement apartment that didn't have exterior stairs. The first question my husband had asked when he first saw it was, "What are you going to use it for?" I said I was going to put stuff in it, of course! I think he thought there weren't 72 categories of stuff that could go in these little drawers, but there are! It's my 72-drawer junk drawer! From address books to a voice recorder, everything has an organized little home in my card catalog. In fact, here's the whole list:

Address Book, Batteries, Bills, Business Cards, Buttons, Cables - AV, Cables - Computer, Calculators, Camera, Candles - Long, Candles - Tea lights, Candy, Cards - Index, Cards - Note & Thank you, Cell phone, Change, Chapstick, Checks, Colored Pencils, Coupons, Crayons, Elastics & Twist Ties, Envelopes - Large, Envelopes - Small, Ephemera, Erasers, First Aid, Flashlights, Glasses, Glue, Gum, Hand Sanitizer, Hard Drive, Hardware, Hole Punches, Ink cartridges, iPod, Keys, Labels, Lighters, Lint Roller, Markers, Matches, Measuring Tapes, Medicine, Nail Clippers & Polish, Needles & Thread, Paper clips, Paints, Pencils, Pens, Pins, Playing Cards, Post-it Notes, Receipts, Rulers, Scissors, Shoe Polish, Sidewalk Chalk, Stamps - Ink, Stamps - Postage , Stapler, String, Sunglasses, Tape, Tools, Toys, Voice Recorder

That's not exactly 72. Some are split in two drawers, and I actually have two drawers leftover.

Enough with the talk. Here are the pictures.

Card catalog in our townhouse. Note my creative kid-proofing. I didn't want to do anything to mar or alter the card catalog so I devised a dowel system that causes young children extreme difficulty when they try to open the drawers. One must pull on a dowel with significant and evenly distributed force in order to open all the drawers in that row at once. This keeps kids away from the stuff they shouldn't get. Beck (my younger son) has now become interested in removing all the labels, however, a stage Sawyer (my older son) went through when the card catalog was first set up.

Closeups of the "Batteries" drawer.

In context in our townhouse a few years ago (pre-remodel). If that sofa looks strange, it's because I removed the main part of the gray slipcover, leaving the piece with an odd two-tone look. It was just too heavy and gray with the full slipcover, which was skirted and hid the feet. I regretted this sofa within days of buying it, but it's too big and expensive to flush down the toilet.

Card catalog in context in our first Pennsylvania living room. I rearranged that furniture frequently. Then we moved to another house. Then we moved across the country yet again, back to our townhouse. We have moved this heavy sucker a number of times! It now has heavy felt pads on the bottom so I can slide it around if need be.


My favorite thing about the card catalog is that even my husband knows where things are now, without being told! Best feature ever.


What about you? Are you a natural-born organizer, or a "messy"? Either way, spill your best secrets! I need help! What is your favorite piece of organizational gear? Drawer dividers? A cabinet? An elaborate system of empty formula cans to store your kids' small toys (hmmm...probably just me)? But really, have you ever repurposed something for organization?

The CAN'T list

This is a random list I typed into Notepad last night:



Things I think I *can't* do (but I CAN??!?)


Bake cookies (cake, pie, bread, etc.)
Paint or do anything artistic
Be organized
Go to bed on time, wake up on time, be on time
Think out loud
Sew
Play volleyball
Swim
Run
Take my three children pretty much anywhere by myself
Make decisions
Keep the house clean
Lose weight/exercise/get in shape
Style my hair
Write
Use power tools/build things/do things for myself
Make good decorating choices


Last on that list I should add "Design and write a blog".


As much as I have wanted to start my own blog as an outlet for my thoughts, I have been held back by thinking I wouldn't do it RIGHT. I was putting a lot of pressure on myself to think of a great name, to know how to make it look good (I don't have any idea!), to choose the right platform, etc. Instead, I have now just decided to jump in and start writing for myself each day, and not worry about what comes next. If I want to fix it up later, I can. If I want to learn about graphic design and coding, I can. I don't have to do it right now. The only way to start is to start.


I am creating this blog as a place to challenge myself.


I challenge myself to face my anxieties and document my learning process as I do things I have told myself I "CAN'T" do. I challenge myself to share the things I already CAN do and have done. I challenge myself to write each day. I challenge myself to be positive and uplifting in the way I talk to myself, my readers (oh wait, that was redundant!), and my real-life peeps. I challenge myself to grow and change. I challenge myself to rediscover my creativity and put it to good use. I challenge myself to let go of perfectionism and indecision. I challenge myself to show the perfectly imperfect, the pretty, the not-so-pretty, and the pretty darn good. I challenge myself to make a friend or two.


I intend for this blog to cover a lot of ground, but some of the primary topics will be DIY home renovation, homemaking (cooking, gardening, decorating, preserving, cleaning, sewing, crafting), parenting, marriage, ADD, anxiety and other mental health issues, self improvement, and of course bad haircuts and awkward/embarrassing stories and photos. I will also highlight blogs, posts, people, and things that I love!


That being said, one of my favorite blogs is Vintage Revivalswww.vintagerevivals.com, by Mandi Gubler. I love not only her projects, but also her frank, funny, and forthright writing style. She started a little club called Fearlessly Finding Awesome (FFA) that gave me just the kick in the pants I needed to get going on this ole' bloggy. Sure, I'm several weeks behind, but I'll catch up! My next post will be FFA Challenge #5. I'll try to hit the previous ones as I go forward.

By the way, Mandi's bedroom is one of my favorite projects on her blog. Check it out!

here

So, what's on YOUR "Can't" list? What's on your CAN list? What's one of your favorite DIY blogs?