Thursday, March 06, 2008

What Can Be Better?

The Daughter is home for a couple of days. I just love spending time with my beautiful, talented, clever, funny offspring. (The Son fits all of those, too- but substitute "swarthy" for "beautiful.") (I love spending time with him, too- but he's not on break til next week.)

We both have work to do, so amidst a couple of appointments (Lasik followup and a lock-trimming), we're going to hunker down in the family room with a bunch of DVD's, a pot of coffee, a case of Diet Coke, and our laptops. Amazing how much work I've done during my "week off." I don't mind, as long as I can be with The Daughter during the couple of days she's home.

I had a lunch meeting at a colleague's house yesterday (try the Panera turkey panini with spinach and artichoke---YUM!!!). We're working on a project and she has two beautiful 9-month old twin girls. Much easier to do things on her turf. It was a very productive meeting, and we're well on our way with the project.

I've also been working on some Powerpoint presentations, and I'm having a ball. I figured out how to put in music and use a lot of the effects to the max. There are a lot of important things to teach and communicate at the hospital right now, and it makes me feel good to put it into a form that people enjoy experiencing. This is very time consuming, but it's like play to me-- many hours put to good use.

I used to feel a bit guilty about the "play factor" associated with doing these projects, until My Sister#4 turned me on to Brat Factor. It's done by Pam & Peggy- the Sidetracked Sisters who spawned FlyLady. (Hey, Erin-- you seeing a theme here?) I keep hoping it'll kick in-- baby steps.

Anyway-- Brat Factor is based on the premise that we all have an "inner brat". (I named mine Edith Anne- remember Laugh In?).
The motto is:
"If it isn't fun, it won't get done"

(Now I have to buckle down and get one of my lectures finalized. JUST DO IT!- And MAKE IT FUN!!!)

On the knitting front: I've made pretty good progress on the first hand towel while watching college basketball on the tube. (Jane-- that's telly, not subway to you). March Madness should be a very productive time. Once I just paid attention to the knitting and not reading the pattern all the time, it decided to work with me.

I'm looking forward to "before" and "after" pictures with it, because there appear to be a lot of holes where knit meets purl, and small irregularities because the linen fiber is a bit irregular and pretty stiff. It's going to bloom and relax, I know... It's a nice travelling project in lieu of socks and mittens. Not too big, not too heavy, and makes more visible immediate gratification progress on 5's than socks on 0's.

And sometime soon I need to overcome my fear of sleeve caps and finish the darn Tilted Duster so I can WEAR it!!! (I guess I need to focus on how much fun it will be to have it finished.)

Sometime soon.

Random pic of the day:

Double rainbow somewhere in Ohio near Cleveland.

2 comments:

Jane said...

Thankyou for the translation it did make me smile. Good to spend some time with daughters, we did this weekend. Your knitting sounds good too, went looking for a pic on the web to see what a tilted duster looks like as i had forgotten! theres a lot of knitting in it. Jane x

jody said...

It was good to have you come by the blog-I have been kind of lame on the blog upkeep and reading lately, too! But I must say, all your pics of Hilton Head made me sigh and wish it were the first week of June when we will be there!!so...far...away...