tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-37265882024-03-07T00:20:31.950-08:00What Do You Do All Day? (or "Stop Me Before I Volunteer Again")After a longtime, successful career as a corporate communications freelancer, I've switched - by choice - to being a full-time volunteer. Which means I work more than ever, enjoy it more (most of the time)...and now wonder a lot about the nature of work. Also, since I don't have a 9-to-5 job, or even many regular freelance clients any more, a lot of people don't seem to have any clue what it is I do all day...so it seemed like an interesting idea to write about it.Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.comBlogger75125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-1691213704276752022011-03-15T11:36:00.001-07:002011-03-16T11:36:13.153-07:00KO'dKO'd<br /><br />Virus 1; Me 0. OK, the only thing worse than being so busy you don't have time to breathe is being that busy and sick at the same time. It has not been a fun week. And to make things worse, it was my first full week without a babysitter, so not only did I have too much to do, and no energy to do it...but my work days just got three hours shorter. Can't even tell you how much longer that makes the "to do" lists.<br /><br />Fighting Back<br /><br />- Attended 8:30 a.m. budget meeting at neighborhood school and met with principal briefly afterward<br />- Answered a few urgent e-mails<br />- Wrote agenda & minutes for PTA Executive Board meeting<br />- Wrote agenda & minutes & action summary for PTA Parent meeting<br />- Answered a bit more e-mail<br />- Ordered pizza for PTA potluck<br />- Attended PTA board meeting<br />- Attended PTA membership meeting/potluckElizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-67438978138721311282011-03-06T21:17:00.000-08:002011-03-06T21:40:46.292-08:00Weekends Just Don't Like Me Lately<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Weekends Hate Me; They Really Hate Me<br /></b></span><div><br /></div><div>For the last week, I've been really stressing out about finishing the architecture plan for the church website, with very little time to work on it. But Friday night I finally found some time, and then a bit more on Saturday morning...so when I scheduled a Sunday afternoon playdate for Alex, which would give me a solid four-hour block of work time on Sunday, I was actually optimistic that I might be caught up by Monday morning.</div><div><br /></div><div>Ha.</div><div><br /></div><div>Alex has had a cold for about a week, but aside from one earache, it hasn't been serious and hasn't kept him from fairly normal activity. On Friday, however, just as he should have been recovering, he seemed drippier and more congested again...and also had a headache for most of the day. It continued to get worse on Saturday. Then, on Saturday evening, he had a bit of a fever...and on Sunday morning he still had it, and the headache came back. He felt so crummy that even he agreed we should cancel the playdate (something he'd never say if he didn't really feel bad). So there went the work time. Didn't get even a single minute.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>How the Work Time Disappears</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Dropped Alex off at a friend's house at 8:45 a.m. on Saturday and made it to a 9 a.m. meeting with a mortgage broker to discuss a possible refinance of our house. Took only five minutes to figure out the numbers just didn't make sense (we should have done it six months ago - that would have worked).</div><div>- Got home in time to squeeze in an hour of work before Alex came home. </div><div>- Biked en famile to the local library and checked out a stack of books.</div><div>- Came home to read e-mail while Dan and Alex biked to a burger place for lunch.</div><div>- Alex's friend came over to play for several hours, so I lightly supervised the playdate while doing a few weekend chores and researching books for book group pitches.</div><div>- Fed the boys dinner, then dropped Alex off at his cousin's so Dan and I could go to the book group meeting.</div><div>- Picked Alex up, got him to bed and conked out myself.</div><div>- On Sunday morning, got everyone out the door to the local coffee shop by 8:30, where Alex played on a computer and drank cocoa while Dan and I attended a neighborhood association board meeting.</div><div>- By the end of the meeting, Alex said his head hurt so bad he was dizzy, and on the way home we decided to cancel the afternoon playdate.</div><div>- Dan watched Alex for an hour while I ran out to church to pay for this year's silent auction wins.</div><div>- Came home, got Alex bathed and helped him write two blog posts. Then read to him while he did his handwriting practice (which always takes at least five times longer than it should).</div><div>- Ate dinner and wrote another blog post with Alex (at his request), and put him to bed.</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-12969839901276797732011-03-04T09:19:00.000-08:002011-03-04T23:01:24.894-08:00Duh!<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Duh!</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Sometimes great, should-have-been-so-obvious-but-wasn't ideas just reach out and smack you in the head when you least expect it. I LOVE when that happens -- it's exactly the kind of re-energizing thing that keeps me going, especially when progress on so many other things has been sluggish for a long time.</div><div><br /></div><div>The inconvenient thing about such brainstorms is they tend to hit when you really need to be doing something else, and it's really hard to steal time from the thing you should be working on to follow the energy flow of the new idea. Also, because you now want nothing more than to jump on the new idea, it's also hard to focus and concentrate on the same-old-same-old thing you really do need to be working on at that moment.</div><div><br /></div><div>Which is exactly my struggle today. While doing our regular 7:30 Friday morning gardening at the neighborhood school I suddenly realized that a short garden update item in the school newsletter each week could help both staff and parents understand what the garden is all about (something we've been struggling with since we started the project). So of course I ran home and, instead of digging into the Neighborhood Council agenda that needs to be written by about noon today (and isn't started yet), I sat down and banged out the first sample garden story.</div><div><br /></div><div>Now I'll be fighting that distraction all day.</div><div><br /></div><div>Also, to make it worse, my partner in the new sort-of-business project had a brainstorm of her own this morning, called me to talk about it, and wants me to help implement it...which I'd love to do since it, too, is a great, why-didn't-we-think-of-this-before, "duh!" idea.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Despite the "Duh!" Distraction </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Pulled weeds for an hour in the neighborhood school garden (with our new volunteer - yay!)</div><div>- Wrote up sample garden story (which I'm hoping to turn into a weekly feature) for the neighborhood school newsletter</div><div>- Edited NC Land Use Committee meeting minutes that will be needed in preparing the board meeting agenda that's due today</div><div>- Talked to business partner about her big idea, which she wants me to help with (and with which I'd love to help)</div><div>- Caught up on several e-mails, invitations and contacts that affect the board meeting agenda that's due today</div><div>- Wrote board meeting agenda (including summaries of Land Use issues covered)</div><div>- Posted the agenda to the NC's website, Facebook page, Twitter feed, e-mail list and also e-mailed it to our local libraries</div><div>- Did weekly RE updates for church website</div><div>- Formatted and posted two months' worth of sermons to the church website</div><div>- Took Alex to a family movie night ("Finding Nemo"...in German) at his school</div><div>- Weathered several tantrums on the way to getting an over-tired Alex to bed late after the movie night</div><div>- Found a cool tool for testing website architecture and spent an hour and a half entering a proposed organization for the new church site</div><div>- Quit finally at 11 p.m.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-14531204301703887602011-03-03T17:10:00.000-08:002011-03-03T17:18:26.295-08:00Running<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Running</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Seems like there's one day in every week where I'm just running from one thing to another all day, and not much else gets done. Today was that day.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Relay Points</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Attended 8:30 a.m. Neighborhood Council Outreach Committee meeting and met briefly with the NC treasurer after that to sign some paperwork.</div><div>- Picked up NC mail from post office box.</div><div>- Picked up my neighborhood school garden partner at her house and drove to the Valley to attend a Greening Schools meeting (learned some interesting things about why soil testing is necessary and how to get it scheduled and funded)</div><div>- Drove back to the neighborhood school to meet with a potential new volunteer who's looking for a school garden to get involved with</div><div>- Dropped off my garden partner at her house</div><div>- Home for lunch about 2:30</div><div>- Answered a bit of e-mail</div><div>- Returned phone call from neighborhood school principal regarding agenda for upcoming PTA meeting</div><div>- Did monthly church website updates</div><div>- Quit, exhausted, a little after 5 p.m.</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-33023184695107150842011-03-02T11:43:00.000-08:002011-03-02T18:12:42.685-08:00Desk Days<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Desk Days</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Finally, a second day in a row where the path seems clear for productivity. It's amazing how much smoother things go when there are consecutive days for desk work. In fact, it might not be a bad idea to schedule desk days on my calendar, and try to work some of the meetings around them. As it is, when I get out of meetings now, very often, instead of going home to do the required follow-up tasks, I either rush directly into another meeting, or home to prepare for the next meeting...and then none of the real work gets done. As a result, desk days have come to feel almost like vacations, despite the fact that they're when I get my real work done. As if that makes any sense at all.</div><div><br /></div><div><b><span class="Apple-style-span" >Desk Day Done</span></b></div><div><br /></div><div>- Attended another 2-hour budget meeting at the neighborhood school</div><div>- Came home and answered a bit of urgent e-mail</div><div>- Did some online research on church website architecture for the church project and did a bit of brainstorming on how to organize a couple of sections of the new site</div><div>- Looked up a couple of corporate grant opportunities for the neighborhood school</div><div>- Printed out and filed information from Monday's subway station meeting</div><div>- Updated the grant opportunity "hot list" for Alex's school</div><div>- Went over the latest Neighborhood Council website comps and had a phone consultation with the designer to discuss minor changes and next steps</div><div>- Spoke with one of the vendors the NC has been trying to pay and finally got the payment worked out</div><div>- Filled out and pulled together documentation for several demand warrants and the quarterly credit card reconciliation report for the NC, so the treasurer can sign them at a meeting tomorrow morning</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-5629775804640625052011-03-01T21:24:00.000-08:002011-03-01T21:38:05.037-08:00Better<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Fear is Good</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Although it started out with a long morning meeting (which was supposed to have been two meetings; one of them got postponed), fear of completely dropping the ball on every last thing I'm working on finally got to me today. And fear has always been one of my best motivators.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>What Fear Does</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Attended a 3-hour budget committee meeting at the neighborhood school</div><div>- Came home, updated the agenda for the postponed PTA executive board meeting</div><div>- E-mailed a person I've been needing to contact about doing a presentation to neighborhood school parents on the benefits of a 501(c)3 booster group for the school</div><div>- Wrote minutes for another school budget committee meeting tomorrow</div><div>- Uploaded photos and created a small photo album for shots from a recent church event on the church website (but broke something in the process...which I then wasted too much time trying unsuccessfully to fix)</div><div>- Fielded several calls from a friend trying to muddle through some computer problems and made an appointment to go help her next week</div><div>- Edited a couple of sermon audio recordings and caught up on about two weeks' worth of miscellaneous church website and mailing list updates</div><div>- Read and answered a lot more e-mail</div><div>- Put in an order for a captionist to help a deaf stakeholder at our NC board meeting next week</div><div>- Spent a bit of time researching books to pitch at this weekend's book group meeting</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-20746388528265823192011-02-28T10:48:00.001-08:002011-03-01T21:24:28.996-08:00Monday<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Monday</b></span><div><br /></div><div>And so it begins again. Had great plans, as usual, but they were KO'd right at the start when Dan wasn't feeling well this morning...which meant I had to drive Alex and our carpool partner to school. And that, in turn, meant a 9 a.m. start to the work day instead of the hoped-for 7:30 a.m. start. Always throws me off. The good news is I will have a sitter for a while this afternoon, which will buy me a couple of extra hours there (though I'm never as productive in the late afternoon as I am in the early morning).</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Fighting Back</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Drove Alex to school, ran a few laps with him, made sure his lunch money account was up to date</div><div>- Wrote agenda for NC Outreach Committee meeting</div><div>- Updated and distributed agenda for PTA executive board meeting</div><div>- Answered some e-mail, including a very welcome query from a potential school garden volunteer</div><div>- Attended a truly inspiring women's club lunch program on women's experiences in the Student Non-Violent Coordinating Committee<br />- Conked out after the heavy southern soul-food lunch, and had to nap for a while</div><div>- Remained pretty foggy and unproductive for the rest of the afternoon</div><div>- Attended the first meeting of a Station Area Advisory Group I've been appointed to, which is discussing plans for an eventual subway station at Wilshire & La Brea</div><div>- Home around 8:30 and ready for bed</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-34796202774189447112011-02-27T16:33:00.000-08:002011-02-27T16:57:35.475-08:00Another One Bites the Dust<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Another One Bites the Dust</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Another weekend, that is...without catch-up time. Saturday the plan was to drop off Alex and a friend at a morning workshop, hang around for the two-hour class time (maybe get some reading done), then transport both boys home for lunch and take them later to the friend's house for the rest of the afternoon so I could work.</div><div><br /></div><div>But it turned out the other boy wanted one of his own parents to drop them off, which meant I had a couple of hours free at home before going to pick them up. That was actually OK, because it gave me time to e-mail the neighborhood school's weekly newsletter, which I haven't had time to do for the last few weeks. Then I picked up the boys, gave them lunch and paid some bills while they played afterward. </div><div><br /></div><div>Just as we were about to head off to the friend's house, however, another friend dropped in with her son, and it just seemed easier all around for everyone to stay here and play. So the rest of my afternoon turned into babysitting (and finishing up the bill paying, which was one small good thing).</div><div><br /></div><div>The evening was spent feeding the trio of 7-year-olds and then, after they left, usual parent duties (Alex and I actually had a lovely time playing games and reading together). But then, although he got to bed on time, Alex woke up at 10:30 with an earache...and neither of us got to sleep until after midnight. Bleh.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sunday morning was taken up getting Alex through his chores (bath, some handwriting practice), taking him over to the friend's house, and then heading off to church to pick something up and put in our bids for the annual silent auction. Got home, had lunch, and then ran out of steam from not getting enough sleep last night. Put dinner in the oven, then collapsed in front of the TV for an hour or so. And now it's too late, and I'm still too tired, to do much of anything productive except a few chores.</div><div><br /></div><div>Sigh.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Bites:</b></span></div><div>- Sent out neighborhood school newsletter e-mail</div><div>- Paid bills</div><div>- Got Alex through his weekly writing practice</div><div>- Ran church errands </div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-45235325367309463062011-02-25T21:37:00.000-08:002011-02-25T21:43:21.853-08:00Big Fat Zero<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Big Fat Zero</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Ah, the best laid plans... Today was looking like a good opportunity to make some headway on at least a couple of fronts -- my only commitment was the weekly 7:30 a.m. Friday work hour in the neighborhood school garden. After that, I was wide open. </div><div><br /></div><div>Except that Alex came home from school sniffling yesterday, and by evening it was clear he was coming down with a cold. By bedtime, he was so stuffy that he could hardly sleep. He woke up at 11 p.m., miserable, so I gave him some cold medicine. But neither of us got back to sleep until midnight...and then he was home from school today.</div><div><br /></div><div>Dan was able to give me the early-morning hour for gardening, but after I got back, he had to spend the rest of the day getting ready for a talk he's giving at a conference tomorrow, so I had parent duty all day and all evening. Sum total for daily achievements: a big fat zero.</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-85187782823175560602011-02-24T09:31:00.001-08:002011-02-27T16:58:37.440-08:00Getting Back on the Horse<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Getting Back on the Horse</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Woke up at 2:30 this morning panicking about all the things I'm so behind on and feeling like I'll never catch up. Didn't get back to sleep until 4:30. Now, later in the morning, I'm still not feeling great - can't figure out if I'm getting sick, or just stressing out. Which is making it hard to get back up on the horse and start charging again, which I really need to do. I think the big things getting to me right now are the overdue work on the church project and trying to figure out how I can quit the two Neighborhood Council secretary jobs. I really, really need to...and can see no way out. But I'm going to have to get through one, if not both, of those challenges before I'll really start to feel better.</div><div><br /></div><div>In the meantime, this gives me heart: <a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc</a> It's exactly why I freelance and volunteer so much, and why I've turned down every long-term job offer I've received in the last 20 years.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Giddyap</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Went through a lot of e-mail</div><div>- Uploaded another month's worth of family photos to Flickr</div><div>- Attended a 1 1/2 hour webinar for the school book fair</div><div>- Updated grantwriting committee database and hot list for Alex's school</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-48853860787710033082011-02-23T15:42:00.001-08:002011-02-24T09:29:53.465-08:00Reboot<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Aftermath</b></span><div><br /></div><div>This is one of those days when I mean well, but the aftermath of a busy day just kicks my brain into stall mode and I sputter out. Despite a cancelled meeting this morning (my favorite kind!), and some unexpected time for work, I just look around at all the things I need to do, realize how many of them I'm seriously behind on or about to fall behind on, and have no idea where to pick up and start. </div><div><br /></div><div>I also just read yet another piece about the big Huffington Post sale to AOL, in which a journalist laments the dying profession and the pitiful would-be journalists who earnestly ply their trade for the HuffPo and other organizations with ever-fading hopes of compensation, and I am even more depressed than ever about my ability to ever again be paid for what I do. This is probably common for all "full-time volunteers," (and, increasingly, most writers) at least from time to time, but it's really starting to put a dent in my self esteem. Not feeling particularly good about any of it today.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Sputters</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Got house picked up for cleaning person</div><div>- Made it to 8:30 budget committee meeting at the neighborhood school, but found it cancelled for lack of a quorum. Spent a while chatting with an administrator, parent and teacher about some behind-the-scenes issues (probably learned more from that chat than I would have from the meeting), then updated the librarian on book fair plans.</div><div>- Came home and downloaded a bunch of materials for the book fair.</div><div>- Caught up on a bit of e-mail.</div><div>- Posted monthly pictures to Flickr</div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-85746157478516208322011-02-22T22:37:00.000-08:002011-02-22T22:46:09.805-08:00Treading Water<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Treading Water</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Another one of those wall-to-wall days bookended by two 3 1/2-hour meetings -- with several hours of preparation for the second meeting in between numbers one and two. Which means nothing else gets done today. Just hold my breath, ride the waves and hope nothing goes crazy until after tomorrow morning's next 3 1/2-hour meeting, when I can start trying again to swim upstream.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>The Waves</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- 3 1/2-hour budget committee meeting at the neighborhood school</div><div>- Several hours of work sorting through almost a week's worth of unanswered e-mail for the Neighborhood Council and pulling handouts together for tonight's meeting</div><div>- 3 1/2-hour NC Land Use Committee meeting</div><div>- Home at 10:15 p.m., exhausted, to find the house not picked up...and the cleaning lady comes tomorrow (when I have another 8:30 a.m. budget meeting)</div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-19656244273692052862011-02-21T09:15:00.000-08:002011-02-21T21:05:48.407-08:00Getting Back on Track<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Getting Back on Track</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Once again, the best laid plans for a catch-up long weekend (four straight days without any meetings!!), got KO'd by something I couldn't control (mostly the headache, traces of which are back today but I hope won't last long).</div><div><br /></div><div>Now, on day 4, I have four hours of work time to do about four days' worth of work, and head into both the day and week feeling completely hopeless -- it's not all going to get done, things will slip through the cracks and people will be rightly upset with me because of it. One of those situations that makes it almost impossible to start because absolutely everything needs to be done first. (I have something like 30 e-mails each to catch up on for both the church and the Neighborhood Council, and most of them contain requests for things I need to get done Right Away. And that's just the spur of the moment stuff -- doesn't even count the things on the long-term and ongoing lists for both of those. And then there's the PTA meeting tomorrow morning, for which I still have to write and distribute minutes and send out reminders.)</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>The Scramble</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Picked up the house a bit (less than 48 hours until the cleaning lady comes; much more to go)</div><div>- Did two loads of laundry</div><div>- Proofread church newsletter draft (I'm part of the monthly editorial team)</div><div>- Wrote agenda and minutes for tomorrow's PTA Executive Board meeting</div><div>- Answered a bit of e-mail (may have gotten a step closer to resolving the NC billing issues)</div><div>- Had a brief phone conference to go over the latest new page comps with the NC's website designer</div><div>- Updated and distributed the PTA membership roster</div><div>- After the sitter left, I spent about an hour working on the baseboards</div><div>- Read a little</div><div>- Cleaned up the kitchen (first time I've seen all the counters at once in a couple of weeks)</div><div>- Made ravioli soup for dinner</div><div>- Introduced Alex to the classic "Dick Van Dyke Show" with the great "Uhny Uftz" episode</div><div>- Picked up Alex's room while Dan read to him</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-72062940334428867512011-02-20T21:11:00.000-08:002011-02-20T21:19:03.072-08:00Headache - Day 3<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Headache - Day 3</b></span><div><br /></div><div>The good news is that my headache was just about gone for good when I woke up this morning. The bad news is that, as often happens on the day after a headache, I was so thoroughly exhausted that I got just as little done as I would have with the actual headache pain. So much for my long weekend of catch-up time.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Lost Day #3</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Biked to Larchmont Village with Dan, Alex and some friends. Felt OK during the outing, but so tired I could hardly stay upright afterward.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Walked the dog, did the weekly spa maintenance and napped while Dan took Alex to yet another birthday party. </div><div><br /></div><div>- Made myself a quick dinner, since the others had pizza at the party.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Read to Alex for more than an hour. (His book of choice tonight: "Fast Food Nation." Yes, really. We read the section on the industry's practice of advertising to children - led to some interesting conversation.)</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-82433814360366780302011-02-19T12:22:00.000-08:002011-02-20T09:33:39.093-08:00Migraine, Day 2<b><span class="Apple-style-span" >Migraine, Day 2</span></b><div><br /></div><div>Day two of what will probably be a 3-day headache (they usually are). Thankfully, it's not the worst headache I've ever had, but it's bad enough that I can't concentrate on much of anything else. Bummer, especially since Dan took Alex out for the afternoon, so this could be some really nice, quite work time. As it is, I just want to lie down. Not getting much done today...again. Bleh. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>The "Not Much"</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Helped Alex write his weekly blog entry</div><div>- Played around on Facebook for a while</div><div>- Watched a very good, but very depressing, movie ("Precious")</div><div>- Attended "Monster Jam" in the pouring rain at Dodger Stadium, with Alex, Dan, Matt & Julian (thankfully, we found seats under an overhang, so didn't get too drenched)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-68457918147610226452011-02-18T16:06:00.000-08:002011-02-19T07:48:57.429-08:00Grinding to a Halt<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Grinding to a Halt</b></span> <div><br /></div><div>After three days of good productivity, today it all ground to a halt. Found out a couple of days ago that what I thought was a three-day weekend for Alex for Presidents' Day is really a four-day weekend. The sitter did agree to come today, but not until 3:00 (Dan and I have to go out tonight, so she'll be here until 10-ish). So I just had to accept that nothing productive was going to get done. Waking up with a headache didn't help either.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>What Happened Instead of Work </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Took Alex to Target to buy a birthday present for yet another birthday party this weekend. Wound up with $100 in other necessary household items, too. (Gotta love Target - every $10 birthday present I go in for seems to cost $100 in other things before I get out the door.)</div><div><br /></div><div>- Helped Alex build a huge marble run (though for the first time ever, he did about 90% of the work).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Picked up the house a bit.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Put in my half hour on the baseboards. Almost half done.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Ate dinner, took a bath and went to the LA Phil with Dan (one of our four yearly concerts).</div><div><br /></div><div>(Overall, this is a pretty minimal list, but it's actually not bad for a day with a migraine - at least I stayed on my feet, more or less, all day.)</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-80312089462312056572011-02-17T08:29:00.000-08:002011-02-17T17:18:42.425-08:00Desk Day 3<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Desk Day 3</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Third day in a row of having time at my desk to work. Wonderful...if I can stay focused. Hope it doesn't turn into one of those days with too much to do, but a brain that refuses to cooperate. That seems to happen too often on days like this. It's as if my subconscious says, "Hey, you don't have any meetings today -- time to play or at least work on fun stuff!" Sigh. If only...</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>The Real Work</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Put in my promised-to-myself half hour on the baseboards. Discovered the masking tape I put down on the freshly-refinished floor leaked a bit and now there are some very stubborn paint drips on the floor along the baseboard section I painted yesterday. Spent most of my time trying (not completely successfully) trying to scrape up the drips. Didn't make much forward progress on the rest of the baseboards.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Posted a nice little essay Alex wrote at school on his new blog, which I think is just about ready for prime time. Check it out at <a href="http://www.alexwheeltricks.wordpress.com/">http://www.alexwheeltricks.wordpress.com</a> </div><div><br /></div><div>- Spent some time researching a liquor permit some Neighborhood Council stakeholders are up in arms about (had to find out what hours a certain restaurant is legally allowed to sell alcohol, and whether a new application is for the same hours they've got now, or an extension).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Pulled together a draft of the Neighborhood Council Land Use Committee agenda that must be posted/distributed today. It involved reviewing a month's worth of notes, lists, minutes, mail and other requests, and contacting half a dozen potential presenters to see whether or not they still want to be on the agenda.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Answered a number of e-mail messages from someone I've been going around and around on regarding several Neighborhood Council invoice payments. She keeps asking why the bills aren't paid yet and I keep getting telling her it's because various documents are either incomplete or haven't been received yet. Found out later we can pay at least two of them with a credit card, which will make things MUCH easier, and after a couple of phone conversations got them both paid. Unfortunately, the other three won't be as easy.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Posted and distributed the Land Use agenda.</div><div><br /></div><div>- After discovering an error in the distributed agenda (and correcting it and re-distributing), declared myself brain dead at 5:15 and formally quit trying to be productive.</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-37221645336443138732011-02-16T09:37:00.000-08:002011-02-16T21:31:16.508-08:00Breathing Room<b><span class="Apple-style-span">Breathing Room</span></b><div><br /></div><div>My second day in a row of at-home desk/work time. This means - or should mean - that I got a lot of extraneous things done yesterday, so should be able to concentrate on some major tasks today. Unfortunately, the world had other plans yesterday (e.g. the printer issues - see below), so I didn't get as much done as I hoped. But there was some progress. We'll see what the world has in store today. </div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>The World's Allowances</b></span> </div><div><br /></div><div>- Spent half an hour starting the baseboard painting (I figure if I can squeeze in half an hour a day for the next few days, I can get the living room put back together sometime next week - after almost three months of being torn up for December's floor refinishing project).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Finished the two neighborhood school flyers I was struggling with yesterday and hand-delivered them to the school. Too late for this week's newsletter, but will make it for next week.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Caught up on more old e-mail.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Finally installed the Microsoft Office update I bought a few weeks ago. Of course, for some reason, my computer didn't want to recognize the disk drive, and then the drive didn't want to read the disk, which wasted an extra hour before I successfully completed the install.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Updated the grant database and "hot list" for the grantwriting committee for Alex's school (took a bit longer than normal because I had to hunt down instructions for some basic actions in the new versions of Word and Excel).</div><div><br /></div><div>- Printed out copies of the updated documents for our meeting tonight.</div><div><br /></div><div>- Spent a few more hours researching the six grants I need to report on tonight</div><div><br /></div><div>- Scanned, edited and added a photo to Alex's blog header</div><div><br /></div><div>- Attended 7 pm grantwriting committee meeting</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-34269458152343686192011-02-15T09:19:00.000-08:002011-02-15T21:53:08.999-08:00I Love Efficient Meetings<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>I Love Efficient Meetings</b></span><div><br /></div><div>My second-favorite kind of meeting, after cancelled meetings (see below), is an efficient meeting. I had a meeting with folks at the neighborhood school this morning, to discuss possible uses for an unexpected $77,000 they're receiving for facilities improvements. To my delight, three out of four people showed up on time, the fourth sent a message saying she'd be a bit late and it was fine to start without her, and we discussed exactly what was supposed to be discussed and quickly figured out what our next steps should be. The meeting was scheduled for 7:40 a.m. and I was home by 8:30. If they all went that well, life would be grand. Now we'll see how the rest of the day goes.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>How It Went</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Got Alex off to school and made it to my 7:40 a.m. meeting at the neighborhood school on time</div><div>- Home from wonderfully efficient morning meeting by 8:30 a.m.</div><div>- Spent a couple of hours catching up on Facebook and e-mail (first time I've had any real "desk time" since Friday, so there was a lot to catch up on, both business and personal)</div><div>- My printer stopped and refused to print - in any color, even black and white - without a new yellow toner cartridge, so I took some time out to return library books due today and then went to two stores looking for toner, which was out of stock at both places.</div><div>- Came home and ordered toner online; should be delivered tomorrow.</div><div>- Got a call from the PTA president at the neighborhood school, asking if I could help with the weekly after-school snack sale fundraiser today (which wasn't in my plans); said I'd be there at 1:30.</div><div>- Got increasingly suspicious about my printer's toner use (no matter what I print, all the color cartridges seem to run out at the same time, and don't print nearly as many copies as they're supposed to), so I did some Googling and found many reports that all the cartridges in this line of Brother printers are set to "run out" after a set number of copies, no matter what colors have been printed. I also learned that you can "reset" the page counter fairly easily, so you can keep using the still-quite-full cartridges until they're actually empty. It worked like a charm. (Good thing I never got around to recycling all my old "empty" cartridges - I may not have to buy toner again for a year!)</div><div>- PTA decided to postpone the snack sale event, so I used the time instead to fire off an angry message about the printer toner issue to Consumer Reports, and to post it on Facebook. Brother deserves all the negative publicity it can get.</div><div>- Answered some billing inquiries for the neighborhood council (the city's paperwork for budget and payment-related tasks is truly nasty - they make every little step as difficult as possible).</div><div>- Completely lost my focus by about 3 p.m.; had a snack and helped Alex for a few minutes with a school project</div><div>- Played with Dreamweaver's site-map tool for the church website project (it's lousy; need to find something else or do it by hand)</div><div>- Answered some more e-mail</div><div>- Puttered on a flyer I need to do by tomorrow for the neighborhood school, but had a hard time finding a good free piece of clip art and didn't finish</div><div>- Knocked off at 6 p.m. for dinner</div><div>- After dinner, started setting up the blog I'm creating for Alex as a (we hope) fun tool for practicing his writing</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-92149834794785154372011-02-14T21:06:00.000-08:002011-02-14T21:16:23.566-08:00Running<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Running</b></span><div><br /></div><div>Today was one of those days I don't even get to sit down at my desk, much less actually do anything. Just moving all day and hoping no one's trying to contact me about any sort of work that needs to be done immediately.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Mileposts</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Drove Alex to school</div><div>- Met with book fair committee at Alex's school</div><div>- On the recommendation of one of the moms on the book fair committee, stopped off at a big bookstore that's going out of business and came away with a huge stack of books for Alex at pennies on the dollar</div><div>- Got home just in time to change clothes and head off to women's club luncheon</div><div>- Attended luncheon, where I also brainstormed with business partner friend</div><div>- Stopped on the way home to do a bit of grocery shopping</div><div>- Got call from a friend whose dog is dying and needed a place to take a nap while waiting for a call back from the emergency vet (vet's office is much nearer my house than hers)</div><div>- Went home and changed clothes and sheets on guest bed</div><div>- Welcomed friend and got her and her husband settled in</div><div>- Went to pick up Alex at school</div><div>- Supervised Alex's homework, made dinner and chatted with friends, who were up from their nap</div><div>- After friends headed back to the vet's office, got Alex ready for bed (which took longer than normal because he was completely immersed in his stack of new books)</div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-34906528695078318582011-02-13T13:27:00.001-08:002011-02-14T15:04:32.703-08:00I Love Cancelled Meetings<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>I Love Cancelled Meetings</b></span><div><br /></div><div>My favorite kind of meeting these days is a cancelled meeting. I was supposed to meet with the neighborhood council treasurer this morning to finish up some paperwork, but he cancelled...and I was thrilled. Aside from various chores and errands, I'm taking the day off. (That also means skipping the installation ceremony for our new minister, which I do feel bad about missing...but I'm just too tired.)<div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>What I Did on My Day Off:</b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Two loads of laundry</div><div>- A miniature jigsaw puzzle (234 pieces in about 3" x 4")</div><div>- Took a bath</div><div>- Arranged Alex's playdates for the day</div><div>- Got Dan to do some long-delayed tech repairs on the new business site</div><div>- Answered a little (not much) e-mail</div><div>- Played Farmville for about an hour</div><div>- Took a nap</div><div>- Bought crickets (it's our turn to feed the second grade's class frog) and a new bulb for the lava lamp</div><div>- Made dinner and did a huge load of dishes left over from yesterday's baking</div><div>- Ate dinner with everyone at the table at the same time (a rarity!)</div><div>- Had a long soak in the hot tub with Alex</div><div>- Put Alex to bed</div><div>- Went to bed</div><div><br /></div></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-49719810384666467502011-02-12T23:17:00.000-08:002011-02-13T13:05:47.670-08:00Even Catch-Up Day is Gone<span class="Apple-style-span"><b>Even Catch-up Day is Gone</b></span><div><br /></div><div>One of those Saturdays when I don't even get to make a pretense of pausing to catch my breath because I'm still running so fast.</div><div><br /></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span"><b>On the Run </b></span></div><div><br /></div><div>- Went grocery shopping at 8:00 a.m.</div><div>- Baked cookies for neighborhood event</div><div>- Wrapped present for Alex to take to birthday party and got him and Dan out the door</div><div>- Did weekly church website updates</div><div>- Ate lunch</div><div>- Made a couple of gallons of lemonade (from our own lemons) for neighborhood event</div><div>- Attended neighborhood event (Dan and Alex came too, after birthday party)</div><div>- Came home and baked popovers for friend's evening collage party</div><div>- Popovers didn't "pop" so made buttermilk biscuits instead</div><div>- Attended collage party (and made very weird collage)</div><div>- Got home at 11:15 and fell into bed</div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-30212613608856237422011-02-11T13:00:00.000-08:002011-02-11T23:41:10.392-08:00Tired<span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Tired</b></span><div><br /></div><div>When <span class="Apple-style-span" >the day starts with moving a ton of dirt - literally - by hand, things can get even more tiring than they usually do. It's a little after noon right now and I'm ready for bed.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><b>Things moved today:</b></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Starting at 7:30 a.m., helped two other people transfer about a ton of dirt into a large garden bed at the neighborhood school with shovels and wheelbarrow.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Attended parent meeting on literacy because I was supposed to give a school tour after the event, but only five people showed up, and they were all school regulars, so no one needed a tour.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Found out that the school committee that was supposed to have been meeting for the last couple of months to figure out how to spend a $77,000 windfall that must be spent before the end of the school year (or the school will lose the money) hasn't been meeting. Volunteered to be on the committee and set up a meeting for next week. </span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Talked to my partner in the school garden project about coming up with a quick sketch/plan to use part of the windfall money to build new garden beds in some recently vacated space on the campus.</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Had phone meeting with Scholastic regarding the upcoming book fair at the neighborhood school</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Drove downtown to pick up the new neighborhood council parking pass; also stopped at Office Depot for a couple of necessary supplies</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Got home just before Alex got home from school</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Answered a bit of e-mail</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Left at 4:45 for Parents' Night Out at Alex's school (teachers babysit the kids in a big pajama party while the parents go out</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Had a nice Indian dinner with Dan, then saw "The Fighter" (neither of us can remember the last time we actually saw a grown-up movie in a theater)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Picked Alex up at school at 9:30</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Drove home and put Alex to bed</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Answered e-mail and hung out on Facebook for a while</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" >- Finally went to bed at 11:45 (after being ready for bed, as noted earlier, since about noon)</span></div><div><span class="Apple-style-span" ><br /></span></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-38350003445622741912011-02-10T09:39:00.001-08:002011-02-10T22:45:12.906-08:00The Day After<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; "><b>The Day After</b></span><br /><br />Whenever I have a wall-to-wall day like yesterday, I always wake up the next day relieved that I'll now have time to catch up on things that have been languishing during the crunch. But the reality usually turns out to be that I'm so fried, I wind up taking most - if not all - of the day off. And if I don't do it consciously, my brain does it for me. Staring at the cursor blinking on my computer screen, without doing anything else for several hours despite better intentions, is usually a good clue that I'm officially in recovery mode and it's time to go soak in the hot tub.<br /><br />On the other hand, those things that have been languishing have minds of their own...and often - like today - the phone calls and urgent e-mails start in first thing in the morning...and I'm off playing whack-a-mole again with my various responsibilities.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; "><b>Moles Whacked</b></span><br /><br />- Spent nearly an hour going through another tantrum with Alex about the tantrums he had last night while I was gone and the screen time he lost as a result<br />- Fielded three phone calls from a cranky stakeholder angry that a comment she made at our last neighborhood council meeting was left out of the minutes<br />- Fielded another call from an NC associate giving me a heads-up that our city council office might be calling me today<br />- Spent two hours going through e-mail before 10 am and didn't even get through most of the urgent things...including several reminders that I owe people information or action Right Now on several projects.<br />- Made reservation for a Monday luncheon I promised to attend<div>- Called another NC associate to let her know the cranky stakeholder wants to talk to her too...and then the associate went on for 20 minutes about all of *her* complaints.</div><div>- Cranky stakeholder called back to apologize for one of her complaints, which turned out to be completely without foundation.</div><div>- Sent thank-you e-mails to the candidates and moderator who were featured at our event last night</div><div>- Wrote minutes for a committee meeting at the neighborhood school this afternoon.</div><div>- Started working on a flyer for a new school book group I'm thinking about starting</div><div>- Hit a wall after lunch and had to take an hour break (even watched 20 minutes of TV)</div><div>- Attended a committee meeting at the neighborhood school</div><div>- Reviewed comps for several pages of the new NC website</div><div>- Caught up on a bit more e-mail</div><div>- Ran out of steam for good at 6 p.m. just as Alex got back from gymnastics</div><div>- Got called back at 9 p.m. by another mole popping up: an urgent e-mail saying something I was supposed to send out Right Now today didn't go out</div><div>- Found out why the mail bounced and got it re-sent...but then discovered another note from a city agency scolding me for not turning in a special request for the NC with the correct amount of advance notice (when indeed I had and the city folk just hadn't responded in time)</div><div>- Sent a long rant back to the city person, with copies to several others, about the way the request process in question has been screwed up for months now and no matter how early I send in the requests each month, or to whom I send them, they still get botched and I still get scolded (really, really not my idea of a good time)</div><div>- Exchanged a couple of notes with one of the people cc'd on that note (who also shouldn't be online answering work-related mail at 10 pm)</div><div>- Exchanged a couple of notes with another NC associate (ditto)</div><div>- Finally gave in to exhaustion at 11:00</div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div><div><br /></div>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-3726588.post-8082812679647257212011-02-10T06:29:00.000-08:002011-02-10T10:02:44.589-08:00Sometimes you're the windshield...<span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; " ><b>"Sometimes you're the windshield...</b></span><br /><br />...and sometimes you're the bug." And sometimes - when everything splats together at 100 miles an hour like it's doing today - you can't really tell which role you're playing but just hang on as best you can and ride out the collision. The official day starts - after only about 3 hours of sleep -- at 8 a.m. with a seven-hour training session (way across town) on writing the Single Plan for Student Achievement - a major planning and budgeting document - for the neighborhood school. Then I have to get home in time to pick up and organize handouts for the Neighborhood Council meeting and candidate forum, and be there to help set up at 5 p.m. for the 7 p.m. meeting/event, which won't end until about 10 p.m. Wish me luck.<br /><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-size: large; " ><b>Splats --</b></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="color: #b4a7d6; font-size: large;"><b><br /></b></span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Last minute tidying up for the cleaning lady</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Made it across town by 8 for the 7-hour training session (which led to some really interesting discussions with the other school folk)</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Put out some last minute fires and chased down last-minute items for the candidate forum</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Got to meeting/forum venue 2 + hours early to meet audio crew, rearrange furniture setup, distribute handouts, etc.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Attended meeting/event (it went very well!)</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Got call in middle of meeting from Alex and Dan, who needed me to mediate bedtime disputes (again!)</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Home around 10:30 to finally eat dinner.</span><br /><span class="Apple-style-span" style="font-family: Times, 'Times New Roman', serif;">- Dropped into bed by 11.</span>Elizabethhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/06111371598467020034noreply@blogger.com0