Wishful Slacker

Like Father Like Daughter

Nothing like a little ereading on a Sunday morning.

New Year's Resolutions To Do's

I indulge whole-heartedly in the optimism that comes with the fresh start of a new year.  This year is no exception, and if anything, I feel more ready to attack my new list of resolutions than ever before.  I feel that we are all at risk of diving into new year's resolutions so deeply that they don't withstand the test of time, and before we know it everyone is scrambling around at Lent to give up the indulgences that they only just swore off as the clock struck midnight on January 1, 2012.  But, by creating a plan that not only includes what you are going to do but also answers the how and the when, in addition to identifying the barriers that prevented the attainment of this goal in the past, I think we have a much better shot at having success. 

If anything, I am looking at my resolutions this year as a refinement of my goals, the goals that I have always had, but in all honesty have never seriously acted upon.  One day, I will be sitting on the couch and will realize that 30 years have gone by without me ever doing these things.  That is my fear.  We only live once, and if not now, then when? 

I like to plan, and for years have always had some type of a planner at my side.  Often they were Franklin Covey planners, either stand-alone wirebound books or refill pages to go inside my fancy Franklin binder from years past.  Last year I really liked my system (a wirebound one-page-per-day book that had the perfect layout for my needs), but when I went on to Franklin Covey's site a few weeks ago, I was shocked to learn that they had discontinued it!  How did I learn this?  Well, I was dorky enough to utilize Franklin's online message system with one of their employees.  Yup.  When I replied, "Oh no! That is horrible!", some dude in Franklin's customer service center was probably like, this lady needs a life. 

This is where I am interested in your input, because I am taking a big plunge.  Because I couldn't find a suitable alternative Franklin planner system, I am going ALL-ELECTRONIC with my planning this year!  Yes- no paper.  No hand-written lists, no flipping through a dog-earred calendar.  Instead, I am sticking with iCal through Apple, and I downloaded a "to do" app the other day called Toodledo.  So far, I like it, and I think it will serve its purpose for me.  It is a website in addition to an app, so all my organizational needs will cross all platforms where I need them- on my work computer, my ipad, and my iphone.  You can integrate iCal into Toodledo, and it is on someone's "Honey Do" list to get me set up with that.  :-)

Anyways, I have this new planning system, and I know I want to work on these goals.  So to start off the new year, I have developed a plan for how to integrate these changes into my daily life.  For example, Jim and I have a subscription to Top Chef University that expires at the beginning of summer that we've been sitting on for several months.  To avoid having life carry it by, it is now on our schedule for every Friday night (Yes, Fridays.  Guys, we are boring now, remember?).   And that is basically how I am going about attacking my other tasks.  They're getting scheduled.  No more of this, "whenever I have time" stuff, because that will never happen.  Let's be honest!

If you made any New Year's resolutions, good luck!  I'd love to hear how you plan to implement them.  I figure that any and all peer support with these things can't be bad!

Ellie, meet your great-grandpa

 

What Steve Jobs Did For Us

With the news last week of the death of Steve Jobs, so many are coming forward with their stories of how Apple forever changed their lives and their world.  It is rare that one person's life affects so many to the degree that Steve Jobs' did, and the news of his passing is one that will linger with us for a long time to come.

Here is our story.

I grew up in an Apple Macintosh family.  My dad set up our first Macintosh on the living room floor, where I sat cross-legged for hours in front of that little screen, playing in MacPaint.  I was about 3 or 4 years old.  I filled in shapes with zig-zags and solids and learned that it was possible to scribble using a computer.  From that time on, we were always devoted to the Apple brand, which at times wasn't always easy.  In school, not only was I a lone Protestant amid a sea of Catholics, but I was a Mac user, frequently heckled about being left in the dust.  And for a while, it did start to feel like we were being left in the dust amid the fancy IBMs and the computer games that were not Mac-friendly.   In 7th grade I joined the computer club- well, it wasn't really a club, but rather a time after school on Mondays and Wednesdays when students had access to the computer lab.  It was a year of the doldrums for me, and in searching for some recreation I joined a few other students (mainly geeky boys) amid the rows of white Macs in the chilly and sterile computer room.  The other boys who met after school were very computer-savvy.  They preferred their IBMs, but they had respect for Macs, and in turn, respected me (and they, being heckled enough themselves for numerous reasons, didn't give me a hard time when I used MacWrite instead of Microsoft Word).  Sitting there and writing with them after school made me feel that perhaps dorky was the new cool. 

So this was my background- my relationship with Apple.  My high school graduation gift was my purple iMac, the second coming of Apple, and to this day I think that has been my favorite computer.  It was beautiful, it played so nicely, and it was all mine.

This is what I brought to the conversations that started up between a man at the Caribou Coffee where I worked and me.  Turns out he was also a Mac man and had always been.  He understood my loyalty with Apple.  One day he told me that he was looking to sell his little MacBook laptop, and wondered if I was interested.  To which I replied, "Um, YES."  We chose a night when I wasn't working, and met at the Caribou.  He sat next to me and opened up the laptop, explaining her tricks.  I began feeling very overwhelmed, but I did not know if it was because of the amazing computer that was soon to be mine, or if it was because I was suddenly shoulder to shoulder with this guy whom I think I was starting to like.  Later, when I sat at home with the laptop, admiring it, part of me kept thinking that it had been his.  A couple days later, I had a quick question about the laptop, so I sent him a text.

And instead of texting me back he CALLED me on the phone, for the very first time. 

That was the start of it, almost 9 years ago.  Now we have a Mac Mini, two MacBooks, two iPod Touches, an iPod Nano, an iPod Shuffle, two iPads, Apple TV, and an 11 month old daughter.   

That is what Steve Jobs did for us. 



Click here for my husband's version :-)