In a recent driving-home conversation I had with the boys, I went on to discuss some of the basics of capitalism and how money works. Here’s a rough transcript:
Me: [explaining why we pay their preschool and what they do with the money]
William: Why?
Me: Because that’s how capitalism works.
William: I don’t like that.
This might, at least partially, explain his preference for pink.
Whenever something gets me thinking about my age (you know, like today being my 32nd birthday), I always come back to this XKCD:
Batman is awesome.
I need to take control (and responsibility!) of my diet. I don’t think I’m prepared to go full-on vegan, especially with the boys and their dietary requirements around. But I can make better choices about the meat that I do choose to prepare and eat.
Specifics:
Eat red meat (beef, duck, pepperoni, salami, and so forth) no more than twice a week. I’m tempted to include bacon on the list, even considering that it’s pork. Because it’s bacon.
Relevant Goals:
“Be Healthy”:
I want to eat better.
Possible Future Habits:
Possible Future Goals:
Revisit:
I will revisit this habit in one month.
I went out to look at the stars tonight. I was going outside to get some groceries out of the back of my car, and I decided to lean back against the car and look up for a little while first.
The Big Dipper was easy to spot, as it has been lately. I did not see Orion tonight, but I think this is not the time of year to be seeing it. I need to learn more about the constellations.
The longer I stayed out and looked up, the more adjusted my eyes got to the dark (as much as that is possible with the street lamps nearby) and the more stars I started to see. It was wonderful.
I have always loved the stars and the night sky. For a number of years recently, I forgot how much I enjoyed them, but I am bringing them back into my life. One of the first habits I want to form is to start regularly stargazing.
Specifics:
At least twice a week, spend five or more minutes looking up at the night sky. Locate either the Big Dipper or Orion each time.
Relevant Goals:
“Be Happy”:
Looking at the night sky relaxes me greatly and never fails to bring a smile to my face.
“Be Healthy”:
Stargazing gets me out of my head for a little while, helps to keep me grounded and gives me some much needed perspective. It is hard to worry about most of the problems of life when you are trying to comprehend the vastness of the universe.
Revisit:
I will revisit this habit in two weeks, including a progress report and any plans for modification or expansion.
Maybe it is silly to have “Be Happy” as a goal, but I think it is a pretty important thing to strive for. I could probably lump this goal in with the mental and spiritual portions of the “Be Healthy” goal, but I think “Be Happy” is slightly different. In my mind, mental and spiritual health are one thing and actively seeking joy is, while related, something else entirely. And that is why it gets its own goal on my list.
First and foremost among my goals is “Be Healthy”. And I do not just mean physical health, but also mental and spiritual health. Being in ridiculously good shape does me no good if I am unhappy (though I suppose it would still help).
How can I track progress? Well, for the physical portion of the goal, it is simple:
Lots of options there.
For the mental and spiritual parts of the goal, I am going to have to fudge the measurability requirement I have for my goals a little and just gauge how I am feeling. They are there to keep in mind while I am building new habits, to keep me from focusing solely on my physical health, because I am a whole being with many facets and such.
Asset Poller is a plugin idea I had while contemplating a useful workflow for getting screenshots from Skitch into Movable Type.
Sure, there’s the default workflow:
Maybe I’m just lazy, but that feels like too much work for me. Recently I had learned that Skitch can, in addition to posting to skitch.com and flickr, upload images via (S)FTP. And I thought about what I could do with a file that already existed on my site. Sure, I could just link to the image and leave it at that, but having it exist as an asset within MT would make it so much more useful (and fun!).
Thus was born Asset Poller!
You can configure a particular directory to watch for a given blog, a directory to place the files for the newly created assets (so the watched directory does not need to be web-accessible) and optionally remove the original files from the watched directory (turned on by default).
Now the workflow (once Skitch is configured to sftp to my site):
Much nicer!
You can grab the plugin from github (http://github.com/rayners/mt-plugin-asset-poller), as well as vote for or contribute some thoughts on future features and versions in the issues section.
Enjoy!
Values and principles are, in my mind, things to keep in mind while I build my goals, evaluate my progress with the metrics, and create new habits with which to move forward.
Progress, not perfection.
Perfectionism is something I fight with often, and not being able to finish something completely and perfectly can be enough to keep me from starting in the first place. The journey of one thousand miles may start with a single step, but that single step does not have to be one thousand miles long.
This too shall pass.
Life is not always perfect; it can be really rough sometimes. Instead of reacting to problems and setbacks out of anger, fear or desperation, I should take a moment, let those emotions run their course and regain my rational self before reacting to the situation.
Forgive, but not excuse.
Noticing a trend? I know I need to be able to give myself a break, but I cannot allow myself to just make up excuses either.
I have updated IdShorts based on some initial feedback:
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