Patti O'Shea's Blog, page 74
December 4, 2018
Time is Valuable
I'm not certain how the topic came up, but one day at work, a coworker said something along the lines of he didn't understand how people could be so lazy that they picked up their groceries at the store rather than doing their own shopping.
Um, yeah, I do this every week. One of my nearby grocery stores will pick all your items for you and then I simply drive over, let them load them in my car, and I'm on my way in less than 10 minutes.
I don't consider it lazy. I hate grocery shopping with every fiber of my being and always have. Shopping became a bigger challenge when my dad moved in with me. It's a large store and he insists on coming with me. The shortest trip we made was 45 minutes, but most of them were at least an hour, sometimes more. So 1 hour doing something I loathe versus 10 minutes. No brainer, baby!
This was a few months ago now, but more recently I saw another author on FB talk about "work ethic" and how she and her husband don't pay anyone to do something they can do themselves. The words work ethic rubbed me the wrong way. It has nothing to do with work ethic.
I pay someone to clean my house every two weeks. I pay someone to do my yard work. Can I do these things myself? Yes, but I hate both chores a lot and I have allergies, so yard work means days of feeling crappy afterword even with antihistamines. I'm fortunate that I make enough to be able to do this, but if my situation changed, I'd give up a lot of other things before I'd give up my cleaning service and my lawn guy.
It's not work ethic.
I work full time. My commute is long--let's round it off to an hour each way. I need to sleep at least 6 hours a night (although I'd prefer more). I need time to get ready for work. I take my dad to doctor appointments. I blog here. I try to get writing time in. I'd like to get training in for my next 5K race. I need to knit to handle my anxiety. Don't forget to factor meal time into this. And you know what? I'd also like time to just sit down and catch up on The Good Place, you know?
Everyone has their priorities. I like a clean house and a nice-looking lawn, but I don't want to waste what little time I have doing these things. Apparently this other author prefers to spend her time cleaning and working in the yard. Her prerogative. Just don't denigrate other people's work ethics because they value their time differently.
Um, yeah, I do this every week. One of my nearby grocery stores will pick all your items for you and then I simply drive over, let them load them in my car, and I'm on my way in less than 10 minutes.
I don't consider it lazy. I hate grocery shopping with every fiber of my being and always have. Shopping became a bigger challenge when my dad moved in with me. It's a large store and he insists on coming with me. The shortest trip we made was 45 minutes, but most of them were at least an hour, sometimes more. So 1 hour doing something I loathe versus 10 minutes. No brainer, baby!
This was a few months ago now, but more recently I saw another author on FB talk about "work ethic" and how she and her husband don't pay anyone to do something they can do themselves. The words work ethic rubbed me the wrong way. It has nothing to do with work ethic.
I pay someone to clean my house every two weeks. I pay someone to do my yard work. Can I do these things myself? Yes, but I hate both chores a lot and I have allergies, so yard work means days of feeling crappy afterword even with antihistamines. I'm fortunate that I make enough to be able to do this, but if my situation changed, I'd give up a lot of other things before I'd give up my cleaning service and my lawn guy.
It's not work ethic.
I work full time. My commute is long--let's round it off to an hour each way. I need to sleep at least 6 hours a night (although I'd prefer more). I need time to get ready for work. I take my dad to doctor appointments. I blog here. I try to get writing time in. I'd like to get training in for my next 5K race. I need to knit to handle my anxiety. Don't forget to factor meal time into this. And you know what? I'd also like time to just sit down and catch up on The Good Place, you know?
Everyone has their priorities. I like a clean house and a nice-looking lawn, but I don't want to waste what little time I have doing these things. Apparently this other author prefers to spend her time cleaning and working in the yard. Her prerogative. Just don't denigrate other people's work ethics because they value their time differently.
November 29, 2018
Kanban Board
I struggle with productivity once I get home from my day job. My hours are early and I'm usually tired by the time I get home and it's far too easy to sit down and get nothing accomplished. In one a planner group I belong to, one of the women was teaching what was basically how to organize your time and focus on the right things, but totally for writers. Or at least creative people.
For a couple of days, I hemmed and hawed about signing up. I've been through these types of classes before and came away with virtually nothing that worked for me and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money on something that would probably not help me anyway.
Finally, though, I thought what's one more organization/time management class in the grand scheme of things? And maybe, just maybe, this one might have something I could use.
It did! And I'm glad I signed up. It was an intense three days and it was a good thing my story was with my editor and I had no writing to do because all I did when I wasn't at my day job from Thursday night through Sunday night was exercises for the boot camp.
It required a lot of thinking and a lot of writing and I also had to reconfigure my brain because I'd always heard goals shouldn't revolve around anything you couldn't completely control and this author was saying the exact opposite. This was actually one of the hardest aspects of the boot camp for me--getting my head wrapped around this very foreign-to-me concept.
I believe it was a very good exercise and I'm glad I took the class, but one of my favorite things was creating my own kanban board. This is a board for To Do, Doing, Done tasks. We used an electronic kanban board at my day job for about a year and I really liked it, but the online version had a big limitation--I had to make an effort to see it. Every morning, I had to make it a point to pull up our department's board on the internet and I generally left it open in my browser all day.
My home kanban board is on my wall. I marked off the board with washi tape (thanks to a suggestion from another author) and while the lines aren't straight, it'll work. BTW, the OCD part of me is appalled by the crooked washi tape lines, but so far I'm living with it.
The two super good things about this is the board is located in my office where I write/work and it's right in my face every time I walk out the door. I can't forget what I'm supposed to be doing.
Since I took this picture, I have moved a number of items to the Done section on the bottom and I have two in the Doing section in the middle.
I'm liking this so far. A lot. If it works for me and makes me more productive, I'm going to invest in an actual white board and take down the washi tape. But for now, as I take this method for a test drive, I don't want to invest a lot of money.
Now to finish some of these tasks/projects.
For a couple of days, I hemmed and hawed about signing up. I've been through these types of classes before and came away with virtually nothing that worked for me and I wasn't sure I wanted to spend the money on something that would probably not help me anyway.
Finally, though, I thought what's one more organization/time management class in the grand scheme of things? And maybe, just maybe, this one might have something I could use.
It did! And I'm glad I signed up. It was an intense three days and it was a good thing my story was with my editor and I had no writing to do because all I did when I wasn't at my day job from Thursday night through Sunday night was exercises for the boot camp.
It required a lot of thinking and a lot of writing and I also had to reconfigure my brain because I'd always heard goals shouldn't revolve around anything you couldn't completely control and this author was saying the exact opposite. This was actually one of the hardest aspects of the boot camp for me--getting my head wrapped around this very foreign-to-me concept.
I believe it was a very good exercise and I'm glad I took the class, but one of my favorite things was creating my own kanban board. This is a board for To Do, Doing, Done tasks. We used an electronic kanban board at my day job for about a year and I really liked it, but the online version had a big limitation--I had to make an effort to see it. Every morning, I had to make it a point to pull up our department's board on the internet and I generally left it open in my browser all day.
My home kanban board is on my wall. I marked off the board with washi tape (thanks to a suggestion from another author) and while the lines aren't straight, it'll work. BTW, the OCD part of me is appalled by the crooked washi tape lines, but so far I'm living with it.
The two super good things about this is the board is located in my office where I write/work and it's right in my face every time I walk out the door. I can't forget what I'm supposed to be doing.
Since I took this picture, I have moved a number of items to the Done section on the bottom and I have two in the Doing section in the middle.
I'm liking this so far. A lot. If it works for me and makes me more productive, I'm going to invest in an actual white board and take down the washi tape. But for now, as I take this method for a test drive, I don't want to invest a lot of money.
Now to finish some of these tasks/projects.
November 27, 2018
Introverts and Appointments
I'm an introvert. Not only an introvert, a shy introvert who is extremely socially awkward. I also have anxiety, which means I frequently beat myself up over my social awkwardness for years afterward. Yeah. Great combination. One of the things I hate most is picking up the phone and making appointments. Totally stall on that for as long as I can, but eventually there's no choice. Or is there?
My health provider has started offering the ability to book my own appointments online! How cool is that? It shows the schedule, you click your time, fill in the information, and hit submit and voila! Appointment made!
I wish this was available across the board, but it isn't...at least not yet. I have hopes that eventually they'll roll it out across all their specialties and clinics and doctors.
Now if every place that made you setup an appointment would go this route, life would be so much happier for me. My stylist does appointments via texting, which is great because I hated to call and make hair appointments, too.
Life is so much better for me when talking on the telephone isn't involved. :-)
My health provider has started offering the ability to book my own appointments online! How cool is that? It shows the schedule, you click your time, fill in the information, and hit submit and voila! Appointment made!
I wish this was available across the board, but it isn't...at least not yet. I have hopes that eventually they'll roll it out across all their specialties and clinics and doctors.
Now if every place that made you setup an appointment would go this route, life would be so much happier for me. My stylist does appointments via texting, which is great because I hated to call and make hair appointments, too.
Life is so much better for me when talking on the telephone isn't involved. :-)
November 22, 2018
November 20, 2018
Pancakes
When I was writing last Thursday's post about attitude making a difference, I thought about my mom. I lost her to breast cancer a couple of years ago now. It doesn't seem that long, but wow, it's coming up on three years. It still feels as if I just lost her.
As I was writing about attitude, I thought about my attitude about her death. The doctor who gave us the terminal prognosis said she had about 6 weeks. We lost her in 6 days. I could have felt angry that I had five weeks taken from me, but I didn't. I was happy that she hadn't suffered and she was suffering, especially at the end. She'd also lost the ability to speak, to walk, to do almost anything the final four days. I know she didn't want to live like that.
I feel blessed that I was with her the night before she passed, holding her hand and talking to her about stories I wanted to write. She was in home hospice at my house, so I was there when she was in extreme pain in the middle of the night and my dad was lost as to what to do. And I was there the following morning when he woke me up and said she was gone.
But when I think back on those last six days, I have two distinct memories. They make me smile, but they're bittersweet.
The first is when we arrived home from the oncologist who had just given us the six week estimate of the time she had left. My mom was in bed, I lay beside her and my dad sat at her side and the three of us talked, we cried, and yes, we even laughed as we shared stories. It was the last time she was able to really hold any conversation. By the next day, speaking had become difficult for her.
The other memory, the one that definitely makes me laugh now involved pancakes. My mom wouldn't eat much of anything those final days, but we were able to get her to eat pancakes. (Loss of appetite is a sign we were told in stage 4 cancer.) It was only one or two small pancakes, but it was food.
My dad starts arguing with her, saying she has to eat something else, that she couldn't only eat pancakes. (I think this goes along with him feeling lost.) I looked at him and I growled, "If she wants pancakes, make her pancakes!"
We were laughing about this recently. He wanted her to eat chicken or something with more protein, but at that point, I was like the important thing is that she eat. It doesn't matter that it's pancakes meal after meal.
Talking about this made me cry--still--but it also made me smile. Pancakes will forever be tied to my mom now.
As I was writing about attitude, I thought about my attitude about her death. The doctor who gave us the terminal prognosis said she had about 6 weeks. We lost her in 6 days. I could have felt angry that I had five weeks taken from me, but I didn't. I was happy that she hadn't suffered and she was suffering, especially at the end. She'd also lost the ability to speak, to walk, to do almost anything the final four days. I know she didn't want to live like that.
I feel blessed that I was with her the night before she passed, holding her hand and talking to her about stories I wanted to write. She was in home hospice at my house, so I was there when she was in extreme pain in the middle of the night and my dad was lost as to what to do. And I was there the following morning when he woke me up and said she was gone.
But when I think back on those last six days, I have two distinct memories. They make me smile, but they're bittersweet.
The first is when we arrived home from the oncologist who had just given us the six week estimate of the time she had left. My mom was in bed, I lay beside her and my dad sat at her side and the three of us talked, we cried, and yes, we even laughed as we shared stories. It was the last time she was able to really hold any conversation. By the next day, speaking had become difficult for her.
The other memory, the one that definitely makes me laugh now involved pancakes. My mom wouldn't eat much of anything those final days, but we were able to get her to eat pancakes. (Loss of appetite is a sign we were told in stage 4 cancer.) It was only one or two small pancakes, but it was food.
My dad starts arguing with her, saying she has to eat something else, that she couldn't only eat pancakes. (I think this goes along with him feeling lost.) I looked at him and I growled, "If she wants pancakes, make her pancakes!"
We were laughing about this recently. He wanted her to eat chicken or something with more protein, but at that point, I was like the important thing is that she eat. It doesn't matter that it's pancakes meal after meal.
Talking about this made me cry--still--but it also made me smile. Pancakes will forever be tied to my mom now.
November 15, 2018
One Small Thing Part 2
Tuesday was Part 1 of these two part posts. That was the day I talked about a small thing that irritated me and probably shouldn't have. Today I'm going to talk about a small thing that makes me happy even though it's silly to get so excited about it.
For years, I've always worn black. I like black and it's practical for my job. Need to go to the hangar for something without warning? I'm dressed for it. But I didn't realize how stuck in my rut I had become until I bought something in teal. It was on sale!
Seriously, every time I see the teal color, I smile and feel more lighthearted.
It's ridiculous. Really. I mean what difference does it make? And yet it does make me happy and I look forward to teal days. I think this means it's time buy more colors and get away from black.
Even though it's silly, I also think that life is about small pleasures and we should seek these things out. Attitude makes such a difference and if something can improve one's mood, I say go for it. Going through life, always looking on the bleak side or always creating drama is a tough way to live and, sadly, the people who do this don't even realize they're guilty of it. We create our reality and our reactions to events in life--big or small--affect our mood. And our general happiness.
So even though I posted on Tuesday about something that put my mood on a nosedive, I'm working to not let it bother me. It still is, but I'm working on it. ;-)
Life is tough. I don't want to make it any harder than it already is. It's in the attitude.
For years, I've always worn black. I like black and it's practical for my job. Need to go to the hangar for something without warning? I'm dressed for it. But I didn't realize how stuck in my rut I had become until I bought something in teal. It was on sale!
Seriously, every time I see the teal color, I smile and feel more lighthearted.
It's ridiculous. Really. I mean what difference does it make? And yet it does make me happy and I look forward to teal days. I think this means it's time buy more colors and get away from black.
Even though it's silly, I also think that life is about small pleasures and we should seek these things out. Attitude makes such a difference and if something can improve one's mood, I say go for it. Going through life, always looking on the bleak side or always creating drama is a tough way to live and, sadly, the people who do this don't even realize they're guilty of it. We create our reality and our reactions to events in life--big or small--affect our mood. And our general happiness.
So even though I posted on Tuesday about something that put my mood on a nosedive, I'm working to not let it bother me. It still is, but I'm working on it. ;-)
Life is tough. I don't want to make it any harder than it already is. It's in the attitude.
November 13, 2018
One Small Thing Part 1
I'm planning to write two blog posts about how a small thing can impact your entire day, one in a positive way and the other in a negative way. I'll also add that I believe attitude can change mood either for the better or the worse and will admit readily that I shouldn't allow one small thing to skew my day wrong. However, that is what happened. I'm going to talk about the negative thing and on Thursday, we'll swing positive.
I start my day job extremely early in the morning. Early enough that I can pretty much have my pick of parking on my preferred floor. I've been parking in the same spot over and over since December of 2017 and I've come to think of it as my spot.
Sadly, when I arrived for work Monday morning, someone was parked there already. I parked next to the car, but it threw my day off and left me irritated. I know, right? What a stupid thing to get irritated over! I totally get it.
My irritation only grew when the car hadn't been moved the next day. I work at Tech Ops near the airport. People are not supposed to park in the ramp when they fly, but they do anyway. That's likely what this person did. On day 2 of my irritation, I decided that it wouldn't bother me that much if he'd arrived earlier than me and gotten it fair and square, but to park there while flying when that is against company policy? Totally aggravated me.
Now the question is how many days will he be parked in my spot while on vacation? I'm hoping not very long, but I will try to work on my attitude in the meantime.
I start my day job extremely early in the morning. Early enough that I can pretty much have my pick of parking on my preferred floor. I've been parking in the same spot over and over since December of 2017 and I've come to think of it as my spot.
Sadly, when I arrived for work Monday morning, someone was parked there already. I parked next to the car, but it threw my day off and left me irritated. I know, right? What a stupid thing to get irritated over! I totally get it.
My irritation only grew when the car hadn't been moved the next day. I work at Tech Ops near the airport. People are not supposed to park in the ramp when they fly, but they do anyway. That's likely what this person did. On day 2 of my irritation, I decided that it wouldn't bother me that much if he'd arrived earlier than me and gotten it fair and square, but to park there while flying when that is against company policy? Totally aggravated me.
Now the question is how many days will he be parked in my spot while on vacation? I'm hoping not very long, but I will try to work on my attitude in the meantime.
November 8, 2018
Off the Charts
I am a very new knitter. I don't know how long I get to say that because it's been a year and a half, but because of having such a limited time to knit, I haven't completed that many projects yet. I feel like a novice.
One skill I have yet to master is reading a chart inside a pattern. I'm totally written instructions all the way.
And then I hit section 11 of a 12 part pattern.
I thought it would be cables that tripped me up because I'd never knitted those before, but that wasn't what did it. It was the written instructions for the wrong side rows. It basically said to knit the knitted stitches as it faced you and purl the purls.
If the yarn were thicker, maybe this wouldn't have been such a challenge, but the yarn is fine fingering weight. Fiber people know this is thin. And I had a hard time seeing which stitch was which. And I messed up pretty much every wrong side row. Finally, at row 6, I was like this is going to look horrible if I don't get it right. I ripped back all my knitting to the beginning of section 11 and then I started looking at tutorials on how to read charts.
The video tutorial helped a little bit, but I didn't grasp it until I found some excellent written instructions. When I started the section over again, I was able to nail the wrong side rows by reading the chart! Go me!
But I'm struggling to read the right side rows with the repeats. What I'm doing now is knitting the right side from the written instructions and the wrong side from the charts. Next up: Learn to read the right side of a chart with a repeat section.
One skill I have yet to master is reading a chart inside a pattern. I'm totally written instructions all the way.
And then I hit section 11 of a 12 part pattern.
I thought it would be cables that tripped me up because I'd never knitted those before, but that wasn't what did it. It was the written instructions for the wrong side rows. It basically said to knit the knitted stitches as it faced you and purl the purls.
If the yarn were thicker, maybe this wouldn't have been such a challenge, but the yarn is fine fingering weight. Fiber people know this is thin. And I had a hard time seeing which stitch was which. And I messed up pretty much every wrong side row. Finally, at row 6, I was like this is going to look horrible if I don't get it right. I ripped back all my knitting to the beginning of section 11 and then I started looking at tutorials on how to read charts.
The video tutorial helped a little bit, but I didn't grasp it until I found some excellent written instructions. When I started the section over again, I was able to nail the wrong side rows by reading the chart! Go me!
But I'm struggling to read the right side rows with the repeats. What I'm doing now is knitting the right side from the written instructions and the wrong side from the charts. Next up: Learn to read the right side of a chart with a repeat section.
November 6, 2018
Halloween Hiding
On Halloween, I usually hide with the lights out and evade trick-or-treaters. My dad lives with me now, though, so I asked him a couple of weeks ago if he was going to hand out candy or hide. He said hide!
This surprised the hell out of me because my parents always handed out candy no matter what and chastised me for hiding with the lights out.
I reminded him that it meant no lights for the entire evening and asked him if he was sure. He said he was.
The night before Halloween--late--he says, maybe we should have bought candy. Since I had no plans to stop to buy candy on my way home from work the following day, I was like, oh, well. To say he was not equipped to deal with hiding out is understating things.
It started out okay. He was making dinner when I got home from work so we could eat early and wouldn't have lights on. Good. That was the last easy moment he had with Halloween hiding.
The highlight, though, was at 7:30. He said, it's dark now, the kids won't come anymore. We can turn on the lights. Um, no. Seriously. Kids trick-or-treat until 9:30 at night. He should know this after handing candy out for so many years. He argued with me briefly, but the lights stayed off.
Twenty minutes later, he wanted to turn the lights on again. Sigh.
My guess is that next year he'll be passing out candy because hiding in the dark seemed to be stressful for him. I don't get that. Stressful is answering the door, but then I'm very introverted and he's an extrovert.
This surprised the hell out of me because my parents always handed out candy no matter what and chastised me for hiding with the lights out.
I reminded him that it meant no lights for the entire evening and asked him if he was sure. He said he was.
The night before Halloween--late--he says, maybe we should have bought candy. Since I had no plans to stop to buy candy on my way home from work the following day, I was like, oh, well. To say he was not equipped to deal with hiding out is understating things.
It started out okay. He was making dinner when I got home from work so we could eat early and wouldn't have lights on. Good. That was the last easy moment he had with Halloween hiding.
The highlight, though, was at 7:30. He said, it's dark now, the kids won't come anymore. We can turn on the lights. Um, no. Seriously. Kids trick-or-treat until 9:30 at night. He should know this after handing candy out for so many years. He argued with me briefly, but the lights stayed off.
Twenty minutes later, he wanted to turn the lights on again. Sigh.
My guess is that next year he'll be passing out candy because hiding in the dark seemed to be stressful for him. I don't get that. Stressful is answering the door, but then I'm very introverted and he's an extrovert.
November 1, 2018
The Dress Shirt Saga
My dad hasn't attended many dress up occasions since moving to Georgia, but with one looming on the horizon, he discovered he couldn't button the necks on his existing dress shirts. He'd need to buy a new one.
We went to a store's website and I found him exactly what he wanted--a short-sleeved, button-down shirt in white. It was $29.99 and he was all like I've never spent that much money for a shirt. And so he wouldn't buy it. We found another shirt that was on clearance for $17.77 and he decided he wanted that one.
Only when it arrives, they sent a long-sleeve version (which we definitely didn't order. I double checked) and it had no collar at all. In our defense, it was impossible to see that on the website and I only saw that was indeed what we ordered when I blew the picture up to a huge size.
Now we have to make a trip up to the store to return it and my dad has to pick out a shirt he likes in person. While I'm on a tight deadline. Awesome.
I left him in the men's department and went to grab a couple of other things I needed while we were there. When I come back, he's complaining that they have no button-down shirts in his size in either long sleeve or short sleeve and now we have to go to another store. Gah! But as we're headed for the registers, I spot a rack of button-down long sleeve dress shirts and all was right in the world.
And then I washed the shirt for him.
It came out of the dryer wrinkled even though it was immediately taken out and hung up. It's cotton. Cotton wrinkles. Now it needs to be ironed.
The good thing is that my mom stopped ironing my dad's shirts when I was in high school and he had to learn to iron his own then. Thank you, Mom! The bad news is that he hasn't had to iron a shirt since he moved to Atlanta and now he's asking me questions. I'm like, I don't buy clothes that need to be ironed. Don't ask me. For real. I've put shirts back that I love because I will not iron.
He's just lucky I own an iron. And the only reason I do is that I bought curtains for my house and needed to iron them before I could put them up. Otherwise we'd be shopping for an iron now, too. I hope we can find the iron because we've moved since I bought it and I can only guess that it's upstairs. Somewhere.
We went to a store's website and I found him exactly what he wanted--a short-sleeved, button-down shirt in white. It was $29.99 and he was all like I've never spent that much money for a shirt. And so he wouldn't buy it. We found another shirt that was on clearance for $17.77 and he decided he wanted that one.
Only when it arrives, they sent a long-sleeve version (which we definitely didn't order. I double checked) and it had no collar at all. In our defense, it was impossible to see that on the website and I only saw that was indeed what we ordered when I blew the picture up to a huge size.
Now we have to make a trip up to the store to return it and my dad has to pick out a shirt he likes in person. While I'm on a tight deadline. Awesome.
I left him in the men's department and went to grab a couple of other things I needed while we were there. When I come back, he's complaining that they have no button-down shirts in his size in either long sleeve or short sleeve and now we have to go to another store. Gah! But as we're headed for the registers, I spot a rack of button-down long sleeve dress shirts and all was right in the world.
And then I washed the shirt for him.
It came out of the dryer wrinkled even though it was immediately taken out and hung up. It's cotton. Cotton wrinkles. Now it needs to be ironed.
The good thing is that my mom stopped ironing my dad's shirts when I was in high school and he had to learn to iron his own then. Thank you, Mom! The bad news is that he hasn't had to iron a shirt since he moved to Atlanta and now he's asking me questions. I'm like, I don't buy clothes that need to be ironed. Don't ask me. For real. I've put shirts back that I love because I will not iron.
He's just lucky I own an iron. And the only reason I do is that I bought curtains for my house and needed to iron them before I could put them up. Otherwise we'd be shopping for an iron now, too. I hope we can find the iron because we've moved since I bought it and I can only guess that it's upstairs. Somewhere.
