Shoes and Sinks

I am Canadian. I don’t wear shoes in the house. Mine or anyone else’s. (House that is - if the shoe fits... I just might wear it.) Maybe it’s just a rural thing, but lots of people I know would never consider walking into someone’s house or their own, wearing street shoes.  Even if you tell people ‘Leave your shoes on.’, you’ll be met with a ‘Are you SURE?’ as they step gingerly in.  You should see the entry of our houses during a party, or in our case – any given day. It's a big shoe closet.

So when the first instructions for an organizational website that I signed up for in 1999  insisted that ‘putting on your shoes’ was at very top of the list and an ABSOLUTELY MUST DO, I balked. 'But I don’t ‘DO shoes, I’m Canadian.’ I protested.  I simply did not, WOULD not wear shoes in the house.  I walk in, take off my shoes and put slippers on. Walking around in the house in shoes feels unnatural. It’s a ‘nest’ thing, a comfort thing.  Which I suppose was her whole point.  You’re not supposed to be comfortable, you’re supposed to be WORKING.  And she just didn’t indicate just any shoes – they couldn’t be ‘slip on’ ones – they had to be LACE UP, I-mean-BUSINESS-shoes.

I self righteously fought it for a bit, then begrudgingly decided to give it a try.  It was weird to begin with, but I did feel more ‘business like’, and I was able to run to the basement or carry something outside without having to stop and put my shoes on. Now, it’s the first thing I do if I’m on a cleaning mission – I simply cannot clean in slippers. She was right.

The other thing that I have remembered from way back then is that you are to always have a clean and shiny sink. ALWAYS. Which, if you do, means that you won’t have a pile of dishes in it, which is a great start to a decent kitchen.  Two simple things that stuck with me and  I have thought of a hundred times over the years. I haven't always accomplished the sink thing, but I've thought about it.

I didn’t keep up with the program because they were sending me five or six emails every day – a sort of cheerleader/keeping you on track thing I suppose. My issue was getting control of my time and more mail to read was counter productive so I unsubscribed.

The other day, when I laced my shoes up and shined my sink, I once again thought of FlyLady and wondered if it was still around. Indeed she is.  Still the same Shoes & Sink message, and lots of other nuggets of wisdom too. She not only has the website, but FlyLady TV and Radio, and books and forums, and of course, Facebook with a quarter million ‘Likes’ and almost 30 thousand followers on Twitter.  I betcha lots of them are Canadians, who have also learned it’s okay to wear shoes in the house.

I signed up for it again. I have a separate email account that I use for things like that - groups, newsletters, offers - a sort of 'junk drawer' that I go through at my convenience that isn't mixed in with my personal mail.  If I have kept and used two of her suggestions for the past decade, I am sure she's got some other tidbits that will help me on my mission.

Three Strikes

Okay … I really am losing it. Third thing I’ve done with paint that was wrong, wrong, wrong. 


Even a three year old wouldn’t help with this one. Well, actually – maybe they would. The fact that it looked like a massive candy might have garnered points. 

I wanted something different than the tiles that I had painted – something not so predictable. I did a big stripe and two little stripes with masking tape. It took me ALL day and into the next by the time I got it measured and painted three coats. But OMG.  My bathroom paint was accused of hurting one’s eyes – this not only did that but also caused hallucinations. Once again – NOT the look I was aiming for.

It was getting dark; I had ten minutes before I was being picked up ... I sloshed a coat of paint over it to get a start on the next day and basically to make myself feel better. Then I noticed that it was orangey and toned the whole thing down so I left it. I like it. The reaction I've gotten is: 'I really like the backsplash’ – which is a darn sight better than “It hurts my eyes!!!”

Perhaps I’m moving back to how I used to be able to paint creatively. I used to paint everything I got my hands on and was relatively successful with it. I just haven’t done much of it lately and I have obviously lost my intuition and colour sense.

After regaining a little confidence with the wall, I tackled my ugly, non-descript mirror.

I spray painted it black – left some gold, then dry brushed the red kitchen paint over it. I like it. 

It’s about time.

Colouring

I love colour.  My business/profession has always revolved around it. Light and colour. It’s what I do. It’s what I am.

But for some reason I am grossly inadequate when it comes to picking out paint for the walls.  That is the truth behind why I repainted the kitchen basically the same colour that it has been for eight years. Insecurity.

I see in my head exactly what I want. Most times when I am finished, I am disappointed.  I am true to form this time.

My entry was a kind of taupe/gold on anaglyptic wallpaper.  I wanted fresher, brighter – I envisioned it that way. I chose ‘soft cream’. The woodwork and doors that take up most of the space are painted ‘Mother of Pearl’.  For future reference – there is virtually no difference between Soft Cream and Mother of Pearl. It’s boring. No punch. It's not the answer.   

The bathroom has been the same way too long. Some kitchen type border spoke to me and since it didn’t suit my kitchen, that’s where it went.  A huge note to myself, and anyone else who doesn’t want to give up three days of their life scraping glue residue with a razor blade … leave the border in the store.

I am in a ‘fresh-clean’ mode. I picture sea glass. My eye was drawn to one chip amidst the hundreds of other blues. It happened to be called ‘Mystic Sea’. Confirmation that it it was definitely the right choice. It's a big change, which is what I wanted.  The response, however, was less than enthusiastic.

Son & Hubby both, every time they opened the door: “Whoa! That's not the  room to be in if you have a hangover.” Hubby: “My grandmother had that same exact colour in her house in the 60’s. So did my aunt. EVERY house had it.”  Me: Ignore.  Son: “Are you going to repaint it?”  Me: “I’m not sure – I’m living with it for awhile first.”  Son: “Aren’t you going to be embarrassed when your friends come over?”  Friend: “It’s very RETRO.” Me: “That is NOT the look I was going for.”    Son a couple days later: “It’s actually not so bad.”  Me: “Good – I was thinking we might get used to it.”  Son:  “Yeah, you just have to leave the lights off when you go in.” (it’s a room with no windows). I must say, it did shock me every time I went in; it's a very dramatic change.

Just as I was going through paint samples to figure out what I was going to do with it, I got the reaction that I was waiting for. It came from my three and a half year old grandson. “Wow!!!!” he yelled when he went in the room for the first time. I waited for the rest that I had come to expect: “It hurts my eyes.”  But instead, he came running out – throwing his hands up in the air and with great enthusiasm proclaiming: “I WUV IT!!!”  Me … tentatively: “Really?” Grandson: still enthusiastically “YES!! I WUV it!! I want MY bathroom THAT blue. My bathroom IS blue, but I like THAT blue better.”

And hence, I have discovered the secret of painting – two things.  #1 Be patient until you find someone who gives you the reaction and opinion you were hoping for.  #2  Invite a three year old over.

Strategy

I have a strategy for Focus that has been in place for a couple years now that actually works wonderfully.

Myself and two friends who have the same burning desire to take control of their life and zero in on what we need/want to accomplish and get ‘er done, formed a … for lack of a better word … ‘support group’.

We choose a neutral spot, not some someone’s home and a specific time frame.  We divide the time up with each on having the opportunity to present their goals/plans and strategy for how we’re going to tackle that.

It works. If only in the fact that it makes us take the time before the meeting to put thought into our intention.  It’s helping us prioritize. Yes … helping us Focus.

We have people to report to. People holding us accountable. People who will say: “What help do you need to be successful.”  We have cheerleaders. We have a bouncing board.  It’s affordable, self-directed Life Coaching.

We use and share different strategies – mind mapping, vision boards – we’re always open to new techniques.  We are also flexible. We have watched our plans, so carefully crafted, go totally off in an unexpected direction because Life.  We’re cool with that too. We just switch to ‘re-calibrating’ and start planning the new route.

FOCUS

I did it. I am DONE. I have, perhaps for the first time ever, rode the train directly to the station.

Well, I do have a few little odds and ends – pictures, some furniture, pillows, a few accessories – but that doesn’t count -  that’s ‘hunting’.  

The bones are done for my three January Rooms.

My mission for 2012 is to go through every single room in my house and clear the excess. Purge and edit. Let go.  WHOA!  Back up. Rewind. Completely unreasonable, unattainable. That would be a full twelve month job - I need to do other stuff this year too.  I only play ‘HOUSE’ until the end of March, if it’s not done by then it has to wait until the following January.  I’m going to have to break it up over a few years. There are 15 rooms in this house; I will do one third a year, which makes it a three year project. Considering my tiny little problem of staying on task, that makes it much more realistic.

That’s what I have to get better at – pacing myself while maintaining my focus.  Slow & steady.  As Keith Kochner said at a seminar I attended recently: “Little step. Little step. Little step. Watch for the opportunity.” 

So, that has become my WORD for 2012. FOCUS.  It’s been riding around with me for a while now and it feels like the time is right.
 I will focus on focusing on FOCUS.

Old Business

 I may as well admit it. Brian drives me nuts at times. Having been with him for over 40 years, I suppose that’s bound to happen. Who am I kidding – there were times he drove me nuts after six months.

It’s actually a little miracle that our marriage has lasted so long. We are polar opposites for the most part.  If someone asks him for a 7/16^th wrench, he goes to his toolbox and there it is – in the same spot it has for over three decades. Same wrench.  If someone asked me for a pair of scissors, I say … ‘Okay – give me a minute.’, while I root through drawers and eventually come up with one of three dozen pairs of scissors I have strategically placed throughout the house.   

Once I was rushing with something on a deadline and somehow lost my good fabric scissors, mid-stream – I had been using them all morning.  I searched for an hour & finally had to have one of the girls go to the fabric store in town to get me another pair.  They were sold out. A fabric store out of scissors – what’s the chances? I was forced to institute St. Anthony. As I was standing there, giving him a few minutes to work his magic, the UPS truck drove in.  It was delivering a huge box of stuff that I had won at the Creative Needlework Show in Toronto - $800 worth.  Sure enough – there were scissors in there – three pair.  True story. Thanks Saint Anthony. I found the scissors a year later, in between layers of fabric

But I digress.  The issue is not that I get pulled through by some miracle, but that Brian never has to rely on that. He can put his hands on every single thing he owns at any given moment.  It bugs me.  When I need to borrow something from him, he makes me turn my back so I don’t see where he keeps it. That bugs me too.

And yet another thing that irritates me is his unswaying focus.  When he determines a task, he keeps his eye on it and does not waiver. He basically becomes obsessed with seeing it to completion. Me … one task is just a little blip on the road to another one.  I like to kind of think about my tasks – have a cup of tea, mull it over awhile in my head, see if anything better comes up.  Him … full steam ahead til he gets to the station.  Me … oh well, another train will come along. Or I may I decide to take the bus – there might be new and different scenery.

Take his project of stripping the hardwood floors in the kitchen. The plan was to take everything out, then do the outside by hand on one day, use the orbital sander the next and then get on to the three coats of finish.  On Day 1, the girls and I were out until 11 pm. The comment was “Knowing Dad, he’ll have started the floor today.’ My response was “Knowing your Dad he will have FINISHED sanding the floor today.” I won.  Not only totally done sanding, but there he was, finishing up the first coat of varnish at eleven o'clock at night. Who works at eleven o'clock at night on something like that.

I have been on my own mission in our January project of reviving the kitchen.  He did the floor, ceiling, trim, cupboards and table. I did the walls and the thinking.  I have one tiny little bit to do and the whole thing will be completely finished – every square inch. It’s the backsplash above the counter.  The colour is so close that no one would even notice it wasn’t done. But then it would not be ‘every square inch’.

I have the paint. I have the tape.  I have 2 days left in January to make my goal.  But, my focus is shifting. Some other stuff is calling.

Brian left for Toronto early this morning. Not that he knows or cares that I have left one little piece of my personal goal undone. It's MY goal.  I started heading towards my new project when his voice started seeping into my head … the same message I have heard time and time again over the years. His mantra:  “No new business before old business.”  I tried to quell it. It got louder.  ‘No new business! No new business!!’ Oh man. He's burrowed right into my conscience. It should bug me, but it doesn't - I know he's right.

More About Letters

Okay, I’m done the technology bashing.  Actually, it’s really not bashing – it’s just observing. I LOVE technology.  I can’t keep up with it, but I LOVE it. It excites me and challenges me and amazes me.  I intend to be the old broad at the nursing home with the hand crocheted afghan AND a laptop on my knees.  But enough of technology … on to a different stories, albeit one still about ‘letters’.

On the weekend we had a camp out here with all five Grands. It’s the first time that the twins stayed without their parents.  Their four parents, which confirms that they are technically NOT exactly Twins.  They were born three months apart to different mothers, but small matter – in my mind they are the closest thing to twins that I’ll ever have in my life. It’s what I imagine it to be, looking after/having twins – such fun to watch them interact and amazing to observe such different personalities. 

And busy.  Very, VERY busy.

Breakfast with toddlers is … breakfast with toddlers.  More on the floor than in the belly.  I am the Nana so I can buy crap cereal because it’s a treat.  Nana = Treat, that’s the way it’s supposed to be.  But I still like to be semi-alittle-bit responsible, so I chose EDUCATIONAL cereal.  Alpha-bits; known more for their entertainment value than nutritional value.

Of course, the floor was the winner, which is kind of a waste now that we don’t have Abby. She used to love when the kids came to visit. She'd lay there with one eye open, patiently waiting for the rain of miscellaneous substances; never disappointed with the abundance. With no four-legged Hoover, the fallout is now manual labour rather than dogual labour.

I hit on a idea. At nineteen months, Spencer is a happy, active little fellow and is surprisingly adept at fine motor skills. And he’s busy. Very, VERY busy.  Killing two birds with one stone, I gave him the vacuum and told him to ‘suck up the letters’.  He loved it. He focused intently on the task and did not give up until every single letter had sped down the hose.  And then he turned his attention to trying to suck anything and everything else up … the phone, socks, blankets, Georgia.

After he left, I noticed that we missed a crop of bits in the living room. Gibson was still there so I thought I’d try the same game with him. Three and a half year olds do not fall for the old ‘Huckleberry Finn’ trick quite as easily.  I had to be a little more creative to get the task done. It wasn’t just because I was lazy or wanted them gone before they were crushed into the carpet – I really did think he’d have a great feeling of power and accomplishment and it had the possibility of being fun for him.

“Hey, Gibby – look how I can make the letters jump into this tube … they’re going on an ADVENTURE!!  Listen to them!  Where do you think they’re going? Look how fast they want to follow their friends!”  It worked …  he enthusiastically went about sending all the letters scampering into the magic opening, off into the unknown, while I went about righting the rest of the war zone.

I noticed him go into the kitchen to the cereal cupboard and reach his arm into the box. I thought to myself ‘It’s so nice when they’re big enough to help themselves when they’re hungry’, and went about my work.  A little while later, after about his tenth trip to the cereal cupboard, I noticed that he was placing the Alpha-bits in little piles on the floor, then sucking them up.  ‘Gibby – what are you doing? Aren’t you eating those?’ I asked. ‘Nope,’ he said …still focused and intent on his mission ‘these yetters want to go on a ‘benture with their friends too.’

Yep … always one step ahead of me.  Or maybe a mile.

An Obsession with our Hands

And being on a roll, I may as well finish my ‘new fangled gadget’ rant. I’ve got another bone to pick.

The relationship that people are developing with their own hand is somewhat disturbing.

Look around any public place … or even the street. An amazing number of people, certainly the ones under 40, are staring at their hands.  I’m sure you’ve seen this – a half dozen people sitting in a row at an airport, every single one of them intent on connecting with anyone but the person sitting beside them. It’s bizarre. And frankly, it’s a little bit sad.

A surprising number of people have become so tied – or so addicted – that they cannot go a few hours without checking to see …… what, I’m not sure.  I guess that someone is sending them earth shattering news that can’t wait until they’re alone.  Whatever did we do before every person with a cell phone had access to each other at every single moment.  Whatever did we do when we actually had to be with the people we were with?

It is the ‘not being present’ that gets my goat.  I see it happening more and more. The rudeness is becoming the norm.  I have had people sit at my own dinner table with their eyes glued to their hands, searching for a conversation that is apparently more interesting that what the in the flesh people are offering. You would never think of going and turning your computer on in the midst of a conversation.

I have been at meetings where people are engaged with their devices rather than focusing on the business at hand, when it’s only going to be an hour and their precious message will be safely and patiently waiting for them anyway.  It is not a matter of multi-tasking. It’s a matter of priorities, of blatantly saying "these other people - my OWN world and concerns are far more important than being with you right now."

I was at a conference last year with an excellent International keynote speaker who had an incredible amount of wisdom and knowledge to share. It would have cost a fortune to bring him half way around the world.  It was such a great opportunity that high school students were bussed in to hear him.  The teacher sat in front of me. She spent the entire time of the presentation on her Blackberry – checking her email, texting people. It was rude to the speaker and distracting to people around her. Besides being a poor example for her students, I wondered how she would lead a discussion back in the classroom.

I really, really hope that we soon get over the novelty of it all and settle down to being where we are, when we and treasuring the time with who we’re with in real time/real life.

Script

I don’t know if this is true. I need to do some research on it before I get myself officially worked up or push the panick button.  I heard, and how sad if it’s true, that they are no longer teaching cursive writing in school.

I’ll sound like some ancient curmudgeon who wants to stand firmly rooted in the past; but honestly, what are they thinking?

Sure, they believe, and are accurate, that the next generation will use computers and devices for everything they do. That’s already the case.  But how in heaven’s name do they come up with the concept of highly educated people with fingertip access to everything in the whole world, who will not be able to read what thousands of people have written for a couple hundred years before this.  They will come upon books and letters and it will look like a foreign language.

I wrote my 10 year old grandson’s birthday card this year.  He’s a very smart cookie. He said “I don’t know what this says.” We will have a nation of Printers.

What happens to hand writing analysis?  What about signatures? How will people sign their names?  What about autographs? They're going to print their signatures on cheques? Oh forget that ... there is pretty well no such thing as cheques already. They're going to print their name on the back of their Visa?  Surely my information is inaccurate.

I can identify the hand writing of every person who is close to me. I see my mother when I come across her beautiful, flowing script even though she’s been gone for 31 years. She was artistic – it showed in her writing.  I would know my Dad’s writing anywhere – it was very legible and basic.  I  recognized my grandmother’s writing when I came across an old letter at the bottom of a box.  At the rare occurrence when I receive snail mail, I immediately know which friend it is from without checking the return address. They are their writing.  Surely my information is inaccurate.

 I’m thinking that I must be totally wrong.  It can’t happen.  There are dozens of beautiful script fonts that can be downloaded. They wouldn’t develop those if no one could read them. That has me feeling a little better. Perhaps people will be able to read script, they may just not be able to produce it without a computer.  That doesn't really make me feel better.

Letters

Speaking of the pleasure that I get by sitting with my journals – holding in my hands my “time” … I’ve been doing a lot of thinking on that.

There is such a difference between a typed document or the written page. The words are there. The story is there – the feeling, the emotion, the lesson, the intent – it’s all there, for sure.  But there is something innately different about holding something in your hands that someone has written.  It’s something that will be lost when the day comes that every single thing we do is on the computer. 

We’re almost there already. Certainly the young ones are.  E-books are already threatening publishing companies and traditional book stores. Newspapers may go the way of the dinosaur.  The ease of access to every single thing at every single moment is nothing short of miraculous and awesome. I love it. It has opened the world to us. There is not a single day that I don’t ‘Google’ something, learn something that I hadn’t planned or met/connected with someone I would otherwise not had the opportunity to. When I think back to the Pre-Internet days, I wonder how we ever managed to run groups and organizations effectively, to promote and market our businesses and goods and what we were doing with all our hours that are taken up now engaging and connecting with our friends – old, new and virtual.

Indeed, I love the whole technology thing. But you know, it’s not the same as the written word. Not the same as a real book, a real letter, a journal – a tactile object that someone has held in their hands, has run their hand over line after line. There is a feel to it … the cover – the more worn the better; the paper itself … ink smudged by a teardrop, a coffee stain, dog eared pages, underlined words … telltale signs of humanity left for the next reader. The book holds its own energy, its own history. A computer screen does not do that.

You cannot run your finger over the screen, like I do the paper that my mother has written on … touching it and contemplating the fact that SHE touched that same paper – her thoughts placed upon it by her hand. I picture her doing it and I am moved by the fact that it has travelled through time; that a little piece of her spirit survives as I hold her actual words in my hands.

We have reams of the written word on the internet … literally reams.  But how much will survive?  I can’t relocate an interesting antedote that I read a week ago, let alone five years ago.  Really … how much do we think to print?  Me … not a thing. Even stuff that really interests me – I just assume that I will be able to find it again. But in reality, I just have too much to keep track of now.

Yes, we gain a lot with in our computer world; but we lose something too.