Abbie's Real Life Blog

We’re already halfway through 2009.  Life moves too fast when you get older.

I’m glad I do this project- the goals really help me assess how I’m spending my free time.  I mean, I get plenty of downtime, doing nothing time, but I have other free time and I enjoy working towards these goals, overall.

And then it’s obvious what goals aren’t priorities at all.

Stuff I Got Done:

• I reached closure with the California pictures.  I did not do all of them, not even close.  I think there are several gems still sitting in there somewhere, but I assembled the pictures that I finished and put them together in a slideshow for the May meeting of the Jeff City Photo Club, and presented them.  Everyone loved them.  It was great.  I haven’t been near any of them since then, as I knew I wouldn’t (too much other stuff going on).  If I ever get back to them, maybe I’ll find some hidden stuff, but right now I’m happy with where I stand on those pictures.  Yay!
• I read a bunch of books, mostly due to a few days spent on the beach bookended by airports & flights, as I always get through a book if I’m flying somewhere.  I read Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath (which was long overdue, and (of course) wonderful) specifically because I wanted to read it before I saw the movie for the AFI list.  I read two Jon Krakauer books, Eiger Dreams: Ventures Among Men and Mountains and Under the Banner of Heaven.  I like Jon Krakauer- they’re easy reads in a pulpy sense, but they’re good books too.  Tracy read Under the Banner of Heaven after I finished it and it sparked quite a lot of conversation.  I read Sarah Waters’ newest novel, The Little Stranger, which was fine enough but nowhere near most of her others (Fingersmith is probably the high water mark, but they can’t all be Fingersmith.)  I finished Deep Survival: Who Lives, Who Dies, and Why, by Laurence Gonzales, which was okay.  Gonzales had a habit of starting a fascinating survival story and then going off on a tangent, then finishing the story way down the line, and that was kind of annoying.  I got bored about halfway through and put it down for a few weeks, and then returned last week to finish.  It was interesting enough.  I also reread The Hobbit and The Fellowship of the Ring, and I’m halfway through a rereading of The Two Towers.  Sometimes you just have to reread the good stuff.  Oh, and I also read A Supposedly Fun Thing I’ll Never Do Again by David Foster Wallace, which was an excellent book of essays.  I tried Infinite Jest but it wasn’t a great way to introduce myself to Wallace’s writing.  I can’t think of a better one than the title essay from this book, which summed up exactly (EXACTLY) what I think a cruise ship would be like if I were ever to get on one.  (Which I won’t, now that I’ve read the Debbie Kiley story in the Gonzales book- no more boats for me!  ever!)  I also timed the reading of the cruise ship story as we were flying to Orlando and driving over to the beach, and that was great.  (Too often I pick the wrong book for the trip- like when I read In Cold Blood in San Francisco, Life on the Mississippi in Seattle, and Into The Wild in Anaheim.)
• Gardening-wise, I have tried to keep on top of the front flowerbed and the back flowerbed, but it’s about as much as I can handle.  It all desperately needs a big load of mulch to help keep the weeds down, and it’s on my list.
• I did take new photos for the May meeting of photo club, and I’ve taken some photos for the July meeting but I still intend to take more.  June’s meeting didn’t have a contest so I didn’t need to take new photos.
• I filed my taxes on time.
• I switched out to summer clothes and cleaned out most of the closet.  I’m still hanging on to shoes I don’t wear or need, but I’ve made progress.
• I went to Florida with a new swimsuit.
• I’ve visited with my grandparents at least monthly.
• I had a barbecue in May for my International Center friend and a bunch of her coworkers/friends.  It was a nice time!
• Tracy got moved and I’m in the middle of going through everything (as recounted in other recent entries).  I have made multiple trips to Goodwill with clothes and stuff, and I have bags of books to return to my parents, bags of tapes to give to my sister’s notboyfriend (who still relies heavily on VCRs), and other stuff that cannot even be named.  More progress.
• I got the new couch recovered.  When the living room looks better, I will takes some pictures.
• I continued with the exercise plan and with the diet (though I have skipped a few days here and there in June and over the holiday weekend) and I’ve continued to have success with weight loss.
• I’m participating in the July rotation for the Columbia Art League after major success with the last rotation (I sold two framed prints!  It was awesome!)

Stuff I Didn’t Get Done:

• I did not tear out the front flowerbeds, and now that we’re into full-on summer, I’m not going to do much with this until it gets cold again.
• I did not put any pictures on Etsy, even though I had success selling prints through CAL.  I’ve even had some interest shown by friends on Facebook.  I really should get on this.
• I did not eat lunch out of the office once a week, unless I was with friends or family or something.
• I did not write my elderly family members.
• I did have two family photo shoots and two weddings since May, and I didn’t get them turned around as quickly as I hoped (with the exception of one wedding, but that was as a second shooter).  I have finished the two family shoots, but I’m still working on one of the weddings.
• And I only saw two of the five AFI movies that I was supposed to see- The Grapes of Wrath, which I watched after I finished the book, and The General, which I should see again because I wasn’t paying close enough attention until the end, and I missed out because it is a silent movie (Buster Keaton).  I’m not sure if I’m even going to count it until I’ve seen it again.  Okay.  I saw one of the AFI movies.  Boo!

And now- Quarterly Resolutions for Third Quarter of 2009!

• Finish working on the house!  I want to reach some kind of closure, and I am dangerously close to sliding off into an endless void of procrastination now that the general living & working spaces in the house are ‘clean enough’.  By October, I want to feel a real sense of closure in regards to the cleanliness and organization of EVERY room in the house (garage included!).  I want curtains and rugs in place, and I want the red wall of the living room and hallway repainted.  By October!
• Gardening: Put down a few inches of mulch on the front and back flowerbeds and keep them in good shape.  Once the coneflowers in the front flowerbeds (by the door) have died off, I want to pull them all out.  In October, we’ll revisit the revamping of the other flowerbeds by the door because we’ll be coming on close to frost then, and I can’t really do much about the rosebushes until after frost.
• I want to take a road trip in September over a long weekend.  I would like the destination to involve big  mountains (the Rockies) and some kind of rustic living situation akin to tent cabins or perma-tents or yurts or whatever.  Great photos should result.  More research is needed but the goal here is to take another major trip in 2010, somewhere spectacular and possibly also rustic.  (I’ve been considering Alaska.)
• Read three books.  I have at least two books that I have read halfway and then put down and not finished, and I’d like to finish both of them.  Or make the decision not to finish them.  Either way.
• Watch five AFI movies.
• Eat lunch out of the office at least once a week.  Eating with other people counts.  I’m trying to bring my lunch a lot more now that I live alone (so I should have leftovers pretty regularly), so going to eat on the campus or going for a walk is a good thing.
• Continue with diet and exercise schedule.
• Attend at least one Meetup for a group in town- I’ve been lurking on a few lists, and now with Tracy gone, I’m in danger of becoming too reclusive.  People are nice.  I always dread going to hang out with strangers, but then I often have a great time.  I should make some friends.
• Meet up with my International Center friend.
• See my grandparents regularly.
• Participate in the October rotation for the Columbia Art League with new photos, because since I sold two of this current set, I need another group of 10-12 prints.  I’ve been meaning to get new prints and frames so that I could put up stuff somewhere else while in rotation with CAL, so here’s my chance.
• Participate in the photo club contests with new photos every month- rise to the challenge!
• Put up some nature images somewhere (either on Etsy or ImageKind or Zenfolio) for sale to the public.