Do Something. New. Today

Travel Need Not Be That Hard or Expensive

Lorna Tedder — Tue, 01 Jan 2008 23:35:23 +0000

When people are asked about their New Year’s resolutions or what they’d put highest on their “Bucket List,” they often list TRAVEL. But what keeps us from it? Money? Time? Convenience? A travel buddy?

Years ago, I wanted to travel but we could never really afford it, or thought we couldn’t. Later, we had small children, and that seemed to be a good excuse not to travel much. I mean, just think of loading strollers and playpens and hauling small kids through customs! But you know what? We didn’t do any of those things when we didn’t have kids, or at least not very often. We didn’t just take off to the mountains to go camping for a long weekend or even to a terrific historical site or tourist site two hours away for a long Saturday or enjoy a bed and breakfast in mid-winter one town over. There were always reasons not to or reasons to put such trips off. Many trips could have been rather cheap and over a weekend, yet we rarely ventured out.

The first time I visited England, I was impressed by how much younger I was than my campanions on a bus to Stonehenge. Many of them could barely hobble to an archeological site, let alone climb it, but they’d waited until retirement to see the world. I knew then that I wanted to travel more for enjoyment and while I was young enough to climb and walk and endure the journey without extreme physical stress.

Since my divorce, I’ve taken my girls on several trips, including Disney for a long weekend, writers’ conferences in Daytona on the ocean for a week, a couple of pagan festivals where I slept in bunks at a campsite, a long weekend for my mom in the gardens she’d always wanted to visit. But this past year, I found myself really wanting to explore more and realized in late spring that travel really was more possible than I’d thought. Technology and liberating some of my workload helped to open up this door so that I’m not chained to my desk and can actually be at a different location with family or friends.

I decided that I wanted to visit Central America, specifically the Belize/Costa Rica/Yucatan area and the Mayan temples there. It had always seemed unrealistically expensive in the past. (more…)

Stop Time Wasters by Putting a Price on Your Time

Lorna Tedder — Thu, 08 Nov 2007 21:50:48 +0000

If ever anything could break me of the habit of getting wrapped up in useless obsessive minutia, this is it.

You know what I mean by useless and obsessive, right? Like wanting to fire off an angry letter at the idiot retailer and then spending the next two hours telling him how better to conduct business instead of concentating on my own business.

Or politely listening to someone blather on endlessly in a meeting about his special interest when it should be taken care of in a side meeting with one other person–who isn’t me.

Or how about simply spending time worrying about something I can’t control?

Here’s the tool I’m using to break me of that nasty habit: The Meeting Miser at Payscale Tools — http://www.payscale.com/meeting-miser?tk=mm_hmpg02

The idea is that you input the names and salaries of the people attending your meeting and keep the calculator running next to the briefing charts everyone’s staring at for the duration of the meeting. (Where was this when I needed it last week for the 7.5 hour meeting I was stuck in?!) You get an idea of how many dollars are being wasted when the meeting gets off course–or maybe the meeting isn’t needed at all.

My personal use for it, though, is to keep it on my computer screen and whenever I start to obsess about something out of my control or I get that phone call from someone who’s bored and wants me to spend precious time entertaining them, I can start the clock and see how much of my time is worth that I’m wasting. For me, quantifying my worth makes decisions on where to spend my time so much easier.

I guarantee you’ll dig yourself out of the worst of behaviors much more quickly when you assign a value to your time.

“Someday” Is Now

Lorna Tedder — Sat, 27 Oct 2007 16:48:46 +0000

November 4th is “someday.”

I got the idea from a couple of fellow bloggers who asked if I ever thought about doing some trivial task “someday.” I have a long mental list, but not a written one, though I’m likely to start keeping one for whenever the next “someday” comes.

You know the list, right?

Someday, when I have time, I’m going to install the pull-out,
under-cabinet wire baskets I bought for the kitchen trashcan and the cookware.

Someday, when I have time, I’m going to repair the bathroom wallpaper that’s not glued down flat anymore and I’m going to put up the wallpaper border in the girls’ bathroom.

Someday, when I have time, I’m going to trim those shrubs in the wooded area of the back yard, and I’m going to remove some of the low-hanging limbs on the little oak near my office.

Someday, when I have time, I’m going to move the last of the excess inventory in the office to the supply closet and then go through those three big boxes of papers I’ve kept locked away for years.

Someday….

Most of my “someday” jobs are the really, really trivial ones around the house that don’t matter but pile up and tug at my attention, and I’d love to get them out of the way once and for all. They just sooooo far down the priority list that they’ll never get done at this rate.

So I’ve declared November 4th as “Someday,” the day I will work on all those silly, tiny, annoying little tasks I’ve put off until someday when I have time. And while I’m doing my someday list? I’ll listen to an audiobook or class that I’ve been putting off for someday, too.

How to Make It Better

Lorna Tedder — Thu, 25 Oct 2007 16:56:02 +0000

By the end of the first hour at the office, I was feeling overwhelmed and didn’t like it very much. Not that anything was particularly any weightier than usual. It was just the annoying little time and energy consumers that plague most work days and add unnecessary stress. Most of them are chores that have to be taken care of and only I can take care of them. No choices there.

So how could I make it better or was I just damned to a miserable day? You know what? I didn’t want a miserable day. There had to be some way of making it better—besides berating myself for not using enough positive thinking.

That’s when I began to catalog things that could make the day better. Many of them were things I didn’t have any control over, though I listed those, too, because you never know what might show up or bring things into your control unexpectedly. The surprising thing was how much of my day I actually did have control over and could “make better” without the syrupy nature of so many people who espouse positive thinking. The terminology of “what would make it better” broke through the mandate of a disingenuous “if you want a good day, you must think happy thoughts.” (more…)

Dancing in the Rain

Lorna Tedder — Sun, 07 Oct 2007 01:37:10 +0000

Most of the time, we get “caught” in the rain. In a suit, without an umbrella, with an armload of precious papers. We end up drenched and with runny ink and thinking of the rain as a bad thing.

I watched the clouds get closer and knew what I would do. I was hoping for rain, not just to water my flower gardens, but because I missed a good frollic on my own terms. I didn’t have to worry about getting wet. It was a Saturday afternoon with no particular plans, no need to dress up, and no urgency to run from the thunder. It was a perfect time for kicking off my shoes and standing in the rain as it started from a light mist and deepened into a hard drizzle.

I stayed in the rain long enough to cool off but not to drip when I walked back inside. I stood with my mouth open and tasted raindrops and lifted my arms to the wind.

How refreshing not to get caught in the rain but to be the one catching the rain!

The “To-Be-Experienced” List

Lorna Tedder — Wed, 03 Oct 2007 01:52:46 +0000

Years before I heard anything about the Law of Attraction, I met a clairvoyant at a writers’ conference in Ft. Lauderdale and she told me that I had a way of moving heaven and earth to bring amazing things tome but at the same time denying them to myself. Could I simply learn to accept what I worked so hard for?

She was right. I began to notice how often I would work to make things happen and then, once it was right there for the taking, I came up with reasons not to accept it. I pushed those experiences and results away, supposedly because I didn’t have the time or the money or someone else needed it more than I did or…you name it. Always a reason NOT to indulge myself.

So I decided to make a list of the things I wanted to experience and if the occasion should ever arise to experience anything on my list, I “had” to do it. Otherwise, if I didn’t tell myself I had to take advantage of what came to me, then I would always find some excuse not to enjoy it.

My initial list had 10 items on it, and as I one-by-one encountered those items, (more…)

Perfect Weekends

Lorna Tedder — Mon, 01 Oct 2007 00:16:57 +0000

Ah, here’s to perfect weekends! Lots of fun, creative work and some wonderfully relaxing playtime, too. Just what I needed. A few of the highlights? The weather for one. Stunningly gorgeous skies, temps in the 70’s, autumn in the air, birds singing, the bay quite choppy but strangely beautiful and us able to see EVERYTHING as we topped the Mid-Bay Bridge on our way home today.

Movies, for another. EASTERN PROMISES at the theatre on Friday night, popcorn and PULP FICTION at home on Saturday night, and stumbling onto a dvd sidewalk sale at the Merchants’ Walk Octoberfest where we found copies of WHAT THE BLEEP, A HISTORY OF VIOLENCE, MYSTIC RIVER, and a few others.

But today was perfect and I got to try something new that I (more…)

It’s Still About the Icing

Lorna Tedder — Fri, 28 Sep 2007 22:40:05 +0000

Sometimes I feel like I’ve compressed as far as I can, simplified as much as possible, and now I’m ready to burst outward into new experiences, new learning, new relationships. One of these tools for expansion—and doing something new—is something I had long forgotten until Shannon mentioned how much she’d like to learn to decorate cakes.

In her job at Cold Stone (the gourmet ice cream shop), she’s learned not only the business of dealing with the public (one of her goals with the job) but something about the cultures of her Russian and Czech co-workers as well as how to make and decorate an ice cream cake.

When she mentioned wanting to learn more about cake decorating, I had a flashback to when I was a couple of years older than she is now. I had just moved to Northwest Florida to be with my boyfriend-later-husband, and I often saw ads in the local papers for classes, seminars, and workshops that interested me. The one I saw most was for cake decorating at the mall, but that was a far drive and I didn’t have the $25 at the time for the class, let alone for any supplies or even for the gas to get there.

There were other seminars advertised in the local papers, too, and I was always interested but never attended. (more…)

Music to Create By

Lorna Tedder — Sun, 23 Sep 2007 23:39:01 +0000

Depending on what I’m working on on my home computer, my iTunes library sometimes becomes annoying. That’s because many of the songs on my iPod and desktop are favs to drive to or even to play when I’m cooking dinner. Yeah, great for drumming the steering wheel or twirling around the kitchen, but not quite so great for concentrating on web design, taxes, artistic creations, etc.

That’s why I like Pandora.com. You type in a favorite artist or songs and they’ll give you “similar” artists or songs to create your own “radio station.”

I’ve started creating my own “radio stations” of ambient music for heavy-concentration times (because my iTunes’ed Brain Sync tracks are rather weary right now). I’ve also discovered some new Goth I like…and that’s always a good thing!

Breaking with the Broken

Lorna Tedder — Sat, 22 Sep 2007 18:15:55 +0000

I am both mourning and celebrating my bedroom. It’s said that when a woman divorces, the first room she redecorates is the bedroom because that is usually where the most intimate pain has occurred. I, however much I dislike being like anyone else, was no exception.

Three years ago, I got rid of the heavy and dark curtains with extra sheers and blinds that blocked out any hint of light and i replaced the bed cave with a light and airy sanctuary. I kept the furniture–my ex hadn’t wanted the bedroom suite, which was damaged–but I rearranged drastically. I made the room very special, adding sparkling touches of new and grounding it with some of my grandmother’s antiques.

I had big plans for this room. This room would be my safe place and my romantic retreat. But in three years, (more…)

The Bracelet Challenge

Lorna Tedder — Fri, 21 Sep 2007 22:31:54 +0000

It’s not that I aspire to be Xena, Warrior Priestess, with my armbands and steel brassiere. (Okay, maybe I do, but that’s beside the point.) It’s a challenge I’m taking.

Some people refer to it as the “Bracelet Challenge,” but I’m not using it in quite the same way as Pastor Will Bowen who started it with the idea that you wear a small purple bracelet on one wrist for a straight 21 days and every time you catch yourself complaining, you switch to the other wrist and start over. There’s nothing new about that but it’s a little different twist on the usual version of “bracelets.”

For years, people have worn loose rubber bands on one wrist and snapped them (slap your own hand!) whenever they committed some awful habit they wanted to break. Cursing, for example. Or a certain phrase. Or a rude remark about their ex. (snap-snap-snap-ouch!-SNAP!)

The difference, to me, with Pastor Bowen’s technique is the switching the bracelet from one wrist to another. Something about that resonates with me, though I really don’t care for the purple bracelet…maybe because other people are using the purple bracelet and I like something unique to me. (more…)