cold but walking

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We are having weird weather in Florida. It is cold. We typically only need to turn on the heat a handful of days each year. It seems like the heat has been on most of the winter. 

I go walking most mornings. I don't own running tights or sweatpants. I walk in a skort made for biking. Most mornings I am OK. Today is was cold and windy and even my teeth got cold.

Thankfully I had a playlist that kept me moving. I use Tangerine to evaluate my music and give me tracks that will keep me moving at a fairly steady pace. My dad thinks I should walk to Sousa Marches. I like my eclectic mix.

  1. California Tom Petty & The Heartbreakers
  2. Girlfriend Is Better Talking Heads 126bpm
  3. Phone Call From Leavenworth Chris Whitley 124bpm
  4. Wind Up Foo Fighters 126bpm
  5. Say You Love Me Fleetwood Mac 127bpm
  6. Wild Vanilla Kristin Hersh
  7. Wouldn't It Be Nice The Beach Boys

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housework

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I hate housework. 

I don't know anyone who likes it but a few who do it knowing it has to be done and that they want  to make their home the best it can be. 

Growing up, we had to clean a room in the house each week. We earned 50¢ for our effort. For some reason, I remember getting stuck with the bathroom way too often. I hated having to clean that room. The floors had to be mopped and I did it on my knees. Our bathroom was small and all seven of us used it. Yep, it was gross. 

As we got older, the boys moved out and all the housework fell to my sister and me and then finally just me. Mom was not a taskmaster regarding housework. We only got paid when we did the work. She was lazy too. The only times we had to do chores was before holidays. Mom mopped the kitchen floor. Everything got cleaned before Easter, Thanksgiving and Christmas. During those times, mom was busy in the kitchen cooking up a storm so she didn't help with the rest of the housework. And the mess she made in the kitchen!

I don't remember any whole-family cleaning effort except a few times when mom wanted all the windows cleaned. The screens were removed and I had the job of scrubbing them clean with a brush and a hose full of very cold water. 

I do enjoy a clean house. I am not crazy. But I am lazy and hate to do with those little things that are so easily ignored. I have no problem doing the dishes and the laundry on a daily basis. Dusting, vacuuming and mopping are last on my to do list. 

Gail liked a clean house. He felt that a clean house was the equivalent of telling him "I love you." I didn't know this until after he died. After each boy was born, he put up with the mess and clutter for about three months. Then one day he would snap and yell. Gail did not mind doing the floors and I happily let him do them.

After Gail died, I had lots of free time once the boys were in school. I started really cleaning the house. I picked a room each day and did a big clean. This lasted for a few months. Until I joined the YMCA. And discovered scrapbooking. I went back to doing a crazy clean before I hosted a scrapbooking evening.

When I began my online business, I got very lazy with housework. I cringe when I see old photos and the boxes and boxes and crap all over the house. 

I did a major clean in 2008. My siblings were coming to celebrate my dad turning 80. I let things go again after that but not nearly as bad. 

There were times when I read things like How to Clean Your House in 20 Minutes a Day for 30 Days. But I needed a big clean first. And I kept putting it off. Then my sister planned to visit. My sister is good at housework. I think she likes cleaning. With her husband working from home, she couldn't sit around like Peg Bundy eating Bonbons and watching TV.  Not that Nancy is anything like Peg Bundy. But I think Charlie expected her to be home and cleaning. Anyway, she is picky about a clean house I knew I had to do something. 

Last fall, I started cleaning. I cleaned so much I broke my vacuum. The house is not spotless. I just can't work that hard. But it is passable and I feel good. I have started a routine and keep it that way. 

I looked for some cleaning routines to adopt. I found a few check lists and saved them. Then I remembered about seeing an iPhone app with cleaning routines. I checked a few out and downloaded Home Routines. 

Home Routines comes with some tasks already loaded and suggested room zones. I did some modifications and started using the app.  Then I realized this was just another to do app with repeating tasks. I already have an app like that did I really want another app to open and keep track? Nope. I entered those tasks into Reminders.

Home Routines is a good app if all you want it to get working on good home cleaning tasks and don't want to think about how to set it up in Reminders or Things. 

I have been doing some cleaning each week. Some weeks I do better than others and I complete all the tasks on my lists. Other times I don't. I don't let it bother me since each area gets repeated every 4 weeks. (Toilets get cleaned each week.) And I am still working through areas that tend to get ignored like the tops of tall furniture.

I will never be The Hostess with the Mostess. But I won't be embarrassed to let guests into my home.

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toronto

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​University of Toronto, 1890 (Library of Congress)

​University of Toronto, 1890 (Library of Congress)

In senior year, we had a class trip. We went to Toronto for a weekend. Mom drove me to Windsor, Canada to take the train. Tina, Jane and I shared a room. I cannot remember if the fourth person was Cathy or Aimee. The train took about 4 hours. The four of us sat together and talked. I recall others talking and walking around and drinking. Did we walk through the train? I don't remember. It was early. 

We stayed at the hotel that used to be the Four Seasons. It was the same hotel our family stayed at when dad had his convention in 1974. The room was nice and large. A photography blog posted a photo of the demolition of the old Four Seasons. Except that it wasn't that old. It was built in the 1970s.

We went shopping in the underground mall. I bought a blouse with a turtleneck type collar. I thought it was cool. It was about $50. Mom lent me her credit card and I felt a bit guilty spending such and amount on one blouse. But I also felt cool for using a credit card. 

We had dinner at the The Old Spaghetti Factory. I think we went as a group but split into many tables. The drinking age was 19 and I was 18 at the time. They did not card me when I asked for a manhattan. Dad drank those and would let Nancy & me have his maraschino cherries. Dad's drink were sweeter & milder than this one. I only had one. 

The next night, the four of us got into a cab and asked the driver for a good club to go to. The club was dark and loud and full of foreign students. I danced with Milad. He was very aggressive with his moves and rubbed his erection against my thigh. We kissed. It was my first kiss! I was too drunk to know if it was any good. Milad and his friends called the hotel the next day. Why did I tell him where we were staying? Jane called him Midol. 

We did more walking around the city. It was cold and gray. 

There was mention of Sharon pulling the hotel fire alarm. But that was the other Sharon, Sharon McGann. The cool, popular Sharon. 

We took the train back home. Everyone was tired and quiet. 

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mixed signals

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Minimalism and simplify  are all over the interwebs these days. Then someone posts how to make proper coffee or proper cup of tea.

John Gruber made the case (tongue in cheek) for how to be successful in blogging. You need a clicky keyboard, fizzy water and fussy coffee. 

Why can't we be satisfied with the keyboard that came with our computer, tap water and bagged tea? 

At the same time Patrick Rhone is talking about enough, he also talks about the great bag he has.

So while I make endless trips to Goodwill to donate the items I didn't need and don't use, I purchase different loose teas to try. I add teaware to my amazon wish list.

All this can probably be blamed on me having too much free time. I listen to many podcasts and read even more blogs. Thanks to Dan Moren's article, My Cup of Tea, I am back trying and drinking loose tea. The Pen Addict has renewed my interest in pens and paper. I am opening myself to new things which is good. But most of these things come with a price of new things and gadgets to acquire which is not.

This is where Pinterest helps. I pin things that I like or would to have or want to remember. When I do this, I feel like a part of that "thing" is mine to look at whenever I choose. I get to share my discovery with others. Most of the time this is enough and I don't feel the need to purchase anything. Most of the time.

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doodling

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doodling

I have always been a doodler. I think I learned it from my mom. She was a great doodler when she was on the phone. She had the phone nestled between her neck and shoulder, a cigarette in her right hand, and a complimentary pencil from Stanley in her left doodling on whatever piece of paper or envelope was handy. I wish I had some of her doodles. They were really cool.

A few years ago, I got into making cards and sketching ideas in Moleskine Squared Reporter Notebooks. I had trouble finding them so I ordered a case. As most of my hobbies, I got bored after I filled a few notebooks and the rest remained collecting dust. 

My friend bought a bungalow and wanted decorating ideas. I got out a ceramic tile pattern book and got inspired to make my own. I grabbed the dusty books and started. I filled page after page of patterns. I soon filled them all up. 

Another friend (Look, I have two friends!), saw the books and told me about Zentangles. I put it in the back of my head to look at another time. I started noticing more doodling and sketching online and became inspired to do some of my own.

I started with a Field Notes Brand Memo Book with a dot grid. I love the dot grid. It gives me structure when I need it but does not scream follow me like a regular grid does. I did my first sketch while sitting at Starbucks. I drew a teapot then filled it in with doodles and patterns. It is a combination of Zentangle and drawing and I really like how it turned out. I decided to try to do one doodle per day. And in typical OCD fashion, I knew I have to fill in the previous 12 days with sketches.

The next day, I needed a place to start. As it happens, Jory Raphael at Sensible World started his own project, Year of Icons. Now I have a place to start each day. and so far it is fun and enjoyable. Though I find myself doing to same patterns and need to find ways to change it up and try new things.

I quickly filled up my Field Notes Memo Book. It only has 24 pages. I decided to switched to a larger format. Since I wanted the dot grid, my options were limited. I got a Rhodia Webnotebook in A5. The size it good and the paper is really nice.

This has turned into another 365 project I really enjoy. I am enjoying more than my Photo of the Day project. I thought about trying to do some type work, a letter each day. I got through C and quit. I didn't enjoy it. It took longer than I expected and didn't look the way I had envisioned. I want to explore type at some point.

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blogging, journaling and sharing my thoughts

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I am not a good blogger. Wait, that's not true. Posting to Project Life and Photo of the Day are easy for me. I am a visual thinker and visual communication is what I enjoy. But my Blog has been neglected. It is not that I don't have anything to say. I do have lots of thoughts and opinions. I just can't seem to get them written down. Or typed up.

I have these thoughts and stories stuck inside me distracting me. I try to get them down on "paper" and out of the swirling vortex that is my brain. Not that writing will purge the thoughts. But writing helps organize them. Instead of bits & pieces I can have cohesive ideas in a string, in paragraphs. 

I thought the blogging platform was ideal for me because I could just post bits and pieces and not worry about the big picture. But I would like these bits & pieces to make sense. At least to me. I start posts in a text editor so I can go back and refine my thoughts, add necessary links and improve the writing. But once the initial reaction is written down (typed up), it leaves my swirling mass of thoughts and I forget about it. I do not have any method of going back and completing the task. Writing is not on my to do list. 

And I am not sure why I don't think to add writing or blogging to my task list. Oh right, I don't want it to feel like a chore. Writing is not natural for me. Once we passed grammar and started working on essays, I hated English class. Getting coherent thoughts out of my head and down on paper is a chore for me. I prefer to make visual art. If I put "writing" on my to do list, I will do everything to avoid it. And it will make me feel bad every time I see it.

Still, I want to improve my writing and the best way to do that is to write. I know not everything needs to be posted or shared publicly.  In the past, I have used the blog as a venting platform. This got me in trouble from family members. But there are some stories or thoughts I would like to share. And having some time between the initial thoughts and the final draft gives some good perspective. 

I read recently that handwriting is better than typing for brain development and memory retention. Writing by hand slows down the brain process and makes you think more. A while ago, I started writing blog posts and saving them as drafts to go over them at another time. The problem is that I never went back. They remain forever as drafts and never posted. Now I am trying another process. I am writing down my thoughts in a journal with handwriting. Then I have to rethink the post as I type it in. So it will get a least one revision. Hopefully, I can make it a habit to review a second or third time and then actually post something.

My current workflow is:

•Note ideas in Drafts. 

•Sit down (almost) everyday and do some handwritten journaling. The evenings seem to be the best time for this.

•Look through my journal and spend some time typing an entry into a text editor. (I am currently using iA Writer.) Or looking for an a file that needs some editing. 

•Revise in text editor. 

•If the article is ready to post, copy and paste to my blog and collect and add any links, if necessary.

My current goal is to post one new article each week to my blog.

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first cars

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My brother, Greg, loves cars. He could tell what year a car was by the details. His first few cars were a series of used cars. He shared the old family station wagon with our older brother Steve. Greg was the first to get his own car. I remember he had a Fiat, a Ford Fairlane, an orange pick up truck and a newer blue truck. Greg's first new car was a yellow Trans Am Firebird with t-top. Greg's first stop was to take mom for a ride. After this, mom expected anyone getting a new car to take her for the first ride.

The Trans Am was stolen. Greg got a VW Sirocco to replace it with. The Trans Am was found at the airport stripped. The VW dealer lost Greg's Sirocco. They had to report it stolen. The found it and Greg got it back. Then it was stolen for real. Greg reported it to the police and was told it was already stolen. Apparently the VW dealer never reported to the police that they had found the missing vehicle.

My brother, John, bought his first car with money he saved from his paper route. It was an AMC Pacer. It was a fun little car. But he let someone else drive it and they got in a crash. Mom was so angry that he let someone else drive it. Our insurance didn't cover that.

I had to share my first car with Nancy. It was a 1972 Toyota Corona in brown. It was mostly Nancy's car until she left for college. I had to pay her $3 a week to take me to school. She also picked up some friends who paid her $5 for the ride to school. Nancy worked after school so we had to ride the bus home. Once the car was mine, I had to fill the tank. I realized what great mileage this little car got. Nancy never had to pay for her own gas!

My dad was never much of a mechanic. He didn't do his own oil changes. But on the Toyota, he replaced the muffler and even did some bondo. Nancy was driving us to school after a heavy rain. She was passing a car on the right and through a puddle. It was deeper than she expected and she got soaked. We knew there was some rust but didn't know the floor board was basically gone. Nancy was covered with muddy water from head to toe. Was a glorious day! I laughed all the way to school. She dropped us off and went home to change. I laughed all day.

After I had the car for a couple of years, it started developing a weird shake. First, it would shake if you drove over 65. Not a problem since I didn't do much interstate driving. Then it would shake if you were driving at 25 miles per hour and hit a pothole. Detroit is nothing but potholes. Our high school had a automotive shop. You could get inexpensive repairs, you only paid for parts. I took my car in to see what was the problem was. I went to pick it up and the automotive teacher approached me and told me not to drive this vehicle. The frame was rusted and it was unsafe. I drove it home and didn't drive it again.

My mom sold the car to a friend for parts. It had new tires, new exhaust and a new battery. The new owner sold it someone else who continued to drive it!

I met Nick in college. His dad used to say nice guys finish last. It was Nick's aim in life to prove his dad wrong. Nick wore a man's dress hat to class. Something that would have been considered hip today but was just odd back then. Nick had a brown Trans Am.  Nick was not a Trans Am kind of guy. He never drove it fast. And it was brown. Why would anyone want a brown Trans Am?

I borrowed Nick's car once to go see my mom in the hospital. I drove it on the freeway and let it go a little fast to help clear up its clogged workings. This fast car was masquerading as a family sedan.

Nick's car was stolen. He thought that someone was playing a trick on him. He really thought our friend, Greg, had taken it as a joke. Campus security reviewed its camera and found that it was someone else. Not anyone they could or would ever identify.

Our last semester in school, we all talked about getting new cars. Our design professor hated the talk. His family own a car dealership but he never owned a new car himself. He thought it was a waste of money. He was an odd ball. That summer was hot. Our design class met every afternoon from 1-6pm. The building was old and did not have air-conditioning. All we wanting to do was sleep the afternoon away. But he insisted that we be there. He took role call at the beginning and end of class and counted it towards your grade. He also wore polyester work clothes and never sweated.

My car during college was a 1972 Buick Centurion. It was big and bulky and guzzled leaded gas. It had A/C but would blow a fuse every time you turned it on. I only used it when it was absolutely necessary as each fuse was two or three dollars. I started looking at cars and even went to a Toyota dealer to get a trade in price on my Buick. They offered me $300. My mom paid $250 five years earlier. That evening, I was driving home from school. I was on the freeway and I saw smoke, It was coming from under the dashboard. I was in a somewhat scary neighborhood but I pulled off the freeway. I pulled into a service station, they still existed back in 1988. I made the mistake of opening the hood. The rush of oxygen made the engine catch fire. The mechanics sprung into action though I couldn't understand any of the since they were all from the middle east. The ran around and put out the fire. 

I called my dad and he came to pick me up. The mechanics looked at the car while I waited. They fixed it for less than $50. When I got home, dad told me to call Toyota and get the new car. They did not ask about the old car and I didn't offer up that there was a new problem. They gave mom the $300 who gave it to. I had my first new car, 1988 Toyota Corolla FX. It was red and a five speed and I loved it.

Studio 360 Live: Stories of Neuroscience & Memory - Studio 360

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Studio 360 is a great podcast. I really liked this episode about memory. They said that each time a memory is accessed, it is altered. This reminds me of jpeg images and each time you open one up and save it, it is changed and the image degrades.

Since we can preserve our memories in TIFF format, writing them down and sharing them is important.