Quotable

Sometimes the best thing about email is the quote at the bottom of it. I particularly liked this one:

"In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. But in practice, there is." - Yogi Berra

Goals Update: New Year, New Format!

Time: 281 days (28%)

Completed Goals: 26 (26%)
1. Complete my list of 101 things to do - completed 3/30/07
3. Reorganize the music on my MP3 player - completed 11/24/07
6. Finish my last case paper - completed 6/15/07
8. Graduate NCNM - Walked 6/25/07
9. Build/commission a professional website - I count it that my business has a website!
13. Visit Rebecca in Trinidad or elsewhere - her recent move to P___ made that much easier!
18.Go to the next staff or company meeting at work - completed 7/11/07
21. Memorize Tai Ji Yang Style form - completed approx 7/27/07
22. Take a Tai Ji class outside of NCNM - completed 7/9/07, three week course
24. Volunteer anywhere - completed 9/21/07 Chinese Garden
25. Walk to Fred Meyer instead of driving as needed for 2 weeks - completed 7/8/07 (didn't even realize I had done it!)
32. Go kayaking - completed 7/14/07
33. Learn to straighten my hair - completed 5/8/07
36. Go to a live sporting event at least 4x per year
42. Sign up for 401K at New Seasons - completed 7/18/07
57. Get a facial completed 11/8/07
58. Find a good facial moisturizer with SPF - completed 7/3/07
61. Cook a meal for my housemate completed 5/7/07
62. Cook a meal for my boyfriend completed 5/7/07
63. Cook a meal for friends (more than E and A!) completed 4/8/07
64. Try a recipe out of the vegan cookbook - have tried several!
77. Hang wind chimes - completed 6/20/07
82. Backup Computer - External Drive for Christmas, backed up today!
84. Acquire a new camera and learn to use it -Camera for Christmas!
94. Clean out garage at Center Commons - Completed by virtue of moving 8/2/07

Still on the drawing board: 74 (73%)
2. Finish putting my hard copies of photos and scraps into albums
4. Get names/artists for the currently un-labeled music on my computer
5. Try rock climbing
7. Write my Masters Thesis
10. Finish my mom's afghan
11. Walk Chibo everyday for 2 weeks
12. Drink no soda for 1 month (excluding soda water)
14. Sell or donate crafting supplies not in use
15. Sign up for Bikram Yoga new member package and use it at least 2x
17. Get a basket or pannier for my bike
19. Apply for Mercy Corps business grant
20. Do deep breathing exercises every night for 1 week
23. Teach a QiGong class
26. Sell my Pathfinder
27. Go outrigger paddling again
28. Go for an overnight backpacking trip
29. Go backpacking for more than one night
30. Get caught up on filing and data entry
31. Take another obedience class with Chibo
34. Consult with a dermatologist
35. Consult with an adoption counselor
37. Pay off my Citibank credit card
38. Reduce by 1/2 my primary credit card
39. Request my credit report
40. Cancel out of date creditors
41. Finish updating my name with relevant resources (such as credit reporting agencies)
43. Take guitar lesson/class
44. Take dance class
45. Take ceramics/pottery class
46. Find an acceptable news source and read it daily for 2 weeks
47. Identify my favorite section of the bookstore
48. Eat no processed food for 1 week
49. Plant an herb garden (or at least 4 kinds in pots)
50. Plant a vegetable garden
51. Plant Tiger Lily's bulbs
52. Buy a book on Lily's or orchids
53. Read a book every week for 2 months
54. Crochet something to wear
55. Crochet something as a gift
56. Spend an important anniversary with mom
59. Hike 2x per week for 2 months
60. Visit Pete and Sara in DC/NY
65. Make a supplement list and take consistently for 2 weeks
66. Go 1 day without swearing
67. Set aside an afternoon 1x per month for 3 months to send birthday greetings and other mail
68. Make a reasonable budget
69. Find a good calcium supplement and add to regular supplement list
70. Put videos onto DVD
71. Learn to sharpen dad's knives
72. Renew SCUBA certification and go diving!
73. Learn 3 prayers
74. Memorize 1 poem
75. Floss nightly for 2 weeks
76. Teach Chibo to lay down
78. Consult financial advisor
79. Lose 25 pounds
80. Go to the zoo
81. Have a day of gracious living - tell people about the concept
83. Get a fish or bird
85. Go to my 10 year college reunion - scheduled 10/2009
86. Find out if Math/Science Center is still running and contact the director
87. Tune up sewing machine
88. Take a sewing class
89. Eliminate eggs from diet for 1 month
90. Make a recommended reading list for professional development
91. Find a resource to keep up to date on research (list serve etc.)
92. Go to AANP and/or NWNPC conferences
93. Drink 8 glasses of water daily for 1 month
95. Take the train to Seattle
96. Fast for 24 hours
97. Have a cocktail party - make a new drink for friends!
99. Get a new membership somewhere when Chinese Garden runs out
100. Go to Olympic National Forest
101. Visit Italy

Undone: 2 (<2%)
16. Ride my bike to school or clinic at least 5x in spring term
98. Go to the Garden at least 3x before membership runs out
I can get creative about how I word these, but the intention was really for 2007, so these are unlikely to get done. The thing about this project is that you can learn as much from the goals that don't get done as the ones that do. I learned that I really don't like bike commuting unless it's really easy and that I won't necessarily keep going somewhere just because it's free. (It's funny that I now volunteer there, love the garden like crazy and still don't really hang out there much.)

Reading List: January

Without guilt, I've taken more books out of the library. I'm enjoying reading again so much that I think it's a worthy distraction. Though I had a reminder today at work that I can do anything I set my mind to, including finishing my thesis. Considering hiring a thesis coach to help me get it out of my hands.

At any rate, I'm reading Love in the Time of Cholera, which was a slow start for me, but after the unfortunate death, when we go back into history, it gets really interesting. It's actually quite a sexy book.

From the library, I currently have:
Dragonflight, Freedom's Landing and The Girl Who Heard Dragons, all by Anne McCaffrey; Sundiver by David Brinn and Armegeddon's Children by Terry Brooks. I decided to expand my knowledge of fantasy authors and check these out.

Permission Slip: Never to Read Good Books

Life is too short for me to have long reading lists of books I think I should read, for whatever reason, including that I think I would enjoy it. I was going to just put the citation for my latest "note to self" book, but I decided to unload the entire reading list that I carry around in my Palm Pilot. I have permission NEVER to read these books. But, now that the list is here, I can always look here if I need something to read.

The book listed on my scrap of paper is from this Sunday's New York Times Business section in an article called Innovative Minds Don't Think Alike. The book is Made To Stick: Why Some Ideas Survive and Others Die by Chip and Dan Heath, 2007.

The sideways string of queries that comes to me with all my attention on reading these days is: what does an author have to do these days to get their book published? Is it easier or harder than in previous times? And do electronic media and the ease of inter library loan affect book sales greatly? Is publishing (of books) still a lucrative business? Will the authoring of books as a creative endeavor cease to be possible except for one's own edification?

The list from the Palm:
Diet for a New America
Diet for a Small Planet
Stolen Harvest
Diabetes Solution
Phantoms in the Brain
Walking the Tiger - Peter Levine
Passing - Nella Larson
Unweaving the Rainbow - Dawkins
Remarkable Recovery
Emotional Intelligence
Spontaneous Healing
Cancer as a Turning Point - LeShan
Minding the Body, Mending the Mind
Love and Survival
Reviving Ophelia
Prozac Nation
When Things Fall Apart - Pema Chodron
Getting Comfortable with Uncertainty - Pema Chodron
Silent Spring - Rachel Carson
The Art of Happiness
On Doctoring
The Minds of Billy Milligan
The lost art of Healing
Coyote Medicine
Chicken Soup and Other Folk Remedies
Rx for Living
Best American Science Writing
Botany of Desire
Potatoes not Prozac
Toxic Psychiatry - Breggon
Loving Kindness - Soltzman
Body Outlaws
The Body Project
CUNT
The Hero's Journey - Campbell
The Power of Myth - Campbell
The Four Fold Way: Walking the Paths of the Warrior, Teacher, Healer and Visionary - Anglese Arrien Ph.D.
Consumers Guide to Effective Environmental Choices - Union of Concerned Scientist
My Grandfathers Finger
Fried Green Tomatoes
The Mother Tongue - Bill Bryson
Significant Others - Craig Stanford
The White Bone
The Lost Sisterhood - Ingerham
Holy Blood, Holy Grail - Ingerham
The Benefactor - Susan Sontag
Death Kit - Susan Sontag
Volcano Lover - Susan Sontag
In America - Susan Sontag
I, etc. - Susan Sontag
Illness as a Metaphor - Susan Sontag
Refuge - Terry Tempest Williams
Secret Life of Bees
2150 AD
ProEvo
Cold Mountain
All About Love
The Kin of Ata are Waiting for You - Dorothy Bryant
The Way of The Peaceful Warrior - Dan Millman
The Giver - Lois Lowry
Waiting for Godot

Reading List

These one's are going back to the library:
Assassin's Quest
Moloka'i
Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World
Banewreaker
Godslayer
Rant: an oral biography of Buster Casey

1. Assassin's Quest - read almost the entire book before remembering that I had read it already. My memory seems to be a bigger problem than I thought. I can't remember most of high school, either. Seems that fantasy as a genre still has a great hold on me as well as people I wouldn't expect. While volunteering in the garden, several patrons asked about my book. I wouldn't have imagined some of them readers at all and definitely not of fantasy fiction. I had to hunt this author down several times using the Web-based librarians to help me, because I couldn't remember the her name or the name of any of the books in the series though I remembered loving them. The second time through was just as moving and I look forward to reading the next trilogy.

2. Moloka'i - about a patient with leprosy a.k.a Hansen's Disease living on Moloka'i Leprosy Colony in Hawai'i. A great combination of history, medicine, beautiful scenery (I love reading about Hawai'i and can't wait to visit!) and emotion.

3. Raising Fit Kids in a Fat World - I seem to have lost this book somewhere in the condo and it's overdue and on hold, so I can't finish my read, but since I don't have children, that's probably okay. I started reading it more for the ability to share it with my patients. It's Christian based philosophy, but I think it's accessible for non-Christians as well. The little I read seemed interesting and positive. A couple articles in this month's Utne also discussing our focus on fat - such an important and double edged topic.

4. Banewreaker and Godslayer - I loved Jaqueline Carey's Kushiel series, but I just didn't get into this one. I was interested to discover, however, that there are two authors with this same exact name.

5. Rant - I decided not even to start this one. His other books, especially the one where the people got locked into the old theater, made me nervous and I don't need anything to add to that these days!

Sometimes I Go To Extremes

The last few days have been a roller coaster. I felt really bad one day, so I called up my support network. A phone call and a happy hour later, I felt incredible - motivated, confident, ready for action. The next day, rush hour traffic plummeted me back down into Nothing-Good-Can-Come-Of-Anything Land. I'm a Libra, so this is a real problem for me, but it's definitely a pattern of my neurosis. Black and white thinking. I like to say "there's no good-bad, right-wrong," but clearly I believe or at least behave otherwise.

I started making a list of the good and bad of today (and yesterday and this week), but there really isn't a mathematical formula for deciding if the day is good or bad. It's just the feeling. How can you rate a one-way two-hour commute followed by slapping your dog (gasp!), but getting one item done on your to-do list? Well, that's pretty easy: crappy day. But how about fighting and making up with your partner, having a good business meeting in which you felt utterly inadequate and inexperienced, finishing your Christmas shopping and wrapping, but wishing you had done more and clearing off your desk, but knowing the really important item(s) that don't have sticky notes on the desk still didn't get done...? Well, I guess that sounds pretty crappy, too, but because it's filled with positives, I think this day still has hope. Maybe Alvin and the Chipmunks can help?

Missed Opportunities

I'm really worried about missed opportunities. I think I'm on the right track in my life. That is, I'm happy with the way things are going, but I still worry about missing:

• my nephews growing up
• my neice, full stop.
• anything good my dad has to offer
• the remaining moments of lucidity of my grandmother with Alzheimers
• the opportunity to help my sick family members
• my chance to connect with my brothers
• opportunities to live or work overseas
• falling in love with a stranger overseas
• girl time
• seasonal sales at my favorite store
• great recipes listed in Food Day
• using coupons before they expire
• phone calls from people I haven't talked to in a while
• great seasonal food specials at yummy restaurants
• the perfect opportunity to wear ____
• the right timing for a witty retort
• the look in someone's eyes that says more than their words
• a diagnosis
• an opportunity to get my affairs in order
• life.