New Year, New Planner

A couple of weeks ago I saw in an Instagram post that Costco had a Happy Planner starter kit available at a good price. It may have been $24.95, I don't remember now, but the planner itself would normally cost about that much, and the kit included stickers, washi tape, and a bunch of other stuff, and weekly inserts for two years, not just one.

I had resisted starting a Happy Planner because of all the stuff that was available for it -- the aforementioned stickers, and washi tape, etc. Every photo that I saw looked so complicated (and, yes, beautiful) that it seemed to be more of a scrapbooking process than a planner.

But different planners are needed at different times. When Bob was in the hospital, the Daytimer I had at the time was absolutely essential. I wrote down everything that was said, and was able to discuss it with other doctors, or just read it myself and, later, answer Bob's questions. The problem with it, though, was that it was so big. Too big, really, to carry every day. It was fine when I was going back and forth to the hospital, but once he came home and I got back to work, I didn't want to carry it everywhere.

I used a Levenger Circa agenda for awhile, then when I started working from home I completely downsized to a Moleskine weekly diary that I could carry in my purse. I intended to do that this year, too, with the backup of a cheap agenda that I could keep on my desk for notes. Than I saw the Instagram Costco post, aka, the gateway drug.

Once I saw how much fun the Happy Planner was, I went looking for more. I discovered that they had just come out with a mini version, and that turned out to be perfect for me. It's compact enough to carry around with me -- too large, really, for a purse, but I can slip it in a tote bag or carry it in my hand, and it's fine. One of my clients gave me a Michael's gift certificate for Christmas, so I got a pretty vinyl cover for it and lots of filler paper and stickers. I was sitting in bed one night recently and Bob asked me what I was doing (I believe he said, "Are you looking at cat videos?"). I said I was looking for stickers, and he said he could honestly say that it had never occurred to him to look for stickers . . .

There's a whole sisterhood of planner addicts out there. You can buy custom covers, dividers, decorated paper, and more stickers than you can imagine. You can also download free sheets of images to print yourself on sticker paper and cut out (yes, I bought some sticker paper, but haven't used it yet).

As I've followed these planner groups on various social media avenues, I've found that a lot of them have not just one planner, but many. One for fitness, one for social media planning, one for bible study, etc. Some have as many as seven going simultaneously. I can see the appeal, because it is a lot of fun, but that would never work for me. I need to have everything in one place (as a friend said on Facebook, "There can be only one."), and I don't need to be spending that much time playing around, anyway. To be fair, though, I think that most of them are actually doing it as a job -- making YouTube videos and things like that.

For now, I'm just having fun with it, figuring out how I want it to look and to work for me. And it is a lot of fun and I guess, secondarily, functional.

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A cold and broken Hallelujah

On Tuesday I got up at 3:30 a.m. to be at the polling place by 4:15. I helped set up the voting booths, put out signs, and set up the "Poll Pads," iPads that were used to scan voters' identification cards and confirm their registration so they could vote.

The polls opened at 6:00 a.m., and there were people waiting to vote when we opened the doors. There were never any long lines, but there was a steady stream of voters throughout the day. We greeted people as they came in, and held the door for voters on crutches and using walkers. We watched people take cell phone photos of their teenage children, voting for the first time. We asked a man waring a Trump tee shirt to cover it up or turn it inside out, since no one is allowed to wear or carry any kind of political messages inside the polling place.

In the middle of the day, a woman came out of the voting booth crying, and she said through her tears, "My mother told me all my life that I could do anything I wanted, but I never thought I would get the opportunity to vote for a woman for president." I got up from my seat and hugged her, and it was all I could do not to cry with her.

The polls closed at 7:00 p.m., and by the time we had sent the runner off with the digital cards from the machines, signed the paper tapes, and packed up all of the equipment, it was 8:00 p.m., and I was worn out.

When Bob woke me up on Wednesday morning to tell me the results of the election, it felt like a bad dream. I'm still feeling a little numb. I believe that our elected officials deserve respect, whether we agree with them or not; I guess we'll see whether that holds true over the new few months and years. I have my doubts, but I hope I'm wrong.

I'm glad that I had the opportunity to participate in the election process, and happy that everything went so smoothly, at least from our perspective. I understand that the advance voting that allowed us to have virtually no lines on election day caused the system at the county election office to overload, requiring a manual recount.

The system isn't perfect.

Leonard Cohen passed away today, and everyone has been quoting his lyric, "there is a crack in everything, that's how the light gets in." We just have to keep looking for the light.

Challenging

It has been a challenging few months.

I was laid off in April from a job that I loved. I had described it as my dream job. It had gotten to the point where it wasn't exactly a "dream" anymore, but as dysfunctional as it was, I still felt like it was my family, and never imagined that they would throw me out like the trash. It wasn't a complete surprise, I'd been getting some rumblings that all was not well, but it definitely felt like a betrayal. In addition to losing my job, I lost some friends. It happens. I'm not sure why I thought it would never happen to me. I guess I learned that lesson.

The timing turned out to be fortuitous, though, I guess. My sister had to have cataract surgery on both eyes and couldn't drive, so I became her designated driver, taking her to eye doctor appointments, surgeries, and follow-ups over a several week period. She lives fairly far away from me, and the eye doctor was further still, but I enjoyed spending time with her, and I was glad that I was able to do it.

Right after that, my dad told us that they needed our help in figuring out what to do as far as moving into an assisted living situation. My sister and I spent a LOT of time and energy researching elder care places, and visiting the ones that seemed promising. My folks, along with my sister and my brother and his family visited the one that seemed to us to be the best (I was sick and didn't go), they made their choice to move there, and then came all of the moving stuff. And both my mom and my dad ended up in the emergency room a couple of times during that period, so there's that.

It has been a pretty rocky move. They're not really very happy there, but I know it's a HUGE traumatic event, and they're probably doing as well as could be expected, even though we didn't expect it to be so hard.

Then, one day after the move, when I was out at their old house getting something for them, I stopped at Quik Trip to get gas, and my car died and wouldn't start back up. I had to call my insurance company's "roadside assistance," and they sent out a tow truck that took me to a repair shop. They had a hard time figuring out what the problem was, but they eventually tracked it to an electrical problem that they fixed, but told me that it probably isn't completely fixed, so don't go on any long trips. And that was around $500.


During this same time period, our refrigerator started failing. Ice wasn't freezing well, and it wasn't keeping things cool enough. So we had to buy a new refrigerator. I researched that, and found the most inexpensive one I could that would do the job, and it ended up being another $500 or a little bit more. Added to all the miles that I've been driving, and all the gasoline, it's been a really expensive few months, especially since I don't have an actual job anymore.

And now Bob's car is in the shop, and we're expecting that to be a big expense. I'm hoping not, but we shall see.

I was an election worker for the Primary Election last week, which was interesting and fun, although it was a really long day. We had to be there at 5:30, and left around 8:00. I just thought it would be something kind of fun, and it was. I went to a half day training class a couple of weeks before, but I was still nervous that I wouldn't know what to do. The primary was fairly slow, which was good, since it gave me and the other new workers a chance to learn how to work the machines without there being a lot of pressure. I'm planning to work the General Election in November, which I'm sure will be MUCH more hectic.

Now that the folks are moved and fairly stable, I'm starting to focus more on getting a job. I had hoped that I could stay home, but with all the extra expenses, it hasn't worked out that way, unfortunately. But it will work out, one way or another. It always does.

Ebook obsession

I read a lot of books; I'm sure that's no surprise to anyone. I read over one hundred books a year, sometimes more. This year I'm on track to read about two hundred. I don't buy physical books anymore. I really love ebooks. I remember when I had a Palm Pilot, I was thrilled to discover that you could read books on it.

Then along came the Kindle. I had one of the first ones that I eventually sold to my sister once I got an iPhone. Then I got another, better (and cheaper) Kindle, and then a Kindle Fire, and of course an iPad. Now, with the iPhone 6S, I read almost exclusively on my phone now. It's always with me. I don't have to worry if I have a book in my bag for downtime, I always have several hundred in my phone.

I read while waiting in doctors' offices, I read in line at the car wash, I read while eating in restaurants if I'm eating alone. I have felt guilty at times for buying so many ebooks, and I've gotten more picky about them lately. I subscribe to several free and discount ebook lists, and I download a lot of free and 99 cent books.

For the new release bestsellers, I usually put my name on the waiting list at the library, but I would really rather buy them. But I can wait rather than pay $15 for the ebook.

All this is leading up to the Apple pricefixing antitrust lawsuit settlement. The suit had to do with Apple allegedly conspiring with book publishers to charge artificially high prices. According to 9to5Mac, "Customers will receive $6.93 for every ebook that was a New York Times bestseller and $1.57 for every other ebook" sold by certain publishers.

So, I don't have any idea how many books I bought, but I got an Amazon credit of almost $350 in my account yesterday. So yeah, my ebook obsession actually paid off!