This Is My Life

If nothing else has gotten into my brain over the past ten (nearly eleven) years with Maria then the power of the to do list has at least penetrated my dense brain walls. I've come up with a good to do list of things I have to finish over the next few days in order to feel like I'm accomplishing something.

Apply to 6 jobs/day
Buy toothpaste
Laundry
Go for a walk
Ask dad/mom for a ride to/from CNY some time in the next week or two
Whirly Wednesday*
Pack for trip to WNY
Read a book**
Find fitness requirements for joining Air Force Reserves
Go to Derek's birthday party
Organize living space
Post resume/job postings on Craigslist
Find a gym partner who can drive us both to Planet Fitness (I can get you in for free as my guest!)
Upload photos to Facebook
Hang out with more friends

*Hula-hooping, fire spinning, drum circle hippy thing done in the park. Not really "hippy" but that's the way most people would probably see it. It's a chance to make new friends and hang out with old friends. UPDATE: No old friends, all new friends, but it was a good time.
**Stephen King fantasy book. Weird. Very weird.

Finish Arabic Final
A) Turn in test
Clean kitchen fully
Prep for tomorrow's game
Apply to jobs
Keep house warm
Cook dinner (ham takes 5 hours, start at noon)
Caulk toothbrush holder
Caulk light in bathroom
Caulk toilet (making tile job look better) to floor
Do laundry
Check backyard to see if muddy
A) If not muddy, let girls play in back
Figure out a system for the firewood
Put letter in mailbox before mailman comes

9:47 AM - I've finished my test and turned it in. I've already applied to one job this morning and that was before even 7 AM, but there's obviously more for me to apply to today when I have the time. The letter is in the mailbox and so we'll have water next month. Heh.

I'm just about to head out back to see whether the mud has become ice or not, as well as grabbing an armful of wood for the heat box. I don't know what I'm going to do for a "system" on the wood, but I'm sure I'd like to not have to carry it from all the way in back to the inside through inclement weather to keep the house warm.

Any ideas would be appreciated.

9:57 AM - Oh god the backyard is NOT ready for the girls to run around. My feet squelch as I walk, and I've already taken my shoes off! Okay, that might be an exaggeration, but still; it's pretty nasty back there. Maybe another full day of freeze. We'll see. Also, I'm thinking that the best way to get the wood from the outside to the inside is to just trudge back there and grab some every day. If I bring in a little more every day than I need, I'll soon have a full basket at the end of the day and I'll get a day off from the trudgery then start it all over again.

I think I'm going to have to cut wood soon if we want this to keep our house warm throughout the winter.

10:16 AM - The bathroom has been as caulked as possible. Unfortunately the light can't be caulked because it's not flush to the wall and I have no real way of pushing it into place to hold it while it dries. Maybe Maria can come up with something later, but I'm not all that worried; it looks fine as long as you don't stare at the light for a while.

On the other hand, the toilet and toothbrush holder look better now, and the holder is held in place by more than one poorly-placed screw.

11:00 AM - Laundry has been put into the washer. I would have done this first had I noticed it on the list, that way it would have been done by now. Of course for me all that "done" means is washed and dried. The to do itself IS done, but the laundry isn't, if that makes sense? It does to me and that's all that matters!

Good Eats is on right now and that does not help my productivity. Someone come turn off my computer!

11:12 AM - I found that I can apply to jobs while watching Good Eats without a real problem. That's GOOD! I've applied to about 10 jobs and I'm going to call that that for today. I did a lot of searching and that's about all I found that a) isn't a scam b) I haven't applied for already and c) is commesurate with my experience.

If I apply to 10 jobs a day I should theoretically hear back from about 1 per month if my records are right. *sigh*

12:09 PM - Ham's in the oven at 325 degrees for 25 minutes an hour. In 5 hours it should be delicious. Starting to get a headache; hopefully it's just that and not something like carbon monoxide poisoning...

4:05 PM - Not dead, just taking a long time in the kitchen. While it's not perfectly clean at least most of the dishes are done and the table is a clear surface ready for use. The major things are ready-to-go and tomorrow will be used as a final-prep day.

Tomorrow is also going to be my day to prepare for D&D. As the DM who has had 3 weeks to prepare you'd think I'd want to be a little more ready, but I like flying by the seat of my pants. Whoo!

Today was a good day. Much got done, I signed on on an assignment (which means I'll be making money; yay), and I'm not sick any more.

Awesome.

Overall EDIT: Hmm. Meant to post this over at jfargo101, but I'm going to leave this one here. It won't become a common thing. Promise.

While I'm thinking about it, because it's 11:36 PM and I'm wide awake, I should write a quick to do list for myself for tomorrow. Some interesting stuff going on. New projects, reviving old projects, and general life stuff.

To Do:

• Mow the lawn


• Edit pictures for restart of The Pooch Page (LJ RSS)


• Water sod


• Water repotted tomato plants and newly planted bean plants


• Finish 500+ records for work


• Do day one of Couch to 5k


• Finish all dishes


• Begin outline of business plan for restart of LARP USA

A couple (one in particular) of big things on the list for tomorrow.

I'm really feeling good about things. Things are changing, and moving in the right direction. Let's hope that keeps up.

Also, if anybody has US$5,000,000 or so, I'd still like to build a castle bed and breakfast some day.

Thanks!

Before doing anything else today, I must do the following:

1. Go to class
~Class was fun today. We got to talk about African-American English. Unfortunately out of 25 people in our class, 24 are White, and one is Latino, so I felt as though the conversation was lacking a fair and balanced point of view. Maybe that's just me.

2. Deposit the insurance check
~Done. Now have a funny story to tell later about the teller.

3. Work
~For the first time in about 4 months I'm actually making some good money at Prosodie. Beth is supposedly going to start making it even easier for the good contractors to keep earning their keep.

4. Make a grocery list
~Even better, I went grocery shopping.

5. Remind Maria to pay the bills
~I turned around and told her "pay the bills." Done.

6. Give the girls their heart worm pills (shouldn't they be called "anti-heart worm pills?")
~Maria actually gave it to them with dinner, but they got them, and that's what really matters.

After that, the day is mine to do what I want. There are a few things that I would like to do, such as these:

1. Finish Half Life 1

2. Start Half Life 2

3. Begin sorting tools in workshop

That should take up most of my day. I'm lazy; I don't like aiming high.

Have to remember to do the following in the morning:

1. Insect POD updates for the week
~Done by 7:20AM. That's a load off my mind. I'm only doing three updates a week, so being late with one would be silly of me right now.

2. Monday homework
~See the update to the update.

3. The Pooch Page updates for the first few days of the week
~Done by 8:30AM. Realized I'm running low on pictures, but thankfully we have a new puppy we're fostering, so I was able to take one of her and fill the queue until Wednesday.

4. Dress nicely for Career Fair
~9:54AM and I am looking GOOD today. Of course I have to wonder how much my purple hair is going to influence things, but as Maria said, at least they'll remember me!

5. Eat breakfast
~Done by 9AM. Haven't had poached eggs in a while. Now I remember why.

Do this all before 10 AM.

Start doing weekend homework over the weekend in the future.

Let's see if I can get all this done, especially while watching our new foster puppy, Maggie. 7 weeks old is quite a handful for a pit bull mix.

UPDATE: Unfortunately it looks as though I couldn't get the homework done in time. I started working on it but realized that I can't remember how to do it. It's unfortunate. I'll have to ask people at class for assistance.

Having Maggie to take care of definitely made this more difficult, but not impossible. She's a well-mannered dog for only being a 7 week old puppy.

UPDATE TO THE UPDATE: Okay, 10:28AM and the homework's mostly done. I still don't get completely what I'm doing, but it's not as difficult as I thought. I'm going to need to go over it again before the test in two days, but generally I think I'll be alright. Now it's time to get to class and check everyone's homework to see what I did wrong. Missing a day of class really messed me up.

Today's looking busy.

1) Return movies
~First thing I did, since it's so easy.

2) Pack Wii, games, and accessories (including Rock Band stuff)
~Maria said no to Rock Band since there won't be enough room, but it was worth a try. Everything else is ready to go.

3) Bring car in for servicing if "check engine" light is still on
~Light's still on. I just dropped the car off at the dealership after Monroe told me they couldn't fix it. It should be fixed by late this afternoon, and they'll send a courtesy shuttle to pick me up. *sigh* That's 3 hours of my morning (8-11) gone.

4) Work
~None to do, surprisingly. I thought the week of Xmas would be full of lots of people not working, thus leaving more for me.

5) Dishes

6) Pack clothes for 10-day trip

7) Pack presents for friends/family
~Well, they're not in the car, because the car is still at the dealership (2pm now), but they're ready to go, all in a box, in a centralized area. So, that's good. They'll go in the car as soon as the car's good to go.

8) Bring out garbage

9) Pick up Maria from work
~She's getting a ride home from a coworker, so that's one less thing for me to worry about. Yay!

10) Let girls play out back (clean them off afterward)
~Thankfully, the ground stayed frozen, and the dirt under the ice (which Monster broke through while running) wasn't muddy. So they're tired, and clean. Awesome!

So, not as many as I thought but the car service could take quite a while if the place is busy or if they can't get me the right part. Last time I brought it in for a check engine light I ended up sitting there for close to 5 hours while they waited on a part. It sucked.

I'll cross them off as I do them. I'll also be doing my usual procrastination measures of checking email, surfing the net, and probably playing some of the new video games Maria bought us for Christmas (Go Ninja Reflex!). It'll be a busy day, I'm sure.

Okay, so here's the rundown for the day. Keep up with me if you can.

I'm going to class at 11, which means that in order to get a good parking spot I have to leave here by 10. That way, even if I don't get a good spot, I'll have time to bike to class from wherever I do end up parking. Before then I have to make sure the 5 puppies, plus my two dogs, are empty enough that they'll last a couple of hours without making a mess. I'm not worried about my two girls, because they're old enough to know better, but the five puppies? Well, they're puppies.

After class I'm swinging by Maria's work to pick her up for lunch. We'll come home, where she'll graciously and thankfully take the puppies out back to run around the big yard while I cook a nice lunch for the both of us, after which she'll go back to work, and I'll be stuck with the puppies. Hopefully they'll be tired enough that it won't matter.

During this time between Maria leaving for work and about 4:30, I'll be making pizzas. I need to make 4 12-inch cheese pizzas. 1 for Maria's dinner, and 3 for the D&D group I'm a part of, which I'm doing at 6 tonight. Add in clean-up time for afterward (proper pizza making is a VERY messy business) and you're talking more hours than I have. Plus, dishes.

I'm going to be late for D&D, though, because from 5-6 PM there's an Arabic review session and given my performance as of late, I feel the need to go. It could be worthless or very helpful. I'm hoping the latter, obviously.

Then, D&D. Relaxation. After that, home. Relaxation. Sleep.

The last bit's not too bad.

I'm having some problems with focus today. Work is slow, and there's lots to do around the house, plus I should be getting ready for our day trip out to the Baltimore Aquarium tomorrow, but I can't seem to get in gear.

That reminds me, any of you from Baltimore?

I've spent the last half hour to an hour doing a record or two here and there, reading Live Journal, checking stats for my other three blogs, looking at my igoogle feed reader to see if anything new popped up, and doing it all over again.

Man, I'm not in the right state of mind for all that I should be doing.

So, to do list, I suppose.

Dishes

Find green ATM cards

Office cleanup

D&D Prep

While that last one may not seem like something uber productive, it is helpful. I'm trying to be more social, and while my attempts to locate the local LARP crowd has distinctly failed, I now have a D&D game I'll be joining next Thursday, and one that I'll be starting on my own on Wednesday nights at the local gaming shop. I don't know why, but I'm mostly looking forward to running my own, rather than playing in a game someone else is running, but that might be nerves just because I don't know the guy running the game, his style, if I even will get along with the people there, etc.

But the other three things on the list? Those I should do first, probably. You know, because they really ARE productive.

Every ounce of my being (which is roughly a LOT of ounces) wants me to finish typing this and then start checking my friends list for updates. Some ephemeral part, off in the distance, is pulling me to do dishes.

Guess I gotta give it to the ephemeral, because it's a cool word.