So, That's Why! .... for Dummies

Hi friends - a few random thoughts to share.

I had always wondered just how many "For Dummies" books have been published. Sometimes, I'd be in a bookstore, which is the equivalent of my "bar" hangout, and wonder if there was a whole section of the popular For Dummies series, rather than having them interspersed on the shelves with all the other books.

 So, today, when I got an email from Borders, advertising 30% of this series, I got the chance to see just what was out there. Some of the titles were surprising, some made me just laugh, and others made me almost want to buy some of them (but I'm on a self-imposed book spending freeze).

Here's what I found. There are currently 1,832 titles listed. Many of them have to do with computers. It's also only fair to note that I do own several Dummies books; I think they are a great overview and typically well written. Ana and I wouldn't have made it through 7th grade Geometry with out one! (I also have Philosophy, Buddhism, and Psychology for Dummies).

Here's what else you can get:
Anger Management for Dummies
Saints for Dummies
Dating for Dummies
Relationships for Dummies
Rugby for Dummies
Extreme Sudoku for Dummies (I want to know, if you make it to a level of Sudoku where you are ready for "extreme", shouldn't you graduate from the "For Dummies" series?
Curling for Dummies (this would have been good to have during the Olympics)
Freemasons for Dummies (do they support dummies? Can you see them out with picket signs that say "Freemasons for Dummies"? No?)
Computers for Seniors for Dummies (I couldn't find just a  regular"Computers for Dummies", so, if you need help, you have to use the seniors version)

This group just makes me chuckle. I think I might be a eight year-old boy. Are they for actual dummies?
Creating Websites for Dummies (are the dummies going to use the websites?)
Fishing for Dummies (catching dummies?)
Potty Training for Dummies (it's about time those dummies learn to use the potty?)
Housetraining for Dummies (if the potty training doesn't work)
Trading for Dummies (what do you have to trade to get a dummy?)
Happiness for Dummies (well, that's a good thing)
Stretching for Dummies (because they need a book for this)
Choosing a Dog for Dummies (what kind of dogs do dummies prefer?)
Online Education for Dummies (they should probably read Using Computers for Dummies)

These are really specific....
Australian and New Zealand Wine for Dummies
California Wine for Dummies
Whisky and Spirits for Dummies
and you can get Vino para Dummies, too.

These sound fun...
Running a Bed and Breakfast for Dummies
Antiquing for Dummies
Bartending for Dummies

And my favorite of all......

Raising Chickens for Dummies

That's all for now. What "For Dummies" book do you have?

(I'm totally not being compensated for advertising the books, or anything. Just another thing that tickles my funny bone.)

Oh you sad neglected blog, I'm sorry

Lion image from here

Seems like I've been neglecting my little blog here. Real life, like the month of March, has come in like a lion! Most weeks, I plod along, contentedly following my same old, same old routine. This week, I've had something to do every night. A full calendar means no time for posts! That's ok, right? It's good to do stuff! Here's what I've been up to:

Saturday, the 6th - Volunteered at Feed My Starving Children in Aurora. My daughter's friend chose to have her birthday "party" at this wonderful organization, helping to pack food packages for starving children in distressed countries. With the recent natural disasters in Haiti and Chile, she couldn't have picked a better way to show she cares by gathering her friends to help make a difference. In that 2 hours, the volunteers (several other families, girl scout troops, and church groups) packed enough food packets to feed 55 children for a year. It was an awesome experience.

Sunday, the 7th  -Did some digi layouts:

Mom told me the story of getting this picture taken. I was 3, she did it on a whim with the last money in her pocket - I'm so glad she did.

(I will update this post with the details to credit the elements I used when I have a chance to look it all up.....really, I promise!)

Monday, the 8th - Left work early to get Ana to one of her regular appointments. Thankfully, Mom had Matt and it ended up being a cinch.

Tuesday, the 9th - Parent Confirmation meeting at our church. Listening to a speaker for an hour, talking about God's Grace. Lovely.

Wednesday, the 10th - Regular doctor visit, but my doctor is unlike the docs you hear about who rush in and give you half (or an eighth) of their attention for 5 minutes and rush out. Oh no, not this chicky. An hour. We talked about all my little concerns, she did blood tests, and listened for a full hour. Awesome. Only problem was my kiddos were waiting in the waiting room for an hour, too. They are so easy-going though, when I went to check on them, they were cuddled up on the couch together doing a word search. They are so cute!
And I did this layout for one of the Log Your Memory Weekly Challenges....not my favorite layout, but got the job done:

Thursday, the 11th - Court, ahem. Nevermind about that, and an evening to spend with my sweet guy. Then I made this:

And now, Friday, the 12th - Really no plans for me....Ana has a school dance and then out for pizza with another good friend of hers (she really has some great friends).  Then Saturday, the 13th, if the weather is good, we'll walk in the West Side Irish parade in Naperville with my sister's foster dogs. Then maybe I'll get a chance to put my feet up. Or do laundry? Or scrapbook? Hmmmm....

So, that's why I haven't blogged lately. See you soon.....

A Master At Home To-Do List

I found it here

Colour Lovers

I was lying in bed this morning, the whole day ahead of me, and wondering how I will cram everything I want to do into this one day. You see, the kids are with their dad, and I have nothing scheduled, which means I can do the things that I think of doing every other day when I wake up and have to go to work. On the days I go to work, I can think of a million things I can be doing at home, but on a Saturday when I can do those things, I'm stumped, overwhelmed by all my choices. My biggest fear is at the end of the day, I'll have done nothing I wanted or needed to do.

My mom always reminds me that when you leave all the things you can and have to do in your head, it seems much more overwhelming than it actually is on paper. So, that's why I've decided to come up with a Master At Home To-Do List --on line, so I never lose it!

1. Read - I have a notorious book habit and a ridiculous number of unread books in my house. I'll be putting a reading to -do list together for myself soon. I'm currently reading The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown, and I can't put it down.
2. Clean A Bathroom - I have 3. Every morning, I use all of them in some way, either to shower, put on my make up or well, nevermind, and every morning, I want to clean this or that, but don't have the time at that moment to do it.
3. Organize Photos - either printed or on the computer. I spent an afternoon working on this recently and it made me very hopeful that I can finally get them in some kind of order.
4. Scrapbook - this is for me as well as for my family, but the process is totally for me. I love cutting, gluing, stickers, and paper. It's my passion, right now, and my wish to do it more often. I'm taking a Big Picture Scrapbooking class called "The Challenge of Me", and unlike other classes I've taken, I've been able to keep up with the assignments, so far, which is a huge accomplishment for me.
5. Do Something Artistic
6. Laundry
7. Clean a Closet - Do you have a closet that you shove stuff in? Yeah, me too and it drives me nuts!
8. Re-organize a Cabinet - any cabinet - kitchen, bathroom - in my house, I really have more than I need. It's time to pare down to the essentials.
9. Play a computer game - big time suck, I know, but also relaxing, which I have such a hard time doing these days. As long as I can accomplish other things on this list, then something mind numbing is ok.
10. Remove all stray stuff from a room in the house - this is a good one when the kids are home, then it's a game to see who can put away (in the correct place) the most stuff. My kids are easily amused sometimes, as long as I'm doing it with them.
11. Take Jack for a walk - poor dog, needs a fenced in yard. The kids like to walk him, but he is so strong, they really can't get far before his wanderlust has him walking them. Also, the dog LOVES the snow. When it snows, his inner puppy comes out and he FROLICKS.
12. Learn a New Technique for [whatever I'm in the mood to do]
13. Write
14. If kids are home, do something with them, but really be in the moment, and forget the rest of this list. Showing interest in what they are interested in goes a long way. This is usually a video game or cartoon with son and a chat or 80's/90's moment shared with teenage daughter, who is now finds the nostalgia of my youth interesting-the fashions, the music, the movies.

Hopefully it's noticable the watching TV is not on my list. I spend too much time sitting in the comfy corner of my couch, sucked into the TV when I come home from work - again, needing to numb my mind. So, when there are at least 14 other things to do on a free day, I'm resisting turning it on, even as background noise.

Even doing one or two of these in a day will be enough for me. I don't intend to fit them all in, in one day. And, of course, being just a master list, these are not my daily to dos - that's a much longer list.

Happy Day of Possibilities!

What's the Word? Part 2: The Unveiling

Today's the day! I'm so excited! I get to unveil my word and set my intention for the new year!

So....are you ready? I know I am. 2010, for me, will be all about.....FOCUS.

FOCUS will mean a great deal to me this year. My adult, as a mom, years have been a little bit of a blur – through sleepless nights in the beginning, to the multitude of jobs a Mom is expected to fill, it was easy and important to lose focus on myself. While the kiddos will remain central to my life, they are both old enough (13 and 8) to do lots more things on their own (with guidance and supervision, of course), which means I can focus the lens of my life a bit to sharpen myself in the picture. I will focus on what made me who I am, what my interests are and what is important to my well-being.

I’ll be FOCUSing on my relationship with my guy, Bob. Sadly, this is the one thing that is the first to be set aside when I get too busy, and surprisingly, the one thing I can count on to be what sets me straight on my priorities. He’s a gem, a rare find – kind, loving to me and the kids, always there for me, and yet manly and cool. Yeah, he’s going to get more of the focus this year.

FOCUS will help me stop wasting precious time on stuff that doesn’t help me to be who I want to be. FOCUS will keep me on track to getting my healthy body back.

FOCUS will help me SIMPLIFY, RENEW, and REBUILD, among other things.

I uncovered a few FOCUSed quotes to use this year. This first one gets at what I'm aiming for:

Don't dwell on what went wrong. Instead, focus on what to do next. Spend your energies on moving forward toward finding the answer.

--Denis Waitley

So, that’s why I chose FOCUS.

My Books, My Shelves: a "So That's Why" special episode

So, I'm sitting here this morning, looking at the 2 bookcases in my bedroom and wondering, "Why?". Why do I have all these books? Why did they enchant me so as to plunk down the debit card so I could give them a home on one of my 5 bookshelves (which doesn't count the ones in the kids' bedrooms)? Why haven't I found time to read them? Some people can tell time in their lives by the friends or lovers they've had, or a song on the radio that takes them back to an era in their life. I can also tell time by my books. Time for a "So, that's why" moment.

There are entire sections on my shelves from the various stages of teaching: student teaching (tons of books on theory and also classroom ideas on every subject imaginable, as well as novels that I intended to have in my classroom), the short stints as a substitute teacher, when I worked with students with learning differences, and when I taught at the college level (books on writing and grammar, art books from the time I taught Intro to Fine Arts, Psychology books (Oliver Sachs and Flow by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi).

There are sections of my "Optimistic Mommy" phase, when I wanted to start a mommy-daughter book club - books on how to do that and the books I wanted to read with my daughter (um, sadly, didn't get too far with that, although she loves to read and that was the ultimate goal).

The philosophical era when I thought I'd read all the classics that I should have read before: Camus, Wharton, Miller, Austen, all nestle together with my book on 100 Banned Books.

The time after that, when I gave up and read chick lit and "pampering yourself" books, exclusively.

Books from the Outlander series by Diana Gabaldon from when my son was a wee bairn (they are set in Scotland) and I would read while he rested in my arms.

Books my mom shared with me. Guilty pleasures. Short books that should be long: Simplify Your Life with Kids, for example. And long books that should be short: Seeing Me Naked by Lisa Palmer (just kidding, couldn't resist that title).

An amazing array of Organizing books, close to 25, of which I've read hmmmm 2? I should have stuck with Marcia Ramsland and Peter Walsh, because their books had the most impact on me when I read them. But, uh, nothing seems to have sunk in because my house and my life is in utter chaos - I think I'll organize them next, into a nice versatile basket they may or may not have suggested I buy, and which is now filled with Ninetendo boxes and scarves? Time to read or re-read those books.

Books that make me go - huh? Really? I bought that? (See The Seinfield Chronicles, and Sex and the City: Kiss and Tell) That group is now in a shopping bag on the way to The Frugal Muse (noted in an earlier post), if you are interested, but I warn you, you may look at them years from now and ask yourself the same questions.

There are other subsections of book categories around here, to be sure, but these seem the most important to me to share right now. Since I've also been saying, "I didn't know I had this book", several times this morning, I'm going to take a look to see what I might what to move up on my imaginary reading list. Or maybe write down that list. I also see how some of my writing books may come back into use soon, with the blogging and scrapbooking I do, and the fact that my daughter is on the school Newspaper and Yearbook this year (also, a very good writer, that girl!). Maybe she'll want one of those books to cuddle up with .... uh, yeah, what 13 year-old girl doesn't want to cuddle up with her mom's grammar books? I need to get a grip....maybe some parenting books.....?

So, that's why I have so many, many, many books in my house. My goal continues to be to actually read or re-read these books that mean so much to me, and eliminate those that don't. Those castaways, who have spent some time with me will go off to a new home on someone elses shelves. And I'll have space on my shelves for the next era of my life, whatever that may be.