Quick! Stuff about Halloween before I snooze and Nanowrimo starts!

Okay, I'm really tired because I didn't sleep well last night since I didn't feel all that great. Fine today though, which is bizarre. We finished the pumpkins in time for the hordes of kids who came to our doorstep clamoring for candy. We tried to not eat too much of it ourselves but I've eaten more than I have in probably a month or two. Which is still not really that much ...

Just so you realize, these pumpkins maybe not the best you'll find on the internet but it was the first time we did something other than hacking out a regular grinning jack o lantern with a kitchen knife. I created the designs and made the initial cuts. I also scraped out the guts and seeds while Colin did a lot of cutting and also scraping the second pumpkin's inner wall. We attempted at first to try using a dremel power tool but it didn't quite work (it coats *everything* in the vicinity in pumpkin goo), so we switched to the trusty speedball cutting tools. Also, the first one was the crow on a fence and we didn't realize we should scoop the wall from the inside to make it thinner so that's why it's cut so deep. So, without further ado, our glorious pumpkins:

And tomorrow, Nanowrimo!

Productive days, Paneer Masala, and Naan

It's proven to be a fairly productive last couple of days without any major casualties like getting locked out. I will have Colin call dentist(s) tomorrow morning. I will finish off the digitizing project and website tonight or at least before Monday. I have done a lot of pretty heavy duty cleaning especially in the kitchen/den area (where we spend most of our time). As for Europe planning and getting tickets - that's the one bit I think I might need to exempt. I'll focus on doing some heavy planning with Colin this weekend but I think it will be less stressful to not require having tickets by Monday. The point of the GTD list was to, well, get things done, but ultimately to relieve any stress that not doing those things would end up affecting November. I don't want to make hasty decisions and then have to clean up the mess later, such as if we end up needing to change the tickets (note: we aren't the only ones affected by our plans but nobody else has really got things figured out).

I can't remember what initially made me start a blog post just now, but so far it's boring. What else ...

Oh! So last night I made our usual Indian dinner. It always involves a lot of planning ahead, hopping around, and tons of dirty dishes. I don't know how often I make it - maybe once every two weeks or so? First, there's the basmati rice. I've actually forgotten it a couple times while thinking dinner was almost ready. It takes over 20 minutes to make so it's not fun to forget it. Then, there's the paneer masala, most of which is quite simple: a spice packet, milk, can of tomatoes, and the paneer. The paneer is the tricky part and it's been trial and error (lots of error actually) trying to have actual chunks instead of it melting and becoming invisible. We've tried making it from whole milk. We've tried sour cream. Then we realized farmer's cheese is about as close as you're going to find to paneer here. Some say it's one and the same but I have my doubts. Last night I cut it up into cubes and used paper towels to soak up the excess moisture. It worked much better but I don't think it's quite there yet. I also let the paneer masala cook for a bit too long so it was more pastier than goopier. Strangely, this seemed to subdue the spices.

Then there was the naan. Elusive but oh so yummy and, at least for me, necessary to complete a dish. Last time, I figured out how to make one actually turn out thin. But this time? I am so much closer to getting something like real naan. I had lots of bubbles! And they all turned out quite thin! I let every step take more than enough time and then I stored the balls of dough in the fridge for a couple of hours. They were big and poofy when I pulled them out. Interestingly, the upper layer (there were two layers of four balls each) was much easier to make thin. Next time, I won't stack them. Then the final touch? Roll them out a LOT. Roll it one way then straight back, pressing hard. Do it again and if they're still too thick, turn them 90 degrees and roll them sideways. If they keep trying to shrink, have gravity help out by holding them up by one edge. All in all, I was very happy that they turned out nicely.

Also, in case you were wondering how much time this all takes, it depends. I had prepared the dough and the paneer earlier. I don't know quite how long it takes to do that though. However, once it came time to cook, it took about half an hour. I have to work on the timing of things, such as not starting the panner masala right away. But from the time I put the rice on to boil to the time it was done, the rest of dinner was ready.

Now I'm all hungry thinking about the leftovers. Maybe we will eat dinner earlier than usual tonight ...

The oddity ensues

While Colin was gone, I watched two movies in one night, slept until I couldn't sleep anymore, and ate way too many powdered sugar donut holes. Oh, and locked myself out of the house. With no money or ID or car keys. If I had money, I most likely would have walked to the train station and gone downtown to get Colin's keys. If I had car keys,  I could have simply unlocked the car to use the garage door opener. As it was, we have no hidden spare key (soon this will turn into "had" after this experience - I promise you that). And Colin couldn't be back until the following late afternoon.

Fortunately the sun was shining, it was 70 degrees, and after trying to break into my house without busting a window, I sat down and plugged my computer into an external outlet to try to figure out what my options were and to talk to Colin. He was busy and took awhile to respond, and meanwhile I chatted with his mom. I was trying not to panic and get mad but I finally got ahold of Colin. There were many options discussed (should or could or was it worth it to walk to the station and try to have them take my reduced 10 pass? I didn't have any extra money nor do I have the required ID card they neglected to mention I needed to be eligible for in order to get but I still don't know what to do with the remainder of the stupid card). In the end, it just made more sense to go ahead and call a lock smith, even though we both got paranoid reading the lock smith scam stories online. Two and half hours and 85 dollars later, I was back in the house. It didn't really make sense to commence with my plans to spend the afternoon in Gurnee so I relaxed for a bit with a cup of tea before heading to the library. And that's the story of the first time I've locked myself out since graduating from college.

I was very glad to have Colin back yesterday late afternoon even though he was exhausted. I must mention a story about a coworker I have yet to meet. Apparently, they've started a fast friendship, his wife's name is Karen also, and he felt the need to text me while they had had quite a bit to drink. The text read: "I will be very gentle and tender with Colin tonight. It may be the best experience of his life." Colin had mentioned he was straight and married. I knew he was joking and I laughed at it although I only had confirmation from Colin that it was a joke over half an hour later. I simply couldn't think of anything to reply to the message from someone I have yet to meet, so I left it alone. Neither of us are all that great at getting jealous, let alone suspicious. Everyone always laughs whenever Colin tries to put on his jealous boyfriend act. I think we're just really comfortable because we know we love each other so much.

In weather-related news, it continues to be very blustery. I struggled with toting a breakfast-in-bed type tray from a thrift store to my car at least four blocks away and it felt like a sail no matter how I held it. I've been on the look out for one for awhile. It'll be great for toting food into the den or having another desk option. I don't know yet if the external keyboard will fit on it, but if it does even better. I have arranged a nook in the guest bedroom with blankets and pillows and a short table in which this would work very well in. If not, yay for more space to put papers and hot cups of yummy drinks. I also found a a "So you want a revolution?" glass, a tee shirt with Wonder Woman all over it, and a pair of jeans that fit.

Note to self: need to get rid of all those clothes that no longer fit. If I do ever get back to their sizes, shopping for new clothes at thrift stores is better and more fun than lugging too many clothes around when/if moving.

I also found a hat that I have dubbed my "crea cap." Crea is short for creative, and in some not-so-good Spanish it means "think, believe, imagine." (For those that care, "crea" is the subjunctive form of creer for he/she/it. More appropriate would be creo - which would mean I believe without a doubt.) It's red, knitted, soft, and good for indoors and out. I plan to wear it only when I'm actually writing the novel. I've read of a lot of people have something they wear during nanowrimo that becomes another trigger to get into the mindset of writing. I might not wear it all the time, but it helps that I do like it.

So yes, November 1 is now less than a week away. I'm doing really well on the scanning and digitizing project and the pre-novel research. At least I think I am on that last one. I'm going to try to catch up on laundry but it's not imperative. As for the rest of the GTD list - plans have been thrown off kilter this week and things like calling possible dentists to check if they take Colin's insurance and the planning for Europe in December are tough to do when I barely ever see Colin and he's so tired most of the time. Usually, we just want to zone out and simply be together when we are together. Hopefully the rest of the week isn't quite as stupid. The weekend will largely consist of pumpkin carving and handing out candy to the gazillion kids in the area.

Odd Times

Already this is quite an unusual week. We had a relatively normal Saturday; we tried out a pizza place nearby that has double decker pizzas and we spent sometime enjoying the library. The weather is a bit odd - we had frost one night recently but yesterday I ended up having to take off a lot of layers a couple times and would just sit in my tank top outside for a bit. Then there's the rain. Lots of small thunderstorms, almost nightly it seems. And tomorrow we're supposed to get high winds with gusts up to 60 mph.

Then Sunday rolled around and Colin had to be downtown Chicago by noon for the start of his company's conference. We didn't know how long he would be down there but I decided somewhat last-minute that I wanted to be with him on the 1.5 hour one way train ride. It worked out really well because Tom and Keegan were able to join me for an afternoon and early evening of sitting in cafes. It was fun to talk with Tom about library science since I hadn't seen him for two months or so and he's in his first semester of lib sci school. Made me somewhat nostalgic for grad school but I didn't envy the introductory class assignments he's going through. I read a lot of "Coal: A Human History" which I'm finding quite fascinating.

I ended up getting home earlier than Colin at 10 pm. I had no reason to stay for another two hours until the next train and I knew I'd be worthless for socializing that late. My shoes and bottom half of my jeans were pretty soaked from the rain so I was very thankful to be able to hop right into a hot shower when I got home. Also, I'm glad I had every bit of clothing I did have including wool socks which meant my feet stayed warm even when damp, rain coat, wool scarf, and an umbrella which I loaned to Tom and Keegan when they needed it. Couldn't have really been more well prepared for the wacky weather I'd encountered during the trip, except maybe some waterproof footwear. Even then, I would have needed something that was not too hot and that I could walk a lot in comfortably.

I struggled to stay awake while reading a (exciting) book and ended up taking cat naps, which meant I'd dose off partway while sitting up. Finally Colin got to the station at midnight and I picked him up. It turned out I had to drive him back to catch a train before seven this morning. He was pretty wiped out when I picked him up and he wasn't able to get much sleep :( I went back to bed and crashed until almost 11 though ... I've been building up a sleep deficit for awhile from the virus we had and the lingering side effect of sinus congestion, so I was glad for the extra sleep.

Colin won't be home until who knows when tomorrow night. I'm trying to stay positive and focus on doing things I enjoy, perhaps things I normally wouldn't do with Colin. Perhaps I'll eat a dish with tons of mushrooms tonight ;) Or borrow movies from the library that he wouldn't like at all. I have some things I have to do but the list isn't huge and I need to focus on not getting too sad that he's not here. It was actually hard to see his train leave this morning, knowing it'll be longer than usual before I see him again.

Planning and Productivity

Every once in a while I think about how to better organize, plan, and prioritize things. I know I was not a normal teenager, especially if you take note that I was drawn to books about how to be more productive, how to get more things done in the day, how to find balance. Why yes, I did enjoy reading "Cheaper by the Dozen," how did you know?

One of the things I remember best is the idea of big rocks and little rocks and trying to fit them in a jar. The concept is that a jar represents the amount of time you have or space in one day, the little rocks are small tasks that don't take up a lot of minutes and the big rocks are those time-consuming and hopefully either necessary or rewarding endeavors. First, fill the jar with the little rocks, then pile in the big rocks on top of them. Notice how many big rocks are left over. Empty the jar and refill it, but this time with the big rocks first then the littler ones. The idea is that by inserting the big, important time-consuming tasks first you will have more room to fit in more of the smaller tasks.

Another connected concept that I like is the idea of the big three. I'm not sure what it is technically called but it doesn't matter because it works anyway. I decide "what are the three big things I will get done today?" It helps me focus on working towards completing tasks that will take more than one day to finish. They usually take an hour or two each. Then, combining this idea with the big and small rocks idea, I space out the big three (usually the big rocks) throughout the day and keep in mind what little rocks I have that I can do in between each. I rarely actually schedule things down to the minute or even the hour. Instead, I keep a list and if there's something that makes sense to do at one time than another or an actual appointment, I'll keep that in mind. My days are quite unstructured but this helps me focus on the tasks rather than the time.

Periodically, I've searched again and again for pearls of wisdoms and magic formulas to maximize time and productivity that I seem to believe do exist. It's not relentless. In fact, it's how I do most things in life. I have lots of interests and hobbies and passions but I'll maybe be actually doing something about one or two of them any given month and that's about it. They'll fade to the background and neglected ones will rise to the surface. This is certainly not the case for everything in life but for many things.

Yesterday, I browsed the web and looked for what else is new out there in terms of software and ideas. I've tried Remember the Milk in the past but like any other electronic organization set-up, it fell to the wayside. I always feel like I'm spending so much time plugging things in when I could be doing some of them. With paper, I enjoy the flexibility and it feels like a faster system. I like the way I can get a good feel for the week or month or being able to just pencil things in. Often when I try to stick with purely electronic methods I get an itch to just grab some paper and a pen. But I don't carry a paper planner and I always have my phone with me. I don't like seeing empty days or weeks when things were just too simple for the need of a planner.

The biggest reason for an electronic planner is so that I can share things like grocery list with Colin. But for some reason, the cloud lists program hasn't updated and synced our shared lists in weeks. It was buggy before then which means it caused more headaches than it should have. "Oh I didn't see (foo item) was needed." "I put it on the list two days ago." "Well, it's not on mine. See?"

So since I'm used to it and it works just fine without sharing, I've changed the focus of my lists. Along with things like shopping lists and movies to see, I've simply got four to do lists: @ home, @ out and about, @ people, and @ online. It's pretty new but it helps because I get annoyed when I realize something on my list can't get checked off because I didn't remember to do it where I could get it done. It's not perfect but it's simple and fits for now. (Side note: @ people are things I need other people to do some part of the tasks or have them with me in order to get it done.) For timed things, I just use Google Calendar which sends alerts to my phone.

My most used and biggest list is the books I want to read, usually with what library I visit that holds them and where it can be found. I'm not exactly gung-ho about social sites for book reading since I find myself wanting to read rather than spend time on them, but I do have a goodreads account. It gets updated! Whenever I'm reminded of it by an email notification of someone else posting something.

I'm not some super efficient do-it-all, not even close. I seemed to need those deadlines in school to push me to get them done. I only pulled one real all-nighter but I did stay up late and spit out papers that would juuuust slide in under the deadline. I don't exactly thrive under that kind of pressure but sometimes nothing else would give me the focus and energy to get something done. Not the best way to do things, but it obviously worked well enough.

So you might remember from earlier this month that I dedicated this as a Getting Things Done month (yes, loosely related to the GTD philosophy which I don't completely understand). How am I doing? Well, I'm optimistic and think I'm doing just fine. Okay, so dentist appointment hasn't been made yet ... and tickets to Europe haven't been reserved ... and my website hasn't really been worked on ... these all depend on Colin's participation to some extent. I'm not putting the blame on him because that's not fair (he's got the website all set up) but it's hard to remember to ask what his dental insurance company is and to have him remind me how to get to the web pages to edit them. He's especially busy this month since his company's annual conference is this weekend where they roll out a new release of their software. Also, we keep mentioning Europe but never can seem to make any actual decisions and the decisions involve more people and their plans. At this point, we just need to decide and make plans ourselves. But I've accomplished quite a few things (many that weren't on the original lists but were propelled forth by its momentum). I'm well on my way to completing everything by Halloween, especially since I'm treating it like a hard deadline. I can't start nanowrimo until I finish the list! I know I wouldn't be able to stand it if I had to delay nanowrimo even for a day ...

Thinking short but not so random thoughts

Colin and I were sick over the weekend with something everyone has been catching at his office. Very low but persistent fever, off and on sore throat and headaches, congestion, fatigue, and Colin did more coughing than I did. Not so much fun. I've had two small lattes (including extra milk added to my already half-drinked cup) today and I haven't had coffee for almost a week. I did have lots of tea and we've got only one bag of Constant Comment left, but I definitely have a buzz right now.

I noticed I say "oh well" a lot here. It generally sums up how I feel quite nicely but I need to stop saying it so often because I'd imagine that repeated phrases irritate people.

Also, it seems I am not done rolling the egg rolls that have no egg in them. I've used up the 50 wrappers and I've still got a good chunk of stuffing. I did a lot of them while watching "Marley and Me" by myself last night while Colin had a business dinner. The movie is sad, sure, but not quite as sad as I thought it would be. There were some cute parts but it seemed a lot more "real lifey" than I'd expected it to be. So it's back to the store to get some more wrappers, probably tomorrow. No library volunteering session tomorrow since the lady who heads it is out of town to a funeral.

Today we finally got to try the Wild Berries pancake place somewhat close to home. The french toast stuffed with cream cheese and topped with strawberries is really good! Colin dreamed of clocks not working and then it turned out his alarm hadn't gone off when I got up 45 minutes after the usual alarm time. For lunch, we went to visit a restaurant we used to go to more when we lived in the area to celebrate Shaheli's birthday. We'd found a mug that seemed to fit her very well: sparkly, contains silly words like "hope your day is filled with love!", has a rainbow and cute sketches of little boys.

Oh, and I wanted to correct what I said earlier: the pringles weren't a dollar a piece. Well, originally they were, but I bought them for 25 cents each. I knew it had been a better deal. I found some different cookie wafers at Garden Fresh Market yesterday. One thing I realize now is that so much of the food is imported and it makes me wonder just how much food mileage there is for most things at that store. Yet on the other hand, many of their fresh foods are more local than most grocery stores. I think at least spice packets for Indian foods would be a fair exception. I know many people who try to be more locavore follow the Marco Polo rule: if it was transported during his time by ships (such as spices), it's okay if it comes from the other side of the world. I always with the out of pocket costs versus ethic (environmental) dilemma. I like a deal but I also like good guilt-free food. I'm mostly gonna be ignoring this during November I think ...

Speaking of November, it's coming up so fast! Eep! I've been feeling nervous about not having enough story stuff but today I was mostly doing some research but also spitting out overall plot fragments that have been floating around in my mind. I feel much better have stuff a bit more written out and better organized although my "outline" is very very bare. Still have a couple overall questions but the characters are much less elusive to me now, so that's helpful. Overall, I've got 5,000 words of research. This includes copy pasted passages and writing tips. Considering that this is one tenth of the word count goal, the goal feels more real and obtainable now. Of course, none of these will actually be in the novel itself as that would be against the rules. But words beget words, it seems.

Pretty much all about food

I'm getting pretty wiped out and I still have 50 egg rolls to wrap and dinner to make. It's been kind of a long day. But I need a physical break.

First, I woke up way too early and my brain was hopping all over the place. I caught it in a net and took it downstairs with blanket and bathrobe and demanded it spit out what it needed to say into my journal so I could get some peace and quiet. Also, Colin and I are both battling a fairly weak bug but I think I might have had a slight temperature. Yay drugs! Even after journaling a bit, I had to grab "Russia: Experiment with a People" which I don't care if I ever actually get through or not. I don't like how things are presented but it's nice to kind of brush up my memory and learn other little tidbits about the Cold War etc. I got through quite a few long pages before the sky started turning light blue and I said, "Okay that's it. We're going back to bed whether you're ready or not." I managed another couple hours of okay sleep before dragging out of bed just in time to take Colin to the train station.

I had to shower, eat, and get a bunch of other stuff done in an hour then I went to the church library for about 2.5 hours. It was fun to have a working typewriter to write up the catalog cards. Yes, actual physical real catalog cards. I never thought about the need to have more than one author card if a book was written by two or more people. Little things like that just boggle my mind.

After lunch, I was running through the recipes I'd picked out and gone shopping for on Tuesday when I realized I had gotten the wrong kind of wrapper thingies. I certainly didn't know there are different types of spring and egg roll wrappers. So there was nothing to do but go back and exchange for the right kind. By the way, I love shopping at Garden Fresh Markets - they have such a wealth of international food stuffs and we get our Indian food ingredients there. The mystery is that they don't have paneer. I've never managed to find paneer in stores here, so if you have any ideas where to look I would love to hear them. For now, we're experimenting with farmer's cheese and slowly getting closer to what we want it to be.

Anyway, it was neat to be there. One of the things I've kept an eye out for is snack food for nanowrimo. I've got lots of pringles that were a dollar a container. There's a couple of real ramen noodle packets to try for lunches and see if I like them. I found some cookies I remember eating and liking from the annual holiday packages we used to get from friends in Japan. Junk food won't be a problem ... we've amassed a lot of it over the years. We just don't eat it. Some might be stale but who cares (I don't). Also, Halloween is coming up. I also plan to get veggies to chop up, stick in the fridge, and munch on whenever. But today I saw a bunch of usually kind of expensive packages of food for a discounted price because they had a best by date of Oct 31. I went all out and am now staring at a stack of five different things (like fancy gorp, dried cranberries, dried pineapples). They were all at least a dollar off their original prices. Pretty cool. Roughly 15 bucks for all these goodies so far.

I'm kind of chatty today. Hope no one minds too much. I was planning on the next post to be "How to change a clump of VOB files into one subtitled M4V file" but I've run into some gnarly bits trying to figure it out myself. More on that later when I've mastered it. After I post pictures and rave about my egg rolls. Which, oddly, don't have any eggs ... the recipe I chose didn't call for any. Oh well. I think I'll leave most of the rolling for tomorrow - draining the stuffing took a lot longer than I thought it would. But we'll have some tonight with another cool recipe I'm trying out - Chow Mein! Gonna go start prepping for that before Colin needs to be picked up.

More on Columbus Day

I just read this. I try to refrain from posting many comics and lolcats on here, but this one is especially relevant for today. Also, perhaps you'll find you like Bug Comics!

The trip to Battle Creek to hang out with Colin's grandparents was very nice. It was perfect weather; it actually in the mid 80s on Sunday and one could have been fooled into thinking it was July except for the leaves falling onto your plate and into your salad. They were baby sitting a very sweet dog who has selective hearing and eats bumblebees and wasps for snacks. I ate too much, as one always has to expect when visiting the grandparents. Also got some intense garage sale-ing done! Found a nice long blue skirt and a couple of gifts. I also couldn't help myself but got a bunch of Snoopy postcards for a whopping 25 cents. I am tempted to put a picture of them here but wouldn't want to ruin the surprise for you. Since I have a good stack of them and they're all the same. So I have an idea: if you want one, all you have to do is email me your snail mail address! Then I'll send you one with a nice message from me to you on it. We all love getting real mail right? Oh and in case you don't have it yet, my email address is K J Larsen (with an E) at gee mail dot com. no spaces, all lower case, ignore the parentheseed comment and realize that there's no such thing as geemail. Just trying to be extra clever against those roving evil robot spammer things.

I haven't really planned out my day and it's already 10:30. Oh well - I've been catching up on blog reading and a little bit of hopping around on the internet. It was nice not to actually have much internet beyond searching for directions and getting emails this weekend but I am glad to be back. Good day to get some stuff done including laundry and to get out and enjoy the warm sunny air. Happy Columbus Day, however you do or don't celebrate it!

Libraries and cell phones (unrelated in this post)

This week has been a bit crazier than normal weeks (but what is a normal week?). I'm making fairly good progress on my October Get Things Done. The dentist thing is still sitting there glaring me in the face ... but we've changed to our current addresses on our driver's license. Which means I can check books out of every library I run into! Well, in the area anyway. That's a big plus for me. The library in Gurnee deserves another visit - they're doing some pretty interesting new things there. Different building shape and set up, including a TV in a designated place near the front door where you can just hang out and watch the news. It's also *very* popular. I went there on a Monday evening and even then overflow parking was pretty full.

More exciting library-related news: I've found a couple more jobs which I *will* be working on the applications for today. This is so nice, but why do they come in clumps?

We finally got our cellphones switched from our respective family plans to our own family plan. Becca liked the idea, that since we have identical cell phones (Nexus Ones), we are getting a same sex marriage. Unfortunately, this means my actual cellphone number has changed. Again. Sorry guys, I don't like the need to frequently update my number either. This time it's an MN based number since Colin, who is the actual owner of the account, has a MN number. However, the good news is that I've got a Google Voice number which I don't plan on changing or getting rid of ever if I can help it. I don't have actual texting anymore but I do have a limited data plan! So email me to get my GVoice number, then feel free to text that number to your heart's content. In case this is too confusing for you - just ask me for my new number and then pretend that is my real new cellphone number. The one glitch is that when I call you I can't yet have it show that I'm calling from my GVoice number every time. So if I'm out and about, your caller ID may show some odd MN number (218 yada yada) and that's probably me. Go ahead and log that into your address book but I'd ask you to please just use my 231 Gvoice to call and text me.

Kind of a long explanation for something that I don't like using. I hate talking on the phone. I love texting though. And the fact that Google Voice can give me automated transcriptions for voicemail messages. I thought long and hard about whether or not I should just get a data or texting plan, but in the end safety/comfort and overall expenses/headaches had getting a normal voice with data plan win out. I do know that if it was just me, I'm pretty sure I'd swing for data/text, but being on a family plan with Colin who still needs voice changes things. However, for those of you who ever think they might be able to do just texting, definitely check out Qwert. For 10 bucks a month you get 400 texts a month, or for 20 bucks it's unlimited texting. The coolest thing is that they send you a SIM card and there are no extra services required for this low texting plan. The only catch seems to be that you then have a SIM card that can only do texting. Unless you want to physically swap SIM cards in and out every time you need to check SMS messages, you have to be really sure that this will be a good solution for you.

Just trust me when I say I looked at tons of options, including how to be able to call people without a voice plan and/or wifi ... I don't think you want me to prove it by explaining them all. I also started looking around for what the best solution for keeping in touch when we're in Europe in December. I'll undoubtably write up a post about findings and results. The best thing is that our Nexus Ones are unlocked and we can call people whenever we have wifi for very cheap (or if that person is on Google Voice or Skype, for free). Additionally, we can check for voicemail and text messages whenever we connect to wifi without it costing anything because we've both got Google Voice. The trick is what we do outside of wifi range. While it's true I did just fine on study abroad without having my own cellphone, it helped immensely that a few in the group did have them. We can get local SIM cards and there's other solutions available (but you can easily get confused doing research for the one that fits you best), but until Colin and I have figured out what countries we will be in for how long, I am forcing myself to pause this research. Word of advice for those traveling to Europe: whenever possible, text don't call. Texting is so much cheaper and I think Europe laws say you can't be charged for any incoming text messages.

I'm in Deerfield for the second time this week since we're heading to MI to visit family this weekend. I'm on my own for lunch (there's always lunch meetings on Friday which is why I usually come earlier in the week). Walking to Potbelly's nearby is sounding like the best idea ...

Anxiously awaiting

I don't like waiting, especially when it's waiting for someone traveling to show up at my house and I've got no more cleaning and prepping I can think of to do. Reminds me of those times when I'd be anxiously awaiting Colin's arrival on weekends in Bloomington. However, I am willingly putting up with the anxiety right now because one of my best friends from high school is going to be here for dinner! I can't remember how long it's been since I've seen her but it will be good times all around.

Perhaps I should bring in the rest of the tomatoes and whatever we don't want killed by the frost tonight. Okay, then ... I'll try to focus on reading a book and probably fail. Oh well.

#followalibrary

A couple things of note: Today is #followalibrary day on twitter. The rules are simple: if you have a twitter account, tweet your favorite library that you follow on twitter. Or, in my case, look at over a dozen libraries you've been to and find less than a third that do indeed have twitter accounts. It surprised me that Chicago PL (public library) doesn't have one. Or the Library of Michigan. Highland Park (@hplibrary) and Glencoe (@GlencoePL) PLs have them which is expected, and then there's Kalamazoo PL (@KzooLibrary) and IUB's (Indiana University - Bloomington) libraries (@libnlearn). Oh, and for those of you who would like to follow me on twitter, you can find me here: @deafelephant

Second, it's the first day of October! Yay! I love pumpkin spiced lattes and apple cider and watching the leaves put on a show. And cuddling under heaps of blankets and taking walks in the crispy air without the muck of snow or mud. This October, as I mentioned in my previous post, is the "Month of Getting Things Done." It unofficially started a few days ago. I've got the scanner to work with my new Linux Mint OS (that took more time than I'd expected). I made zucchini bread, vacuumed upstairs and the stairs, did laundry, booked plane tickets for San Francisco and did some touristy research, finally mailed stuff to Mom, started looking into more volunteer opps, keep chipping away at the massive amount of unread library blog entries I've neglected, organized my backup hard drive, figured out what to do with the huge vob files, converted two movies and inserted subtitles, made naan twice (I think I'm getting a better idea how to make them less cake-y), took a couple of hikes ...

Some I usually do during the week anyway but others I'd been meaning to get around to doing or at least do more of them. I've also been slowly adding bits and pieces to my nanowrimo story idea. Yesterday I felt frustrated because between my volunteering hours, a nap, and getting the scanner hooked up, I felt like I hadn't accomplished as much as I would've liked. I've already started to feel a time-pressure anxiety which I'm not dealing with well. I've got the mindset that I need to constantly wonder what else I should be doing just then, how to better use my time. I need a bit more adjusting.

Today has ended up being one of those other kind of days. The kind where I seemed to purposely not do anything. Sometimes this works in weird ways and you end up feeling refreshed and actually do get stuff done. It's hard not doing things. But instead of planning out the day and making to do lists, I simply do what I want. This doesn't mean going on a shopping spree or running through the streets screaming my head off (neither of these activities really appeal to me, if you must know). This involves more of an id approach to things. For instance, "hey, I want to go outside." So I go outside. "I don't need to dry my hair just yet." So I put it in a loss ponytail and leave out my aids for a couple hours. "Hey, I want tea." So I get up and make tea, and while waiting I do the dishes. Or I put on some day clothes but keep my pajama pants on and wear wool socks. It's not that big of a difference, but it is a difference. I try hard not to feel bad that I'm not doing certain things and I don't think things through and wonder what I should do instead or beforehand.

This may seem like a contradictory way to start my "Getting Things Done Month" but the challenge is not going to work if I don't try to balance things out and ease anxiety. It's a process and I hope to bring today's method into a productivity method. Now I'm going to go stare out the window while sipping tea.