After much conversing, reading social media pals' threads on the subject, and personal googling, I have decided upon Verizon as my carrier. I can't wait to be able to update things immediately instead of keeping lists of things to post about when I get home. This will greatly increase the prolificness of my posting on all web outlets, and hopefully this blog as well! I hope that Blogger updates seamlessly through the iPhone, elsewise I will be seeking a new vehicle posthaste!
The magazine is going to press tomorrow! I am so excited! Early days, long hours, and late nights don't phase me a bit, as the adrenaline of being under deadline is something I've always loved in a job. THIS is one reason I'm happy I don't have a family or anyone waiting for me or relying on my schedule. I can stay late and proof and upload and convert and page-number-check and request and triple-check to my heart's content. This is like icing on my cake of employment! Call me a nerd, I love having a job that needs me to stay late to meet a deadline! AND I GET TO USE MY RED PEN!
I'll be posting caps/PDFs/links as soon as I'm allowed to share the new content (and boy, do we ever blow away the "competition" with our gorgeous layout... we have the most talented art director in all the land).
I just watched a great new interview with Rachel Maddow. Here, in part 4 of that interview, she briefly talks about the idea behind her forthcoming book, Drift:
Good points, all. I look forward to reading her book!
Speaking of reading, I'm super psyched to get on with THIS new fancy book, an apt gift from my ever-thoughtful boss:
Oh boy, is it a great read so far! Not ONLY am I learning how puns really ARE a sign of intelligence (told ya!), it's all being conveyed in a prose itself rife with puns! Joy!
To bed I go! Just call me Nancy PILLOWsy!* Hahaha!
xoxoxo
—Crystal
*hilarious, as the pillow references my exhaustion and the late hour, and the name references a personal hero of mine...
I don't even know where to start. First, using a digitally created (and yes, Buzzfeed, very poorly at that) rendering of the Old Man On The Mountain collapsing isn't the best choice of imagery under the headline, "There are some things we can fix." I mean, if a great example exists of something that we CAN'T fix, it's that old NH landmark. Second, who decided to capitalize "Fix"? It does sort of look like that word was layered over the other line of text in yet another design misstep (perhaps it capitalized itself as a new text box?), but hey, we can't all afford graphic designers (or our neighbor's kid (or a random passerby)) to help us design and proof ignorant ads. Third, and most obvious is the sheer aforementioned ignorance that this ad exemplifies.
It's only about the hundred millionth ad to spew such ridiculous nonsense, but the stupidity doesn't abate with each new ad, and so neither will my indignance. Really, NHM.o, really? Allowing a couple down the street to get married is going to erode YOUR marriage? Or, I'm sorry, MARRIAGE ITSELF? Really?
In trying to imagine a parallel where more people joining a group would threaten those already involved... uh, how about Jews? My mother and sister have converted to a Jewish tradition of sorts, and as Messianic Jews, call themselves "Jews" on a regular basis. Would other Jews take issue with this, Jews who are born into the faith and are ethnically as well as religiously Jewish? Hard to say... I don't know of any Jewish people who are upset that non-ethnic Jews would adopt their faith—I think they'd be all for it, but then again I'm also of the opinion that all sane people would be for marriage for whoever wanted it. In either case, what does the choice of anyone else to do or call themselves anything, whether it be something you also call yourself or not, have to do with your own identity? Is a Jew in Israel going to get upset that my mother, a blonde white American, calls herself Jewish? If so, they'd be pretty ridiculous to think that someone else's beliefs, practices or identity reflected anything on them, or would have any effect on their own faith. Similarly, if I fall in love with and choose to marry another woman, I'm having a hard time figuring out how that would effect any other married couple, let alone the very INSTITUTION of MARRIAGE! Sheesh!
Also, that ad is just silly. Seriously, I can throw together a better-looking one with GIMP in like 5 minutes, and I'd do it out of sheer irritation at rampant capitalization if it weren't for the fact that this sort of messaging is so flawed that the flaws in the ad itself are actually... just right. (Insert this, and this, and this, and this, and this and this.)
In other news, a Pizza Hut driver was behind me at Burger King today. I found this endlessly amusing.
Sadly, you really can't see the Pizza Hut sign on top of the car very well, but trust me, it's there.
It's not that I'm actually doing Christmas shopping—postage for my massive holiday card mailing list is prohibitive enough—how am I to brave the huddled, shoving, grumpy masses and go buy stuff? People are getting lots of hugs from me this year, and I'm giving myself a nap!
In reading news:
I'm nearly done with Gretchen Rubin's "The Happiness Project." If it weren't for the fact that I had already renewed it three times, which is the limit at the wonderful Portsmouth Public Library, I would have it finished by now. As it were, I sat at the library this Tuesday evening for several hours, until they were 5 minutes until closing time, at which time I returned the book and marked the page number down in an Evernote note. It was so wonderful to sit in the library and read. The Portsmouth library has great seating areas and I had the whole Periodicals section to myself that night. I took notes while I read, which is a practice I've really allowed to fall by the wayside, one that Rubin herself mentioned in the book and when I allowed myself to indulge in what seemed to me frivolous note-taking (who am I taking notes for? What am I going to use them for?) I realized that everything I've read about writing as reinforcement is true. When you copy out passages (as suggested by Austin Kleon and myriad others), it sticks in your brain more (also mentioned in this recent article from Fast Company).
Well, one place those notes can be useful is here! I'll share a few things that really resonated with me from the August-October chapters of Rubin's book:
Implement a daily habit that makes you aware of how grateful you are for something.
"One of the easiest things to feel grateful for is the beauty of nature."
"I noticed that if I put the word 'meditation' after any activity, it suddenly seemed much more high-minded and spiritual." [For me, "Traffic meditation" might work well...]
Seasons: "The annual renovation of the world." —Samuel Johnson
"Making time for a passion and treating it as a real priority instead of an 'extra' to be fitted in at a free moment... will bring a tremendous happiness boost." Passion: "what you enjoyed doing as a ten year old or choose to do on a free Saturday afternoon."
"Often, the opposite of a great truth is also true."
These are just a few of the quotes or passages or personal insights I thought were pretty meaningful from those chapters. Great perspective... I also got several actionable ideas from the book, too, which I put in different-looking bubbles on my notebook page. Things like
Lulu.com—Make dad a bound collection of all his notepads!
24-pg comic book in 24-hr challenge by Scott McCloud
use computer passwords to reinforce something positive
These were things that popped into my head with suggestions or things mentioned while I read. I can go put those in different lists, probably, yes, into Evernote, and then schedule them into my life. I'm sort of mashing up Franklin Covey's 7 Habits of Highly Successful People, Evernote, and various blog entries from places like Marc and Angel Hack Life. It feels like an awful lot of prep and not enough implementation yet, but even the journey itself through learning all of these things is super helpful even if I don't end up with a perfectly Dewey Decimal System-ed life.
Okay, must do that irritating thing that shows up several times EVERY DAY on my to-do list... eat!
I have recently decided that I will be getting an iPhone next month. One of my last lingering fears is the loss of my real, tactile qwerty keyboard on my beloved Blackberry (the downfall of Bb software has hit me hard—WHY, RIM, WHY?). This case is like the gateway drug for me. I don't plan on getting it, but just knowing that it's there in case I need it will keep me from hyperventilating. And who knows, maybe I WILL get it. You don't know my life!
Yes, all, it's true. The new iPhone will mine. It's odd—I've never before had "the latest thing", in fact to this day I still don't have an iPod, and I never did get that GameBoy I always wanted when I was growing up. But, thanks to pal Walter Elly, I realized that I can have an iPhone for the exact price (okay, like $5/month more) I'm currently paying for my Blackberry, which is fairly useless. I was all so excited about putting a data plan back on my phone after having a lobotomized smart phone for 6 months, and after reinstalling the key apps, etc., I was more disappointed than I thought possible at the decline of the Blackberry software during those months when I was blissfully ignorant of all things app, having just a talk-and-text phone. I might as well have had THIS again:
Remember those? I'm not entirely sure that's the exact one, but I just spent about half an hour searching "those sliver flip phones everyone had back in 1999-2000," and that's the closest I came up with. PLEASE comment if you know which ones I'm talking about. When I think about it, I hear the Fur Elise ringtone in my head.
It was an incredibly productive Saturday yesterday. I got a massive chunk of my Christmas cards done:
It was a fun (*sic*(do people use "*sic*" anymore? It's the closest thing I know to conveying sarcasm in text...)) mix of address book/Facebook messages/emails/Christmas card spreadsheet/Google Contacts/Blackberry contacts searches to determine the most current address for everyone on my list. I find it particularly daunting since many on my list are in the military, were college friends, or are just my age and for any combination of those or other reasons, tend to move around a lot. But it's a yearly tradition I love, because I have moved around quite a bit myself and I LOVE sending people mail and keeping in touch with friends of yore; in my busy life, I sometimes need a big yearly missive to keep me in touch with some.
My computer served as a search tool, Christmas tune player, Elf player (I love that movie), address update inquirer, etc. I tried to update all of my various contacts lists every time I updated an address or confirmed its validity, and am now noting the year of confirmation, lest I happen upon an older address somewhere that sends me scrambling again for certainty in this transient world.
Finally, you'll note in the image above the Andy Williams record case on display behind the little christmas tree. Would that I could play that record constantly each December. Through a mix-up, however, the record itself was long ago lost. On a Goodwill run this morning, however, I searched through a stack of records and found TWO COPIES of the Andy Williams "Merry Christmas" record! Wow! Now all I need is the red-cased one, "The Andy Williams Christmas Album" and I'll be all set! Of course, I also need a record player... but at least I can look at them!
Isn't it crazy how the covers are cropped differently? WHAT DOES IT ALL MEAN?!
This is a pretty great way to make a stack of clothing, an otherwise perhaps lackluster gift, very exciting! I myself am always WAY more excited to find out that there's someone out there who saw something that they thought I might like to wear all the time and gave me that instead of, say, a crystal duck, or something I can't use every day. But still, I'd be even MORE excited to get a visual feast! People are so durned creative.
So, finally the gasp-inducing stats of this year's NaNoWriMo comptetitors/winners! 14% win rate, that's pretty great! I'm so relieved to be a part of that number! What a great practice in discipline it was. And to actually FINISH something... even the short stories I wrote from elementary school on up through college were never finished. I lost interest or got stuck. The "literary abandon" approach is way more effective than needing perfection every step along the way. People—SMART people, RESPECTED people, people like Stephen King—tell us this all the time, yet it takes learning from personal experience to drive it home.
How Do You Get Things Done? Do them. I had 36 mails piled up in my inbox, after having "inbox zero" for a while, and how did I get it cleared out? I sat still for 20 minutes and responded to everyone. What's on your plate to do that you're putting off? Can you give it 20 minutes of attention?
Well put. I also love the "Fifteen Minute Rule," the source of which I don't recall... Oh! Oh! It was Fly Lady! Anyway, in one of her posts she talks about Decluttering 15 minutes a day, which basically is a tactic to tackle any one messy area for 15 minutes a day, because you can handle 15 minutes of anything, it doesn't throw off your whole day, it's palatable to the easily overwhelmed mind, and who knows, you may end up going 20 or 30 minutes some days without realizing it, and before you know it, you've accomplished this really big task!
Another great thing I've taken from Gretchen Rubin's The Happiness Project, which I am currently in the midst of reading, is the One Minute Rule she instituted for herself, wherein if something took less than one minute, she always did it instead of putting it off. Great examples are putting clothes in the hamper instead of on the floor, or washing a dish instead of leaving it for later, or putting the remote back where it goes instead of on a random perch on your way out of the room.
I like these things because they break up things that somehow roll into insurmountable projects in our heads that build up avoidance mechanisms, instead of facing them head-on and seeing how easy it can be to live a simpler, or cleaner, or more efficient life.
This all being said, it's 10pm and I'm going to delve back into Gretchen's book and see if I can't read some more! Because, as Stephen King said:
“If you don't have time to read, you don't have the time (or the tools) to write. Simple as that.”
and:
“If you want to be a writer, you must do two things above all others: read a lot and write a lot.”
You know when you finish a major project and you're all, "Woo! Now I can relax! I am going to have SOOO much free time!" and then a few days go by and you fill your time with so many things that you're excited to be able to do again that... you are still exhausted!
Welp, that is totally happening to me right now. Today I had NOTHING to do after work, but after some quality roomie time, watching the new What Not To Wear show (it's the ONLY show I enjoy that is NOT available ANYWHERE online, which irks me), cleaning up my room, and settling in to bed only to discover all these productivity/organization tools take serious time to set up... here I am after 10pm and still going strong. In fact, I've had to pee for about 30 minutes and am so caught up in what I'm doing that I haven't had the time to stop and go down the hall to my bathroom.
So. A few things I'd like to share out of sheer excitement at their existence!
#1: Evernote.
I've just discovered this, and already am super psyched about it. Basically, it does everything I've known was possible for years but have never found one program that is SUPER INTUITIVE and super easy and super fast that does all those things. Short reminders, longer notes for reference, web links (I'm going to move all my Google Bookmarks there, since they are discontinuing lists (which is the ONLY reason I was using them in the FIRST place!), etc., etc., &c.
I'd love to use it more for work, since it is so exactly perfect for my crazy busy Administratvie Assistant/Copywriter/Scheduler/Gopher/Social Media Manager/Keeper-tracker-of-everything-er job, and I am somewhat using it, but currently I'm at the bottom of a long totem pole of computers, and I've got what I'm quite positive is the last of the non-Intel, PowerPC Macs (a G5, pretty good speed, but... no bueno for being able to upgrade any programs, use anything Mac App-related, Chrome, etc., all won't run on a PowerPC processor), so although thankfully Evernote is available for PowerPCs, it's got a disclaimer that it's a non-supported version and upgrades aren't available, so it makes me nervous to rely on it much...
BUT. Super amazing life program! :) Maybe, just MAYBE, when my Franklin Covey Classic 7Habits planner refils run out in June, I'll go all digital with my life planning. We'll see.
Here's an adorable video promoting it. I have to say, the ad style, the voice, the elephants in the sky... all convinced me to try it.
Oh, also it's free. You can pay $5 at any time to boost your upload limit/amount for that month, but your cumulative upload/memory size is unlimited!
#2: My desk fetish is fueled by this image from a random spam-mailed ad:
Dude, it's like the Netflix for cluttery paperwork! You sign up for a certain level of membership, starting at $9.95, and then you can just cram reciepts, bills, etc., into these envelopes and send them off, and someone scans them and they appear in digital forms online, and-- get this-- there's an auto-import option to your Evernote account, which also contains text-recognition, which means even notes you jot on recieipts will be searchable on your COMPOOPER! Amazeballs, right?
Now, I don't know if my trust level is up to snuff with this. I'm sure the Shoeboxed folk are fully certified and professionals who deal with important papers a lot... I think I'd be more worried about mail-handlers. I mean, I love every single USPS employee I've ever known. They have to go through all sorts of background checks, have to sign all sorts of things and swear by all sorts of gods, and have super cushy Federal jobs I'm sure they don't want to risk, but... ever since my Mom warned me that she heard that some post office employee told her that some guy that one time would steal checks if he could tell they were in envelopes, I've always wrapped rent checks in other paper to make them look like letters so it's less obvious.
This is a ridiculous fear for several reasons: a) nowadays, people can't really steal from you with a check, as most places require ID, and fraud is so easily reported and you get your money back when someone obviously rips you off, and b) my mother is paranoid about everything, even to this day, and c) I'm pretty sure that just doesn't happen anymore... it has NEVER happened to me or anyone I've ever heard of.
But. This envelope screams "I HAVE IMPORTANT DOCUMENTS IN ME!" To anyone who might be familiar with this company at all, and I'm assuming it'll grow in recognition if it does well ... so it just seems like tempting fate to me. Although... everyone knows that Netflix envelopes have DVDs in them, and they NEVER get stolen. At least, that I've ever heard of. So. Silly fear.
And anyway, I just think this is a great time-saving idea. And that's the kick I'm on lately, so this was right up the alley of eye candy por moi!
Okie dokles, kids, I'm off to bed. Let's see if showering tonight will help my morning routine be less rushed tomorrow (I keep trying the "waking up earlier" route and... it just doesn't happen for me! Suggestions welcome...).
