I thought this online program was interesting.  Not sure how much I’ll really use it but the concept of “Mind Mapping” is very intuitive and easy to do. 

On this site mindmeister.com, you can sign up for a free basic account and create various “maps”… You just click and type and it automatically builds the “tree” out as you go. Mindmeister allows you to share your maps publicly if you want or keep them private. If you share them publicly you can choose to add a password to them so that your maps won’t appear on mindmeister’s public list but just appear places you want – like me posting this to my blog. You can also collaboratively work on the maps like you can with google docs (oh Jeanine….).  It’s an interesting and quick way to make a list or just brainstorm. Remember those brainstorming sessions you did back in school?

Anyway, I just thought this was a cool site. 

….MY OFFICE!!!

In my attempt to be a better blogger (definitely not housekeeper), I’m going to share the nightmare that is my office.  I took these photos just yesterday (and yes not much has changed) to show Jeanine the pit that is my front room.

Awhile back Brenda Pinnick did a messy office contest from her blog and I sent photos for that too.  Ironically those photos weren’t nearly as bad as what I have here….

We do not have a basement in this house.  I used to use Dan’s room as my office – and that worked well because I could close the door and leave the disaster in there to be dealt with when I was ready.

But now the kids have their own rooms so even though we have 4 bedrooms, Dan has taken over what used to be my office and we got rid of the playroom when the girls got their own rooms.  So this has brought my office out to the front room as well as all the toys.  Yes… this is why I don’t have people over to my house.  LOL!

Ironically the rest of the house isn’t bad.  I spent a good chunk of a Friday two weeks ago reorganizing my bedroom.  Decided my pile of clothes that I usually stack on my dresser or on the dogs cage had to go.  So I reorganized the way my bedroom works and it has been a very good thing.  The next day I spent the entire Saturday cleaning the kitchen like a crazy person.  I even moved the stove and cleaned the floor under it – wow what a nightmare that was…  I was a mad cleaning whore… that doesn’t happen very often so I ride the wave when it does.

But I am afraid that the wave is ending with the cleaning and what I have above will stay.  Jeanine is coming next Monday to stay with me for a week for CHA.  While we don’t clean for each other when we visit – we don’t mind that we are pigs – this front room is so bad that I will have to do something about it.

There is nothing like walking into the kitchen thinking that your coffee has been brewing and is ready for you only to find that the coffee filter was not in correctly and you have water sitting in the filter and half a cup of coffee in your holder… sigh…

I use the Gevalia “Gevalia Coffee for Two“ since I am the only one in this house that drinks coffee.  (Got it for free when I joined their club – actually this is my 2nd one been using this coffee pot for about 2-3 years now).  It’s easy because I don’t have to make a whole pot of coffee.  I can make one of these jumbo cups just for myself.  The coffee maker also takes regular coffee (not those pad things) so I can use whatever coffee I want.   I tried those single cup makers that came with the pads awhile back but hated that I couldn’t use my own coffee.

I have never actually used the right side of this coffee maker.  lol!  I only make myself a large cup.   I see they have a personal maker similar to this.  Not sure you can get that one for free though.

I came across an article this morning before I posted that last blog post.  (2 blog posts in one day?  WTF?)

The article hit the nail on the head for me and my “crazy ass scoped projects”… How to Actually Execute Your To-Do List: or, Why Writing It Down Doesn’t Actually Get It Done

This one fits me to a tee…

REASON #2 -  “I am terrified of certain tasks, or of working on certain projects.”

 

There are usually a few reasons those tasks or projects terrify you:

 

They are too intimidating in size or scope. To combat this, break it down into tinier chunks — actually, just the first tiny chunk (as David Allen tells us to do in GTD). It’s intimidating to do a task like “Create report on X” or “Make a yearly plan for Z”. But if you just need to do the first physical action, which might be, “Call Frank for figures on X” or “Make a list of 10 things we should accomplish this year”, it’s much easier to tackle and less intimidating.

 

>>>  OMG!  Right on the head… can you say storyhelpers anyone?

 

You don’t really know how to do it. If you haven’t done something a million times before, it is unfamiliar and unknown to you. And we are all terrified of that. The solution? First, get more information — learn as much as you can about it. That might require some research on the Internet, or talking to someone who’s done it before, or reading a book, or taking a class. Whatever you need to do, make the unknown become the known. Second, practice it as much as possible. Once you’ve learned how to do something, you need to practice it to become good at it. Don’t practice the whole thing — practice individual skills required to do a task or project, one at a time, until you’re good at those skills. Once you’ve mastered them, it will no longer be terrifying.

 

>>> I am the queen of research…  I research until I am so overwhelmed with all the options that I just don’t do it… I can spend hours researching something… case in point – scripts for portfolio/gallery showings… I wanted to completely automate the portfolio to make adding additions easier but in the master plan to find this “automation” and still have a unique portfolio style I found nothing of what I really I wanted… hours wasted and I still hardcoded it… sorry Jeanine.

 

You are focusing on negative aspects. You might be focusing on how hard something is, or on all the obstacles. Try looking at the positive aspects instead. Focus on what a great opportunity this project represents … an opportunity to learn, to get better at something, to make more money, to work on a relationship, to gain some long-term recognition, to improve your advancement opportunities. This is similar to the “get excited about it” item in the previous section. If you look at the opportunities, not the problems, you will be less terrified and more likely to want to do it.

 

>>> Negative?  Who me???  LOLOLOL!  Terrified?  Who me???  With me “negative” always equates to “perfect”.  I am a perfectionist at heart and if it can’t be what I am envisioning it just doesn’t get done.

Wow!  It’s hard putting all this out there…. admitting you are not perfect even if only to yourself (and my one reader.. lol!)

My first step to recovery… admitting I have a problem.

My #1 phobia – “Fear of the ridiculously out of scope heavily researched project before even starting that leads to further procrastination and eventual depression after seeing all the similar projects that have been already been done better than you could do hence why even start the project at all.”

There I said it.  whew…  I feel better now.  I think… maybe I need a little research… lol! 

FINALLY got some portfolio stuff up for Kristy Valshan… FINALLY!  It’s only been what A FRICKIN’ YEAR?!?!?!

I don’t know why I have such a hard time designing my own websites.  I always have.  And all the items that I wanted to originally put on the KV website just made the website grow into a monster before it even got off the ground (sounds like so many ideas I have).  I have no problem with the conception of monster projects… it’s the execution of them I get derailed on.  The project seems so intensive before I even get started that I ended up not doing it.

Jeanine and I decided about 3 weeks ago to change the KV site to be very simple and put only 3-4 designs out in the portfolio. You think that would be easy for me?  yeah… think again…  Even a “simple” site took two full revisions and I still was not happy with the results… the shell changed, the design was awful and there STILL was no portfolio out there.  sigh… (you may have seen the one over the past two weeks – the first didn’t stay up past 2 hours)

Not sure what happened to me this weekend but I just started working on it… thought we should have a bit of color.  While I really like a black and white design because it doesn’t clash with our designs – we can put any color palette out there and it’ll still match – it really doesn’t matter much without a portfolio now does it?  But my two “simple” renditions were way too blah looking.. Not that what I have out there now is any great shakes… but I think it’s much better… I actually enjoyed working on the site to the point of even adding tracking links for our linked in accounts, facebook, twitter and blogs.

So my weekend ended up being devoted to the KV website.  It certainly was not planned that way.  But once I started getting on a roll Saturday morning I just rode the wave… It was the first time in a very very long time that I actually stayed up late to work.  So about 25 hours later (seriously that’s what I spent between Sat & Sun)… we have a nice site with a FRICKIN’ PORTFOLIO!!!  WOO HOO!!  About damn time….

EDIT – I will add this though… the KV site had already gone through one big content rendition so this time I was able to just change the design out (keeping all the new content – like bios and tradeshow info etc.) and just add the portfolio section.  Maybe that’s why this was better??  Some of it was already done so it wasn’t completely from scratch… lol!  Just needed to be inspired I guess… or maybe just enjoy it for a change…

It’s early today…. haven’t blogged in so long… haven’t twittered in days… I don’t know what it is about blogging and twittering but my intentions are to do it but then I don’t.   Maybe it’s because inherently I am a very shy person.   It’s always interesting when other people say their shy but then you see them out in public and shy is not the word I’d ever use to describe them.  I never know what to say… even on my own damn blog.  “Who cares” is always running through my head.  Maybe it’s because most of the blogs I read promote business or are very funny.  I wish I was funny and had something funny or intelligent to write.  But alas I am not and do not…

I should make blogging and twittering a real part of my day (like an exercise) so I can start working out that “shy” and “why would anyone care” feelings I always get when I do these things.  Who cares that I just got my coffee and I’m up at 5:30am?  lol… I have always had that feeling of being thought of as stupid when I open my mouth so most of the time (unless I really know you) I do not say much at all.  I think it’s part of what being shy is.  I wouldn’t say I don’t have confidence in myself because in a lot of ways I am very confident.  When I am confident in something, I can talk easily about it. It’s just when I am not confident about the topic or feel out of place I shut up which makes it even worse. Then people think I am stuck up which is very far from the truth.  Jeanine and I gave away some Kristy Valshan badges for the upcoming CHA show and I’d imagine we’ll run into you all (you know who you are and might even read this… maybe…lol).. so when you see me and I don’t say much of anything, it really isn’t because I don’t like you.  It’s because I have this severe “my mouth does not move in groups” problem.

Moving on…

Dan  has been climbing out of his crib the past week.  Yes, this time around I put no rush on moving him out of his crib like I did with the girls. But even with the girls, they were later moving out of their cribs then their cousins.  Dan is another year later at that… He is 3 1/2 right now.   He still naps (not every day but he goes down for nap every day) and I so don’t want to lose that right now.  He actually needs his naps.  When he doesn’t get one he is horrible.   So he has been climbing out and yesterday morning I heard a loud thump around 7am.  No crying through.  Then I heard his door creak open and shut.  When Rick went to get him he had climbed back into his crib.  lol!  So I think it was time for a big boy bed.

I was going to pick up one at Walmart (one of those little beds) like we did with the girls.  Jessica was a constant crib jumper.  She would jump and jump and jump and finally bent the spring frame so bad that we had to get a new bed.  But after talking to Jeanine about Calista’s bed (didn’t even realize it was her crib w/o the railing at least I sure didn’t remember that – then again I don’t seem to remember anything these days), I decided to try removing the railing on Dan’s crib instead of spending money for a special toddler bed.

So I removed the railing around 5:30pm last night and for the next 30-45 minutes Dan ran around the house screaming at the top of his lunges that his bed was broke and I had to fix it.  lol!  Ironically what finally got him settled down is Sammie took a turn laying down in it and Rogue (leave it to the damn dog) came up and licked her nose.  Sammie then told Dan that one of the benefits of not having the railing was he could pet Rogue easier.  SOLD!  Didn’t have to tell him twice… he and that dog are glued at the hip….  So after that he tried the “new” bed he wanted Jess to lay with him for awhile.  Very strange.

When it was bedtime, we only had one incident of hearing him get out of bed.  Told him to get back in and that was it.  He did and went to sleep. We have been lucky with all of our kids when it comes to going to bed and naps.  We really haven’t had many problems.  I think part of that is we have never made bedtime a big thing or naps a big thing.   We do not have a “routine” for either and never have.  I think our routine is that every night at 8pm it’s time for bed and they all go.  Every day after lunch it’s time for a nap…  Some nights we’ll hear talking in the rooms but nothing too bad.  Some days Dan won’t really nap but that’s okay too.  When he is tired he will put himself to bed and I know that isn’t something you see every day.

Anyway… I am proud of my little man and how he adjusted to his big boy bed last night.  I wonder what the nap will bring today though…

Random Items Currently on my Desk….

Camara
MP3 Player
Wallet
Stereo Remote
License GLOBAL Mag