Month: July 2006

SBQ: Stitching habits?

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2006-07-12

7:05 pm

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Blogging, Needlework, SBQ

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This week’s Stitch­ing Blog­gers Ques­tion is:

Since you start­ed blog­ging, have you noticed any dif­fer­ence in your stitch­ing habits? Tell us about them.
Blog­ging has­n’t real­ly changed my stitch­ing habits, but I haven’t got­ten to know a great many oth­er stitch­ing blog­gers — yet 🙂

When that hap­pens, though, I expect that it may have the same effect that sub­scrib­ing to rec.crafts.textiles.needlework did back in 1995. I dis­cov­ered Q‑Snaps and Ott Lites and new tech­niques and fibers and fab­rics! And there were design­ers who actu­al­ly par­tic­i­pat­ed in the news­group!

I’d been stitch­ing for over a decade then, but r.c.t.n. sparked a peri­od of growth and renew­al that has con­tin­ued to this day. I’m excit­ed about the new inspi­ra­tion I’m sure I’ll find from read­ing the blogs of oth­er stitch­ers!

TEDTalks

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2006-07-06

4:06 pm

2 Comments on TEDTalks

Links

You actu­al­ly want to go watch Hans Rosling talk. You’ll need your sound on. If you ever need to give a pre­sen­ta­tion of any kind at work, it should count as “how to do it” train­ing. Even if you don’t, go watch. You’ll enjoy it, and this is good stuff to know.

Today’s assignment

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2006-07-06

4:05 pm

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Media Literacy

Go watch Hans Rosling talk. You’ll need your sound on. If you ever need to give a pre­sen­ta­tion of any kind, it’s “how to do it” train­ing. You’ll enjoy it, and this is good stuff to know.

The Challenge and a challenge/invitation

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2006-07-02

3:13 pm

3 Comments on The Challenge and a challenge/invitation

Organization, Support

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A few days ago I referred to the Change Your Life Chal­lenge, but I did­n’t real­ly explain much, as I was in a bit of a rush at the time. I’ve been so excit­ed about it, too, that some part of me thinks that of course every­body knows what it is!

Not so, sil­ly Cyn.

So let me back up, and explain a lit­tle more about WHY I want to do it, and why I’d think any of you would have any rea­son to plunk down mon­ey to do it, too.

Every morn­ing, no mat­ter what else my email brings, I know there’ll be an uplift­ing mes­sage from Brook Noel. I’m hon­est­ly not a big fan of most gener­ic affir­ma­tions or inspi­ra­tional newslet­ters, but some­how Brook’s dai­ly Good Morn­ings don’t annoy me. They avoid glurge, and I fre­quent­ly add her quotes and affir­ma­tions to my Pop­Up Wis­dom file.

I first “met” Brooke through her book, The Change Your Life Chal­lenge, which I found at a local book­store a few months ago. I learned that the book is actu­al­ly based on a suc­cess­ful online pro­gram, looked it up, and was intrigued. It promis­es to teach:

  • A step-by-step sys­tem for con­quer­ing clut­ter and keep­ing your home clean
  • How to recre­ate the din­ner hour and man­age meal­times
  • How to make time work for you —instead of against you
  • How to dis­cov­er and live by your core val­ues and beliefs
  • How to imple­ment the sim­plest “diet” in the world
  • The “key” to nev­er for­get­ting any­thing
  • How to improve your rela­tion­ships with the “5-Minute Mir­a­cle”
  • How to end pro­cras­ti­na­tion
  • How to imple­ment a bud­get and man­age your mon­ey
  • And much more!

I was wor­ried because of the “70 day” part, though. What busi­ness did I have sign­ing myself up for yet anoth­er cal­en­dar-bound thing that I’d end up hav­ing trou­ble with?

Well, I list­ed to Brooke’s pod­cast last Mon­day, and she hap­pened to say that if she could go back and change any­thing, she would reti­tle the pro­gram as “A 70 STEP Life Makeover Pro­gram” and toss out the idea of tying it to the cal­en­dar. For­ward motion is impor­tant, but mak­ing it fit your life is more impor­tant.

So yes, the Chal­lenge is very much doable for any­one, includ­ing those of us who have chron­ic ill­ness­es. It’ll be even more so in a small group of women who under­stand each oth­er’s issues.

So here’s my chal­lenge: I’m going to begin the 70 Step Chal­lenge on July 15. I’ve set up a pri­vate group for any­one who joins up to do it with me. You’ll have all the nor­mal (exten­sive!) sup­port of the orga­ni­za­tion — there are thou­sands of peo­ple on her lists! — as well as a chance to build friend­ships with­in a small­er group of peo­ple in my group. We’ll do some chats, set up “bud­dies,” and use oth­er tech­niques to help each oth­er suc­ceed. We won’t get tied up in rush­ing through the chal­lenge as much as in work­ing it with a sense of bal­ance.

Won’t you join me? I’d love to get to know you bet­ter, and it’s always good to have more friends and a bet­ter sup­port net­work.

I’m tak­ing the Challenge.….are you?
Take the Change Your Life Chal­lenge:
A  70 Day Life Makeover Pro­gram for Women


If you join through this link, I’ll be informed and will invite you to the pri­vate sup­port group with­in 24 hours. I do hope to hear from you soon!

Daily encouragement and a challenge!

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2006-07-02

2:52 pm

2 Comments on Daily encouragement and a challenge!

Support

Every morn­ing, no mat­ter what else my email brings, I know there’ll be an uplift­ing mes­sage from Brook Noel. I’m hon­est­ly not a big fan of most gener­ic affir­ma­tions or inspi­ra­tional newslet­ters, but some­how Brook’s dai­ly Good Morn­ings don’t annoy me. They avoid glurge, and I fre­quent­ly add her quotes and affir­ma­tions to my Pop­Up Wis­dom file.

I first “met” Brooke through her book, The Change Your Life Chal­lenge, which I found at a local book­store a few months ago. I learned that the book is actu­al­ly based on a suc­cess­ful online pro­gram, looked it up, and was intrigued. It promis­es to teach:

  • A step-by-step sys­tem for con­quer­ing clut­ter and keep­ing your home clean
  • How to recre­ate the din­ner hour and man­age meal­times
  • How to make time work for you —instead of against you
  • How to dis­cov­er and live by your core val­ues and beliefs
  • How to imple­ment the sim­plest “diet” in the world
  • The “key” to nev­er for­get­ting any­thing
  • How to improve your rela­tion­ships with the “5‑Minute Mir­a­cle”
  • How to end pro­cras­ti­na­tion
  • How to imple­ment a bud­get and man­age your mon­ey
  • And much more!

I was wor­ried because of the “70 day” part, though. What busi­ness did I have sign­ing myself up for yet anoth­er cal­en­dar-bound thing that I’d end up hav­ing trou­ble with?

Well, I list­ed to Brooke’s pod­cast last Mon­day, and she hap­pened to say that if she could go back and change any­thing, she would reti­tle the pro­gram as “A 70 STEP Life Makeover Pro­gram” and toss out the idea of tying it to the cal­en­dar. For­ward motion is impor­tant, but mak­ing it fit your life is more impor­tant.

So yes, the Chal­lenge is very much doable for us, my friends. And it’ll be even more so in a group of women who under­stand each oth­er’s issues.

So here’s my chal­lenge: I’m going to begin the 70 Step Chal­lenge on July 15. I’ll set up a pri­vate group for any­one who joins up to do it with me. You’ll have all the nor­mal (exten­sive!) sup­port of the orga­ni­za­tion — there are thou­sands of peo­ple on her lists! — as well as a chance to build friend­ships with­in a small­er group of peo­ple in my group. We’ll do some chats, match up bud­dies, and use oth­er tech­niques to help each oth­er suc­ceed. We won’t get tied up in rush­ing through the chal­lenge as much as in work­ing it with a sense of bal­ance.

Won’t you join me? I’d love to get to know you bet­ter, and it’s always good to have more friends and a bet­ter sup­port net­work.

Change Your Life Challenge Logo

If you join through this link, I’ll be informed and will invite you to the pri­vate sup­port group with­in 24 hours. I do hope to hear from you soon!

They’re STILL here!

by

2006-07-01

9:15 pm

2 Comments on They’re STILL here!

Home, Kvetching

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Wait — did I men­tion it? No, because I was try­ing not to whine.

We’ve had con­trac­tors here for weeks and weeks, repair­ing the bath­room that was slid­ing into the crawl space.

No, real­ly. I have pic­tures. The floor was falling in, and the toi­let and sink were slid­ing in from one side, the tub from the oth­er.

There had been a crack on one of the tiled walls that was poor­ly repaired before we moved in. Some­one had tried to fill the crack with grout. That crack start­ed open­ing wider and wider, then we real­ized it was because the floor was get­ting low­er beneath it.

Turns out there was a long-time water leak in one of the walls that led to struc­tur­al dam­age. That got togeth­er with a whole lot­ta cracked floor beams, and thus we had the dance of the porce­lain enti­ties.

Any­way, that does­n’t explain why the con­trac­tors are still here after weeks. Espe­cial­ly why they’re here on a Sat­ur­day, and want to return tomor­row. Much less why they did­n’t show up at all yes­ter­day (or call to say they weren’t com­ing), then called at about 6:45 while we were out hav­ing din­ner to let us know they were on the way to grout the floor tiles. Right then.

The head guy sound­ed sin­cere­ly sur­prised when I said no, and stuck with the no. Maybe that’s a nor­mal Fri­day night for him, but it isn’t my idea of a good time. Sam and I went on with our evening, much to the con­trac­tor’s dis­may. So they’re here today, instead. And will be here tomor­row morn­ing. And maybe Mon­day, too.

I’m mak­ing allowances for them find­ing a lot of unknown dam­age and hav­ing to sis­ter most of the beams under the liv­ing room and kitchen. I’m also not­ing that Mr. Bigshot did­n’t see that dam­age when he did his inspec­tion, so he did­n’t do a very good job of it.

Yes­ter­day’s lack of time­li­ness is typ­i­cal, though. There have been sev­er­al days in a row with absolute­ly no sign of these guys (when they said they’d be here), and no excus­es or expla­na­tions when they return. IF I can get hold of them, I’m just told, “You nev­er can tell in this busi­ness, man.” You can’t tell what? How late you’ll be out drink­ing each night? Whether you’ll be too hung over to work ’til 2 or 3pm? Whether you can afford gas to get to work?

In any case, the com­pa­ny won’t get a good ref­er­ence from as, as you can prob­a­bly tell. I did­n’t hire them, so I can’t fire them–the land­lord is in charge there.

I did insist that I’m not clean­ing the car­pet they soiled, even though they offered me mon­ey to do so. My body isn’t up to it.

After they’d hope­less­ly ruined the car­pet, I made sure the land­lord knew it–so we’re sup­posed to get new car­pet in the liv­ing room and hall, too.

But I real­ly want these guys out­ta my hair!