Dear Diary

I started this post more than a week ago and just haven't gotten anywhere with it. There are two good reasons why:

1. Unfortunately, I looked at my sitemeter statistics and it seems as though nobody's out there reading. Sigh. So this is probably more of a diary entry than a blog. That shouldn't bother me but it does, kinda. I do write this for me but it's nice to think someone else might be out there somewhere too. (Ear craning to hear the resounding echoes of silence.)

2. My motivation is at an all time low to do much of anything. It's cold, there's tons of white fluffy stuff on the ground, it's January and I don't have much any steady writing work coming in. I've been monitoring ads (mostly on Craigslist) for additional writing work and part-time administrative assistant positions but haven't had any serious nibbles yet. There's one thing in the works but it's another week out before there's any progress on that. Double sigh.

Anyway, thanks for listening to me bellyache, dear Diary. Erin's dad would tell me to get off the WAAAAAAmbulance. He's right. No one can change these things except me. I'm so much more effective and productive when I'm busy. And I like myself much better then too.

There are plenty of projects and things I can do around the house to improve our home and stay busy but the less I do, the less I do. I need to find some new ways to trick myself into finding motivation and ambition. If you have any ideas, please let me know!

On to bigger and maybe more interesting topics.

I was perusing the shelves at Target last week looking for Static Guard, which seems to be a hot commodity in this land of cold, dry weather and fleece for all. Both Wegmans were sold out. Target did have three lonely cans on the shelves so I scored one. However, while I was looking for the Static Guard, I saw Clorox washer cleaner. Say whaaaaa? Why would you have to wash your washer? All you do is wash stuff in there, right? Unless you accidentally washed the cat one day or attempted to degrime an automobile engine in it. Then perhaps a washer cleaner would be called for. Anyway, it strikes me as an unnecessary product looking for a market. I'm sure it'll sell like hotcakes among the OCD crowd.

Erin has flattered me no end with her belief that I can get stains out of virtually any of the girls' clothing. When she's tried and failed, the stained article of little girl wear travels to our house so I can take a crack at getting the stains out. Most of the time I'm successful but there have been a few failures along the way. Anyway, I'm really flattered that she finds me the stain-getter-outer-wizard.

At the beginning of 2010, my New Year's resolution was to get in 10,000 steps a day. Every day. It didn't happen with the perseverance I had hoped to instill in myself but then again, I didn't do so badly. It looks as though I made 10,000+ (or the equivalent in biking or swimming) steps on at least 94 days out of 365. That's about 25 percent. I also took off about 13 pounds and have only put back on about 5 of those. Working on getting those back off, of course. Another sigh.

My biggest resolution for 2011 is to not procrastinate on things that need to be done along with shedding the remaining weight I want to lose. I don't procrastinate professionally but I'll do it in my/our personal life and I haven't ever figured out why. Here are some examples.

1. I need to call the plow guy to arrange plowing while we're gone on vacation. It will stay on a note for days or even weeks before I get around to calling him. 
2. We did our major Christmas at Thanksgiving weekend with our kids but I still didn't get thank you notes written until last week. What have I been waiting for?
3. I resigned from a volunteer board on which I was our church's representative. The church appointed a new representative in October and I was supposed to get in touch with her and transition all my stuff to her. The next meeting was in December. When did I finally call her? Two days before the December meeting. Again, why put this off when it was only to my benefit to be rid of the responsibilities. I don't understand myself sometimes.