Life and life improvement

[moominmuppet]

Snow. Hooboy, SNOW. All of our snow but the last greasy dirty piles on the street corners had just finished melting off, too. Now we're back to winter wonderland yet again; I think the forecast was for 10 inches total, and we had at least six come down overnight. I woke up to news of the horrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan, though, so I'm inclined to look relatively favorably on our comparatively minor weather woes.

Although I'm still dragging a good bit energy-wise, this "weekend" was a good one; I had three really excellent students for patient-instructing on Wednesday, and I've made a lot of progress on my projects for Preterm, so my volunteer time there on Thursday went very well. I think we've settled on a schedule that'll work for me, too. It's a trade-off between working from home for them and going in to the office. Preterm's a great place for me to spend time, and it does my brain and soul good to be there, and be in an environment full of awesome people who share my goals and politics. On the other hand, as long as I'm RTA-only, it's also an extra two hours of travel time to get there and back, and I can do most of the work just as easily from home. So we're splitting the difference; I'll work from home a week, come in a week, and alternate that way. That'll also work nicely with our every other week petsitting schedule for Coco, since I can arrange it so my "home" days are those that we're petsitting.

I think I'm making some progress on tackling the emo-monster that's been gnawing on me recently, too. Part of doing so was to start making a list of "what would my life look like if it were perfect?", and determining which of those factors I can most easily work on. On the positive side, none of it is huge, giant stuff (quitting smoking is the Big Nasty, but we've already made a lot of progress on cutting down by making it outdoors only last August). It's all about making my current life function more smoothly, allowing better balance, accomplishing a bit more, getting out a bit more, being a bit more organized so that my overall obligations don't leave me constantly stressed and feeling behind. Overall, it was also a good reminder of how close to my idea of perfect my current life already is. I want to do more, and generally be more functional and "well-rounded", but I don't feel any need for wholesale overhaul or anything like that. So that's good. I'm still struggling with what to do about linketies, though. They're a big drain on my time, but I find them rewarding. I still need a better balance there. At minimum I'm going to continue the reproductive rights linketies, since those are directly useful to my Preterm work, but I may narrow down my focus a bit for the rest (may. may not.)

Since at least one person said they were interested in seeing the list, I'm including it behind the cut, with some niggling reservations about the ways it exposes my personal flaws and issues:


Self-improvement/life balance:
Learn to cook several dishes for sharing (vegetarian)
Grow a houseplant
Take a class in something new regularly
Have one good semi-formal outfit
Find one good 'non-girly' perfume scent
Do meditative hobby weekly (jigsaws, puzzles, sudoku, cross-stitch, etc)
Do creative hobby weekly (need to find one)
Listen to more music
Buy ten new songs per month
Read a book a week (balance fiction and non-fiction)
Magazine subscriptions
Go to library biweekly

Social Interaction:
One social/arts event per month
One party at home per month
One party elsewhere per month
One social phone call per day
Comment on friends' lj's and facebooks daily
Travel bimonthly
Attend one conference/convention per year
Keep up on b-days and holidays
Talk to katy and tori biweekly

Volunteer/Activism Stuff:
Volunteer at least bimonthly (currently Preterm)
Continue regular donations
Continue patient-instructing at least monthly
Sane program
Become wikipedia editor
Tutor someone in something regularly
Stay informed on local politics
Never miss voting
Read the news daily

Environmental Improvement:
Gardening and preserving
Local-source all meats
Csa participation
Improve household recycling
Work on minimizing use of disposable packaging and paper towels

Self-care (I'm a hippy slacker, but there do need to be some functional limits or it feeds into depression crap):
Take meds every day
Switch dr pepper to homemade ice tea or lemonade
Exercise daily
Wank regularly
Monthly massage
Retry sleep with cpap, less napping
Quit smoking
Weed in evenings only
Continue tattoo work
One fmla day per month or less
Shower every other day, min
Contact care
Don't wear wrinkled clothes
Get into the woods at least twice per year
Get trike and ride regularly

Home Responsibilities:
Cook one dish to freeze each week
Take care of pet food/litter/poo every day
One home improvement project per month
One home repair project per month
Do chores weekly
Keep up on chore spreadsheet
Do laundry regularly

Better Life Organization (losing track of plans/commitments/obligations is a big source of stress for me):
Have functional and reliable calendar
Put med refills on calendar
Schedule and maintain dr appts
Read and sort mail daily
Pay bills biweekly
Set up retirement account
Set up savings account
Set up vet appt schedule
Finish setting up pet insurance
Download email from old accounts, close out
Maintain credit score
Sort and winnow belongings
Get car