My problem with e-mail

Lately, I have a problem with e-mail.

Specifically, I'm good at reading e-mail. I'm just really, really bad at replying to e-mail. I'll read an e-mail, hit reply, and let it sit there for five or six days before I actually hit send.

Sometimes, I'll even mark the message unread so that I don't forget to reply to it, which means that I have unread e-mail in my inbox for days on end.

Browser windows are the same way - I'll open up a tab that requires action on my part (for example, a job I want to apply for) and ... it'll sit there for a week.

Maybe I need to start the anti-procrastination project up again.

Accomplishments

Things I accomplished this weekend:

1. Buying a new washing machine
2. Buying mulch & distributing it around the yard
3. Cleaning off the table and the end table. (OK, they're not 100% clean, but they're better than they were.)
4. Dropping off some Sparks-related stuff
5. Fixing the napkin holder I broke at Thanksgiving
6. Cooking two meals today (lunch for the week & chicken salad for the evenings).
7. Cleaning off the lid to my hamper. (The lid sits behind the hamper 'cause I'm lazy, and it gets dusty).
   
8. Getting the oil changed in the car.
   
9. Cleaning out the shower drain. (Gross, yet satisfying.)
10. Made ice tea. OK, I do this often - I pretty much live on it in the summer - but my previous box of lemon tea was empty, so I opened my new box of Lemon Thriller tea. Man, I love that tea. I don't know why it is so much better than other lemon tea, but it is.
11. Pulled the cushions off the chair in the living room and vacuumed the chair.

Things I did not accomplish:

1. Pulling weeds out of the flower gardens.
2. Writing a post using sentences and paragraphs.
   

I admit it, I have a problem with shoes

I have a different bag for all of my regular activities - a red knapsack for going to the gym, a grey knapsack for Irish Dancing (even though I don't do that anymore), a black knapsack for boxing, and a black bag with leopard and cheetah prints and a tiger on it for Sparks.

My Sparks bag is the same bag I used when I used to be a leader with Guides, which is the branch of Girl Guides for 9-12 year old girls. If I remember correctly, I quit in 2004.

That would be almost six years ago.

When I started doing Sparks, I grabbed the same bag, since it already had the essential - cheap runners for in the gym, a pencil case with pens, glue, a stapler, and scissors, and a small notebook for planning.

When I first pulled the shoes out of the bag, I had to laugh - they were old, cracked, and had splotches of yellow paint on them from fish stenciling*. Clearly, it's a good thing I kept them for the 4 years I wasn't a leader.

Making it even funnier was the fact that I had another pair of identical (except, you know, new) runners in the closet that I had probably bought knowing those ones would soon be tossed out.

Just to be clear, I started being a Sparks leader a year and a half ago.

Yesterday, I swapped the shoes and threw out the old ones.

I also took everything out of the bag and vacuumed the bag out. Somehow, a plastic bag that I'd had in there got completely destroyed (i.e. basically, it was clingy confetti) and the pieces were getting on my nerves. (Whatever happened to the bag happened recently - this hasn't been a problem for 6 years.)

Anyway, my bag is now cleaned out and ready to use.

* Fish stenciling - painting yellow fish by the storm drains to remind people that any water washed into the storm drains goes straight into the river without being treated.

Another interview

Yesterday morning one of my neighbours called. Her company was looking for someone for a 10-month contract - was I interested?

I'm definitely overqualified, but it sounds interesting and it certainly couldn't hurt to check it out, so I said yes. I had the interview today.

I still think it's an interesting position. It's customer service, not development, so I wouldn't be using many technical skills. It involves shift work, but all of the shifts are between 8 a.m. and 8 p.m., which isn't too bad (as long as there's some flexibility to allow me to still do Sparks and boxing).

The only unknown right now is the salary - I have no idea what the salary would be. I'm working with my neighbour at a community winter carnival on Saturday, so I'll see what I can find out then.

In anti-procrastination news, yesterday I fixed my purse. You see, right before Christmas (that day when I was late to meet with the recruiter), I managed to lose the zipper pull for my purse. It's somewhere in the car, but I haven't found it.

When I go out of town, I change purses. I do this for a couple of reasons. First of all, if I put my stuff in an empty purse, I know what liquids and gels I'm carrying. Secondly, my travel purse has an adjustable strap so that I can either carry it under my arm or across my body.

In other words, I didn't use my normal purse over Christmas, so I didn't fix the zipper pull.

When I got back, I was, well, lazy. Yesterday I finally decided to stop being a fool, so I took a zipper pull off of one of the superfluous zippers and put it on the main zipper. It was so much easier to open and close my purse today.

Today's anti-procrastination project was also fixing something that broke before Christmas. The day I left for Saskatchewan, my shredder broke. It would reverse but not advance. I played with it for a while, going from reverse to advance and back. I pulled paper out manually (even using tweezers to pull out some bits). I even took the screws out of the bottom to pull the whole thing apart, but I was unsuccessful in getting the cover off.

I decided to follow my usual method of fixing electronics - i.e. unplug it for a week or two and hope for the best. Today I plugged it back in and turned it on. It still wouldn't advance, so I hit reverse for a while and the paper jam cleared. It now works fine.

Let's do this in chronological order.

Yesterday's anti-procrastination project was to get rid of the batteries that were sitting in the kitchen.

You see, one day I needed to change some batteries. I left the old batteries on the half-wall in the kitchen to be disposed of later. Little did I know that used batteries attract other used batteries. Yesterday, I decided to do something about it. No, I didn't drop them off for disposal. I did find a shoebox and put it in the front hall closet for storage of the batteries until I take them in.

Also, remember how I didn't need to take the toilet paper holder off the wall to fix it? About that .... Yup, today I had to take the toilet paper holder off the wall to fix it.

This morning, one of my colleagues from the big telecom company was online, so I asked him to wish our mutual friend happy birthday. He asked if I was going to come in. I decided to go in, so I baked mini-cheesecakes and headed in for coffee. Somehow, 20 minutes for coffee turned into an hour and a half. It was good to see the guys again.

I also got in touch with the doctor about my biopsy. The results? Benign. Nothing to worry about. (Yay!)

I had Sparks tonight. Our big activity was to make edible campfires. We started with raisins (for a circle of rocks around our campfire). Next we used hickory sticks as kindling, then pretzels as sticks, then cheezies as logs, and finally a red gumdrop as fire. The girls loved it, in part because they got to eat their campfire afterwards.

The weekend update

So the anti-procrastination project is off to a slow start. I did get a few (quick) things done this weekend.

1) I figured out what type of light bulb I needed for the bathroom. bought a replacement, figured out how to remove the old bulb, and replaced it with a new bulb.

2) I took the toothbrush I got during my dentist visit a couple of weeks ago out of my purse and started using it. I had completely forgotten that it existed.

3) I fixed my toilet paper holder. You see, the holder in my bathroom works well, but as time goes on, it tends to loosen and twist. Sometimes it's an easy fix, sometimes I have to practically take it off the wall and start over. This one was an easy fix.

I also made it out cross country skiing today. It snow wasn't the best, since we've had a couple of days of warm temperatures, but if I wait for perfect conditions, I'll never go. I didn't last long - my foot started to hurt, plus I was lazy - but it was good to get outside. Also, now I'm halfway to achieving one of my New Year's resolutions.

Yes, I'm still alive

Let me share some highlights from my week.

1. The job I had the second interview for last week (which is the same job that asked for salary expectations in the subject line of the application) asked for references (which I provided).
2. The appointment to get the results of the biopsy got pushed out a month.
3. I went to the gym 4 days! (Yay! But I do need to work on finding a better schedule, especially for Thursdays.)
4. Two recruiters contacted me about potential jobs.
5. The job from #1 contacted me saying that their salary range was considerably lower than I had stated - should they still check my references?
6. I filled out an application for security clearance for one of the jobs in #4.
7. I procrastinated about starting my anti-procrastination project back up.
8. One of the three bulbs in the light fixture in my bathroom burnt out. I have never replaced them, so now I need to figure out where to buy those weird bulbs. (And I might as well buy three at once.)
   
9. It melted today. It is possible that I might now be able to open my green bin. I haven't tried yet today.
10. I went to leave for boxing and couldn't find my purse. (I had left it in the car after pump class earlier today. It was still there.)
11. The skin on my ankle kind of hurt, and when I finally looked at it a day later, I realized I had a cut that had become infected.
12. I created a bunch of new miis. They are all better at Wii Sports Resort than I am ... even when I'm the one playing them.
    

So, to summarize: I have no idea what's going on job-wise. NBC is continuing to war with people who work for them. And I am re-starting the anti-procrastination project tomorrow.

How was your week?