Valerie’s Blog

Here are some of my favorite quotes from the book DONE!

Chapter 1: Why Do More?
“You’ll at last be able to keep you output up with your imagination! You won’t be carrying around twenty pages of things “to do someday” anymore, because a great many of them will be done! Think of that.”

Chapter 2: Ordinary Me: Do More?
“The biggest inhibitor of “more” is waiting for an outside force to do it for us, to drag us up by our bootstraps–the company, the government, or our parents. Some don’t doubt that they can and should do more but they feel they need someone or something to step into their lives and lift them up to the effort.”

Chapter 3: A Little Subtraction. . .Adds a Lot of Production
“If you can feel anything gnawing, then you better degnaw. It’s like having something in your eye. If it’s in there you have to get it out, even the smallest hair or tiniest bit of sand. If you leave it there, it will do damage. There are enough unpreventable ruinations around without setting yourself up for anymore.”

“Recreation is productive and great for a change, as are vacations. But our kids are raised learning more about time-off activities than how to achieve or produce.”

Chapter 4: The Mainspring: Direction
“My first reaction to any project is anticipation of the satisfaction and pleasure of the end result. I never think about how much work, money, time or pain it’ll take. It just look at what things will be like when I get done, how good I’ll feel, how famous, rich or loved I’ll be. After I relish and bask in that for a while I look at the list again. Okay, to have a prettier smile and better bite, I’ll go see my dentist.”

Chapter 5: The Magic of Early
“High producers don’t have backlogs. When you work from behind you never really catch up. Producers maintain a “frontlog,” a list of things to do ahead. When you’re always working ahead of yourself, pushing things ahead of you rather than pulling them behind you, you have twice the control.”

Chapter 6: How About Some Help?
“We all have an immediate attraction to well-directed people. We join with them in spirit and build a loyalty to them without even realizing it. This is because doers have a definite direction, a destination. They are going somewhere, moving and any progress or action is exciting.”

Chapter 7: Timepiece Tuners
“Once you’re started, you are indeed half done. All producers live that motto. You own your moods and make your own convence–”ideal” is, for the most part, manufactured, it’s not a gift from nature. Just make a move and your mood will change.”

Chapter 8: The Healthy Stretch (Will It Hurt?)
“The modern fear of “overload” or “burnout” is almost humorous. There might be some “bore outs,” “bum outs,” or fade outs,” but burnouts? Most people’s flames aren’t even lit yet, how can they burn out?”

Chapter 9: The Rewards of Getting More Done Everyday
“What would you do if you could get tons more done? Share more, serve more, lift yourself, be more selfish or unselfish? Once you have more time you could even waste a little time if you wanted–get out of survival and into savoring!”

I do think that Don is a workaholic, though he would not call himself that. He is just extremely motivated by producing things. Still, overall, an inspiring and useful book.

During soccer practice, I was reading a very inspiring library book called DONE! by Don Aslett, a most productive man whose books I have read before. I would recommend that you beg, borrow or steal this book–even if you think you are accomplishing a lot it will give you (at least it did me) a needed kick in the pants to stop wasting time! The subtitle is: How to Accomplish Twice as Much in Half the Time.

I was proud of the effort of my two little soccer players on Saturday. Neil watched the ball almost the whole game. And Evan kicked the ball when his big moment came. But the best part, in their minds, was probably the post-game snacks. It struck me as a little odd how we expect children to put out a tremendous effort on a hot day for a game that lasts from 1/2 hour up to an hour and 15 minutes (not to mention practice during the week) while we parents/relatives sit in our lawn chairs on the sidelines trying not to get bored (actually, it can be pretty entertaining!). At least I wasn’t like the portly grandmother beside me who critiqued a teammate’s performance when I think she would have been hard pressed to make it down the field at a slow jog. Well, at least we all know what really matters: rescheduling the noon games an hour earlier so everybody can get home to watch the Saturday football game on TV. Yes, that good ol’ team spirit. Disclaimer: Actually, I am excited about the football games too (not so much directly, but seeing my husband take some time off to enjoy them. . .) Go team (soccer, football, . . .are there other sports?)!

I am loving the new color in my family room: “light apricot”–thanks to Ryan for painting it. It gives a healthy glow that will go well with the brick wall and the copper accents in the room and the adjoining kitchen. . .

Also loving being 2/3 done with painting the window in the “airplane room” upstairs–just white, but priming and painting windows is not the easiest thing. Just one more coat tomorrow morning. Fortunately, we got smart on later windows in the house and had them pre-painted.

Other things to love about today:
–having blueberry pancakes, fruit and orange juice at church
–completing a summer of teaching Sunday school (which I wrote myself–warning: do not attempt while teaching) and feeling reasonably organized with my superintendent role
–sitting out by the creek reading a funny book while the boys played
–eating pizza for supper with fresh tomato and herbs on it and having a Grandma Great cookie for dessert (why yes, of course that’s part of my diet. . .)
–radon project seems to have been a success, numbers keep coming down
–tomorrow is Monday morning–I know, weird. . .even better (for Ryan especially): the next day is Tuesday morning! (Did you know there’s a store called that?)

Having gotten a long nap on Saturday and survived another Sunday of teaching Sunday school and being superintendent and straightened up my house and had a morning to myself and eaten a fresh tomato for lunch. . .and, well, you get the idea. . .I am getting the boys ready for school, which begins on Wednesday. We have already shopped for school supplies, made up a daily routine, packed the backpacks, organized the bookshelf, printed some math practice sheets, had a back-to-school celebration and found out who the teachers are. I still need to get some supplies for packed lunches, double check school clothes and attend classroom open houses tonight. The teacher in me decided that, just like in a school classroom, it might be a good idea to come up with some house rules which currently are: follow directions, stay on task, be helpful and kind, speak pleasantly and have good manners. The boys helped me come up with them, though I did reword, combine and rearrange some. Evan rule of “Turn off the lights when you leave a room” falls under “be helpful and kind.” Neil of course, immediately thought of a loophole in said rule: “If there’s still somebody there, you don’t have to turn off the lights!” so we changed it to “turn off the lights in EMPTY rooms when you leave.” Evan was also into having jobs for each person, so we will have those on a rotating basis–things like dusting, cleaning and sweeping. Simon got caught up in the excitement and suggested “fill up the raisin box!” though he didn’t realize we were thinking of daily jobs, it was a good suggestion, and an important one in his mind! His rule should be: “Don’t get a chair and climb up and get the raisin box and eat a bunch before Mommy shows up in the morning!”

This afternoon, I came across a helpful hint when it comes to-do lists, those dreadful lists of tasks that make us (or at least me) feel that we may never catch up.

The idea is to first of all eliminate the things that are not really important and do not need to be on the list.

Next, make a list of the “most important things” and do them one at a time.

Finally, group the small tasks as a batch of things you can do in a cluster, say, in 30 minutes.

So far, it is helping me. Maybe it will you, too?

The other day, I grabbed a bag of chips to take to a gathering–I chose Sun Chips, my favorite (well, except for the dill-pickle chips I had one time!!!) but these happened to be, I realized later, packaged in a bag which, besides being made of a very “loud” material, promised to be “compostable.” You know, go green. According to the picture on the back, in just 13 weeks on a compost pile, it would be turned into tiny smithereens.

Such a marketing gimmick. Do we really believe that any significant portion of the Sun Chip buying population is actually going to compost the bag? Even I, who have a pile of weeds in my garden that resembles a compost pile threw the bag away because I don’t have 13 weeks to wait until the tiller goes through. It would be a half-way interesting science experiment, though. Does anyone think I should dig it out of the trash and try? I suppose my oldest son would agree: when life gives you garbage, make compost.

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Health/Diet-Nutrition/The-WD-Get-Real-Diet/The-WD-Get-Real-Diet2.html

If you’re like to think up what to cook as much as I do (not much) and want a healthy plan (yes please), this may work. OK, last blog post of the day. Goodnight!

http://www.womansday.com/Recipes/Watermelon-Cake-Recipe

Not as diet friendly as the real thing, but cute.

Here are more silly cakes:

http://www.womansday.com/Articles/Food/19-Spectacular-Silly-Cakes.html

Now, what to make for Simon’s birthday. . .

I’ve been listening to the samples of the Cinderella CD on Amazon sung by Julie Andrews in 1957, but it’s just not the same as the H.S. musical I heard. Julie sounds a little too mature to be Cinderella, as if the main reason she wanted to meet the prince was so she could sing about it in a prim and proper way. Anyway, if you are a fan of Julie Andrews as Mary Poppins or Maria in The Sound of Music, as I am, you might be interested to hear something I read about her the other day. I believe it was about 10 years ago that she had surgery to remove some polyps on her vocal cords. The doctors told her that she would have her singing voice back in about 6 months, but two years later, she still didn’t. Eventually, she sued for malpractice and her case was settled out of court. She went on to give a concert where she did more speaking than singing (mostly other people did the singing) which received standing ovation after standing ovation in her home country where she is considered a national treasure, but also a flood of requests for refunds, despite her warning that it wasn’t going to be the crystalline singing voice people were used to. I think I’ll go back to remembering Julie as the fairy tale nun, nanny and princess of the movies, not as a bitter businesswoman of the ‘burbs. Hmmm, I’ll have to check out her books. . .