3 posts tagged “new”

I spoke with Mom on the phone. She can use crutches, she’s at home, and Ronnie is helping out a lot.

She’s got three cracks in her pelvis, a cracked tailbone, and lots of cuts and bruises everywhere, including a nasty hit to her head. She can’t really remember anything about what happened, but that’s not unusual so no one’s really worrying about that. Fortunately she is a nurse, so she knows how to recoup in the easiest way possible. ^_^ I’m really relieved. She was obviously groggy over the phone, but that’s the pain medication so it’s understandable.

I've also broken a tooth way in the back and need a root canal done on it.  Yays.  >_<  So, this Friday the 13th, I get a root canal!  And then I get a bridge.  Fun times.

But in better news, I have updated my homepage - It's pretty snazzy, you should check it out - and now it has a blog with it!  I want to do a Saturday Showcase feature to keep the content fresh, so if any of you out there in Internet Land have an Etsy Page or want to be a featured artist (I don't care what you do) give me a poke.  I've got some questions for you to fill out and some ways for people to see your creative goodness, so if you've got some times to spare, why not?

Anyway, I've got some chainmaile to do.

Later!

Crazed

I got my new wall calendar in the mail today and my evening has been mostly full of me filling it out.
Sounds boring, but I mention it because I have discovered something about myself, want to share it, and I'm curious about the rest of you guys.

I don't fill out my calendar with a pen and then hang it up on the wall. I use a variety of cute stickers, gel pens, and hi-lighters. The calendar itself is a Rilakkuma (Relax Bear) wall calendar covered in Japanese-styled cute. January is pink, and the picture above the dates features Relax Bear sleeping, with his little bear pal dressed in a cow suit (no clue why), with a baby chick sleeping next to him. The date area is now covered with ninja stickers, lines of different-colored hi-lighter ink, and a lone sparkly blue dolphin sticker. Each Saturday has a black slash through it. Blue gel pen is prominent.

Why all the "ZOMG KAWAII!!" and sparkly-ness? It's because I need it.

I figured this out last year, and for my whole life I've always tried different things to keep me on schedule. Plain stickers with text on them? Nope. Writing with colored pens? No. Electronic computer calendars and phone alarms? Never worked. Calendars that we got free in the mail? I didn't look at them. Daily desk calendars? I wouldn't tear those off for months at a time. Day planners? I lose them.

But last year I decided to give day planners another try. I had always used the ones I got free in the mail from like funeral homes and car dealerships. You know, the ones with those plain textured vinyl covers with the name of whatever business embossed in gold lettering on them? Blargh. So I bought myself a cute black Japanese planner with a loop for a pen - Monokuro Boo, for anyone familiar with San-X stuff. I also bought a cute matching pen and picked up a Relax Bear wall calender, along with some random cute stickers "just for fun". (I love shopping at Kawaii Gifts)
We got home and I realized that I had a lot of stickers. I would normally snag them if I was walking through a craft shop and saw something that caught my eye. I mean, they're cute, they're like $2, so why not? I'll use them somewhere, right?  Wrong.  Most I did was put them on cards when I remembered I had them, and use them to decorate the edge of my computer monitor and my CPU tower.

I decided to use them to indicate birthdays on this cute calendar, and IT WORKED. 0_0 I didn't lose my day planner because not only had I paid money for it, but it was just so damn cute. Even the interior pages were covered in cute little piggies. The wall calendar was not only cute, but large and brightly-colored, so I had to notice it. I might ignore things in black ink, but stuff written with gel pens and hi-lighter accents? I always caught it.
Granted, I did lose the planner here and there, but I always found it again, and I used it. I found tiny mini-stickers with different symbols and little bears on it, just right for the main monthly pages, so I bought them and used them in the day planner, and I used it more because of it.

This year I'm tying the same thing, but different. I'm not really writing on the wall calendar - I'm sticking to color and sticker codes. I find that I glance at that, then I want to look at the planner for the fine details. I don't like writing details on the wall calendar; too hard to write neatly vertically, and my handwriting is atrocious to begin with.
My new planner is a Circa notebook with custom-printed pages, inside a pretty Celtic embossed-leather cover that Brian wasn't using. All it needs is a pen holder, but I'm not too worried about that - There's always a pen within arm's reach of it. I've got the little calendar event stickers tucked in the inside cover, right where I can find them. It's not cute, but it fits perfectly to the left of my keyboard. I like to touch the embossing, so I pick it up and use it.
I'm extending The Cute to the rest of my desk, and it's working. I've got a tiny kitty notepad instead of plain post-its, and I haven't lost it yet. I've got a plastic kitty folder to hold my monthly business receipts in, and that's working well so far to keep things neat on my desk.

So, that's what works for me. I'm wondering what you guys do. Are you still loking for a method? Have you gone through more than a few computer programs? Everyone learns differently and has their own scheduling needs. What works for you, or do you just not bother?

Tell me, I'm curious!
Crazed

My Resources:
Super-Cute Office Supplies - I'm sure there are other sites, but their physical shop is in here in Pittsburgh, so I love it.
Circa Notebooks - Expensive, but oh so nice.
Printable Calendar Pages, etc - FREE AND AWESOME. I love these guys.

So yeah - a new year is coming up, and amidst moving, family celebration, and trying to finally learn how to cook, I'm try to ramp up my business skills via a hand-me-down QuickBooks '03.
Double-entry bookkeeping is a bit puzzling, but hopefully I shall be able to figure it out.  WIth luck, it'll be much easier to do my taxes later on because I can just do a "Print Tax Report", hand it to the H&R Block guy, and let them have at it.  Should help with my inventory and material supply, as well.  Nothing is more annoying than going to make a maile piece and finding out you're short on rings.
I mentioned trying to learn how to cook!  I'm a horrible cook, as my only kitchen skills are with a knife.  Ever since I repeatedly failed to make toast without setting a fire (amongst other kitchen mishaps) I was relegated by family members to be the one at the cutting board.  It's a much less dangerous position for me in the kitchen, considering my track record, and I'm naurally good with a knife it seems, so everyone wins.  I get to help out and not feel useless, and they get perfectly cut julienne fries and finely diced onions whenever they want.  Around here, Brian is the one who cooks, and he is a good cook.  Higher than average, I would say, as he can and is willing to cook things that don't come out of a box.  I blame my current waistline on his amazing cooking.
But we have decided, in an effort to eat better and to learn new skills, to try to make a dish from scratch at least one night a week.  I call it our Kitchen Adventure, as I am included in the making of things, as well! ^_^ Our first adventure was making goyoza, which I chronicled in my Flickr. Here' some pics!

My First Bento!

1 comment

We also made onigiri, prompted by our recent acquisition of some oinigiri moulds and love of rice.  We also got some bento boxes, and I packed my first "real" bento, what with attention to color and texture and whatnot.  It was actually really fun to make,a nd I hope I can keep on making them in the future.
But, I do have some chainmaile to get to, and it is rather late.

Later!
Crazed