a goal to collect goals

Well, not really. But I was just surfing around 43things.com, which is a totally inspiring website, and thinking how many great goals people have set for themselves. Not necessarily anything that I would take up a slot in my 43 precious goals with, but worth noting nonetheless. They run the gamut from huge, sweeping and impossible to achieve, to heartbreaking, to poorly spelled, to funny, to mundane, to ridiculous. But I love that the goals can provide such a little snapshot of someone’s life. I decided to start posting some of the ones that catch my eye.

hug an elephant
see the northern lights
leave the house on a bike and come back after traveling the country
count everything I own made in china
move to hawaii
learn how to whistle really loud with my fingers

a few more things to cross off, and some frustration

I’m having some people over after work tomorrow, and of course now I’m looking around and seeing the house through other people’s eyes. I’m feeling a little discouraged over the fact that not one single room in our house is finished. Sure, everything is more or less livable, but almost every room is no more than 50% done – things need to be painted, hung, cleaned, rearranged, fixed, etc. It’s a very tough choice between focusing on big projects so the rooms can be more livable versus taking one room and doing every little detail. I really go back and forth between the two philosophies, and as a result am pretty much nowhere. Not sure what to do about this one.

FIRST FLOOR

Entryway
– wallpaper vestibule
– retile vestibule
– hooks for coats, etc

Living Room
– hang stuff on the walls
– paint and put legs on record cabinet
– paint fireplace
– finish painting stairs
– hang stuff in stairwell

Powder Room
– new floor
– wallpaper
– new toilet
– curtains

Dining Room
– new rug
– paint hutch
– hang more stuff on walls
– new dining chairs
– new sideboard

Kitchen
– shelf for cookbooks
– organize cabinets
– curtain

SECOND FLOOR

Hallway
– finish painting hallway
– hang stuff in hallway
– paint stairs
– bookcase for hallway
– get rid of desk

Guest Room
– rewire electric
– new drywall
– demo wall air conditioner
– paint
– new futon
– dresser
– curtains
– rug
– new door

Bathroom
– new vanity
– paint
– rewire
– regrout tub
– new shower head
– curtains

Potential Laundry Room
– paint
– put in shelves
– new door

Bedroom Closet
– paint
– put in shelves

Bedroom
– hang shelves
– hang artwork
– curtains
– rug
– paint night tables

THIRD FLOOR

Hallway
– paint stairs
– paint hallway
– hang stuff in hallway
– table for top of stairs

Craft Room
– better storage bins
– paint trim
– curtains
– rug

Office
– hang stuff on walls
– better desk storage
– new filing cabinet
– get rid of old computer

Outside
– new roof
– paint front door
– paint trim around front window and door
– house numbers
– paint back door

See more progress on: finish fixing up my house

trying to get back to this

I’ve been going around and around about this stuff in my head and with Greg lately, with lots of tears, uncertainty, and general crippling fear. I just stumbled on this blog entry that I need to add to my list of affirmative readings:

How to make a living doing what you love

See more progress on: decide what the hell I would like to do with the rest of my life

june 1st

I’m starting this in earnest. Now that the summer is here, it’s more conducive to being out and about on artist dates and generally less oppressive to my mood than winter.

The thing that’s tricky about the Artist’s Way is that the book is sort of all over the place. It’s really hard to decipher the actual activities from the reading. For example, there will be a heading like, “This Week’s Exercises” except then sprinkled throughout the chapter in other places she’ll give directions to do things – like, “Write down all your blurts” or “Read through these principles every day”. And generally it’s a little incoherent and not a strict “process” per se. Not that her ideas aren’t great – I find myself wanting to highlight every other sentence. But rather than a step by step process, it seems more just like a general book of affirmations arbitrarily split into chapters and exercises.

I’ve also already started this like three times, so I have a couple of lists already of my artistic enemies, my letter to the editor on behalf of myself, my other lives, etc. So the start is a little anticlimactic. I don’t know why I haven’t been able to keep up with it – I think the Artist Date always foils me. But like I said, now that the weather is warm I can see myself getting out by myself more.

So if all goes according to plan, I’ll be ready to quit my job and open a gallery by September 😉

See more progress on: Complete “The Artist’s Way”

when to start this?

I feel like I’ve started this a bunch of times and haven’t gotten anywhere. Summer is probably a good time to do it – it’s easier to get out and do things, like artist dates, since I don’t want to spend my life under blankets anymore. Twelve weeks is a long time though, a big commitment if I’m going to do it right. If I’m honest with myself, I’m not sure I’ll ever be able to do it in just twelve weeks. It would be fine if I didn’t have things like work, weekend trips, fixing up the house, etc to worry about.

See more progress on: Complete “The Artist’s Way”

the past week has been really hard

I have this way of feeling so sorry for myself whenever I’m stressed, which is so dumb. My mom worked for an accountant for 30 years, and every single year, from about late January to April 15th, she would work progressively later and later. The dreaded “Tax Time” – she would get home around 10pm every night and work all weekend. And me, I work until 6:30 and a few hours on the weekend and I’m practically in tears. Not that I want to be the sort of person who stays at a miserable job forever (which is a separate conversation in itself), but basically things aren’t so bad.

I need to do two things: Snap out of it, and also stop worrying so much about work. I don’t know why, but I take such a personal responsibility for everything. For the past few weeks, almost every day, ALL day, has been spent with my stomach and teeth clenched. I am so tense all day it’s ridiculous. I need to recognize that I can only get done what I can get done. I know that I’m working as hard as I can, so who gives a crap whether other people do? Let them send email after email after email, I am only one person, and I can only get so much done in a day, and it’s ONLY CLOTHING FOR CRYING OUT LOUD! Definitely not worth getting my life in a tizzy.

But this is why I need to start looking for a new job. I either need something with less stress or more meaning. Or maybe both.

See more progress on: be more positive

may 6th & 7th

Falling behind on this already.

Thursday night I wound up doing some crunches and push-ups and meditating a bit. Not much but the point of this goal was to at least do something to help my self esteem and stress level. Although I am pretty excited that I’ve discovered a really good visualization aid for meditating that I actually used throughout my incredibly stressful day yesterday.

Last night I went out for dinner & beers with Greg, which I guess counts for something, even if it defeated the getting in shape portion of this goal.

I have to work today and paint the laundry room – work is counter-productive to this goal, but at least painting the laundry room isn’t. Maybe I’ll try and go for a walk or do pilates or something.

See more progress on: do two things every day in May to immediately improve my life

may 6th

I didn’t clean or do whatever the other thing was that I said I was going to do. Instead, I ate lunch outside with the new girl at work, and then went for a drink with a friend last night. Equally good!

Unfortunately I have to work tonight so I’ll have to do two small-scale things. I think I’ll lift weights and meditate.

See more progress on: do two things every day in May to immediately improve my life

brighter tomorrows

A cry, a walk, pilates, and meditation, and I’m feeling much better today. I started a 43things goal to do two things every day for the rest of the month that will help me get my life back on track. Last night was pilates and meditating, tonight is cleaning the bathroom and crafting.

On an unrelated topic, I’m reading a book called Life in a Medieval City, because I have a fascination with the middle ages. There’s this chapter that describes the typical burgher’s (basically upper-middle class person) home, and how it’s set up. It says something like, no matter how much money you had, you still had an endless battle against fleas and bed bugs. I don’t know why, but that was incredible to me. Like there was a time where even if you had a million dollars (or sous or crankles or whatever the hell they called it then) it couldn’t buy you freedom from bugs. Which I suppose is still the case now. Even the best exterminator can’t guarantee that you’ll be free of roaches or mice. There’s something very egalitarian in that.

a summer wasting

I’m having a bad day. I just feel overwhelmed, run down, unattractive, friendless, old, and going nowhere. Work is just so busy lately, I’d give anything for a day off. Even worse is that feeling I get when the weather turns warm, like I just can’t face another summer wasting away at a desk breathing artificial air.

My job is sort of getting to me. Not because of being busy, although that’s part if it – my company tends to be split between people who work nonstop until 7 every night and people that don’t seem to have any discernible workload, and I unfortunately am in the former category. But really I’m losing my interest in the web and technology. I’m expected to chime in about new functionality and web standards and blah blah blah, and I just don’t care anymore.

Overall I tend to have this feeling of panic about technological progression and general consumerism. Don’t get me wrong, I love the internet, I like neat gadgets, but where does it end? Everything is always being forced to progress – companies have to make more and more profit, sell more shit to more people who don’t need it and can’t afford it, come up with new ways to distract people from interacting with the world on a real level, and push the competition out of the picture. There’s never a moment where anyone says, “This is good, we’re at a good spot right now, let’s just sit back and enjoy.”

The nature of my job is that I’m expected to be thinking of the next big thing that’s going to increase profits, keeping up with changing web technology, being in love with the brand. It’s not really acceptable to just do a good day’s work so you can get paid and go do something fun at the end of the day. Time off is sort of frowned upon here, just like actually taking a lunch break or leaving before 6pm. Half the time taking any time off is barely worth it because of the stress of getting everything ready before you leave and then catching up when you get back, and the chances are pretty good that I’ll get any number of panicked phone calls while I’m away.

Is it so wrong of me to want to live a life of leisure, or to admit that I enjoy my time away more than my time at work? I’d really love to have some sort of job where I’m actually doing something meaningful, or at the very least at the end of the day have something to show for it. I’m not afraid of hard work, just pointless hard work.

See more progress on: be more positive