When the new neighbors moved in over the summer, they brought their two dogs with them. Sid, our dog, had finally gotten used to Rick’s three dogs, but suddenly they were gone and two completely new dogs were in their place. As you probably know, Sid’s barking problem returned.

We started giving him treats when he was quiet. Every time he went out and didn’t bark, we gave him a treat. He learned quickly. Once the barking problem went away, we eased up on the treats. He had started thinking that every time he went outside he would get a treat. This amounted to Sid begging to go outside every hour.

I started giving him a treat only when the other dogs barked but he didn’t. That has worked for the last three weeks or so. Sid has been very quiet despite the constant barking of the neighbor dogs. Then, I found out the truth…

Every time Sid goes outside now, he silently taunts the dogs next door by jumping on the fence. Sid doesn’t bark, he just keeps taunting until they do. Man, I thought I was training the dog not to bark. I didn’t know he was training me to give him treats.

No more treats for Sid…

Maggie is on my lap. She is purring loudly and my arms are wrapped around her to reach the keyboard. Somehow, this has become a normal routine. She purrs on my lap and I type despite her. It’s symbiotic in a way because her purring calms me down and my lap is a warm pillow. Anyone who could see me here typing would think that it’s an uncomfortable situation, but we both seem to enjoy it.

I remember my mom’s cat, Patches, used to sit by her typewriter when my mom was heavy into studying for school. I always thought that Patches was attention-starved, but now, I don’t think that was true. She just wanted to be where my mom was just like Maggie is with me. I’ve never had a cat like this before and it makes me happy to enjoy her company.

Photo Note: It took 50 snaps to make this one good picture. I didn’t know how hard it is to take a picture of myself until today.

It looked like a huge snowstorm yesterday. The snowflakes were flying and for a few minutes, we had a whiteout. I could barely see across the street. By the time 5pm rolled around, you could barely tell anything had happened. There wasn’t even anything to shovel off the walk. It had all melted by the evening.

That’s how this winter has been. There has been a lot of hype, but not a lot of snow. I’m grateful for it, really. If this had been one of those “buried in snow” winters, we might have decided to move to San Diego after all. It’s like my city knows when it’s on thin ice.

When we touched down on the island of Kauai, I was shocked by the red mountains. “It feels like home,” I said to Mike. Mike took a deep breath of the watery air and replied, “Except more humidity.”

I used to think that I could live on Kauai with those red mountains that are so much like mine at home, but now I know I couldn’t. I wouldn’t be able to see the shock of white snow on those red mountains and it would feel like home, stranded in an everlasting spring.

Right after I took this picture, I turned around and got back into the Beetle. I turned the heat on full, blasting my face with the dry warmth. Winter may be unpleasant, but it can be so beautiful.

Photo Note: This picture was taken on the way up Parley’s Canyon. We were taking a drive to Park City, but the contrast of the red rock and white snow made me pull the car over at the side of I-80 and take a few pictures.

I had a busy day yesterday. I got caught up on a lot of things. Mike and I were feeling well enough to clean the kitchen and get some things put away from our trip. I hate to be behind, but I’m constantly falling behind with my weblogs. My goal is to have a two week backlog, but I have yet to be able to achieve it. I don’t know if it’s too much work for me or if I have some sort of block that keeps me from wanting to get too far ahead.

I find that my entries feel really dated to me when they get more than a week ahead. It’s not like the stuff that I’m writing is time sensitive. If I ramble about what it feels like to work at home, it doesn’t matter if you see it the day I write it or a week later, but to me, it feels dated. The truth of the matter is it doesn’t matter what it feels like to me. I’m not the audience.

You are the audience.

To this day, I am amazed that anyone even wants to read my writing every day. Sometimes I’m able to write something that I feel proud of, but most of the time, my entries have a “mind dump” feel to them. I feel like I’m just putting all my thoughts haphazardly on the screen.

Well, thank you.

Thank you for coming here every day to read what I have to say. I know that it’s hit and miss, but I’m grateful to every one of you that religiously hit my site. I swear that I’ll live up to your loyalty someday.

For the last few days I’ve been sick. It felt like a head cold, but my energy level was so low that all I did was sleep for three days in a row. Last night at about 9 pm, it all faded away and my energy level finally felt normal. I am up and moving around today. I don’t have enough pep to actually exercise today, but I think I’ll be able to master a shower and maybe even a trip to the grocery store.

I wrote on The Gadgets Page about this website.

• The Gadgets Page » Old Film, Old Cameras

Gene McSweeney will find old cameras, develop whatever film is in them and post them. He also is a photographer and posts his own photography. He has recently added a “What’s New” page so that you can easily see his most recent exploits.

• What’s New

This new additions page makes keeping up on his website much easier. Give yourself a few hours and enjoy the beauty of his photography and found film.

I don’t know the politics behind the Foundation for Global Community, but I like the Wombat…

• Foundation for Global Community – The Wombat

This is your home. It’s the only one you’re gonna get.

These guys, they’re your neighbors. You have to get along with them. They’re not going away.

All this stuff is all connected. Everything is connected. They all depend on one another. If you ignore that you’re doomed.

Working from home isn’t as difficult this time around. My writing hits in spurts and I can get a lot done in a short amount of time. When I was a real estate agent, working from home was a nightmare. I would do anything to avoid having to cold call. I guess it’s easier when I actually like what I do for a living. I always felt some guilt when I was cold calling. I didn’t want to receive the kind of calls that I was dishing out, and I felt icky about it.

When I’m not writing, I browse the Internet, crochet and exercise. I have to be careful. I know that I can work hard enough to suck all the creativity out of myself for months. I need to work as much as I can when the words are flowing, but I also need to remember to leave things alone when they’re not. Treating myself gently is the only way to keep the writing flowing easily.

Of course, having so many different subjects to write about helps, also. I have Starling Fitness, The Quotations Weblog, and The Gadgets Page to prompt my writing. We also just launched Starling Travel, so I can write about my past travels and any restaurants I visit during the week. The specialized weblogs are actually much easier to write for than Pick Me! Since I can write about anything here, it’s actually harder to think about what to write. Logic says it would be easier to write, but it’s not. I guess human life doesn’t conform to my Vulcan Philosophy.

Mike keeps asking me when I’m going to go crazy and start moving around the furniture. I don’t think it will happen this time. Sure, furniture may be moved, but I don’t think I’ll lose it like I did last time I was self employed. For months, I was working full time AND writing full time. Now that my only responsibility is the writing, I feel relaxed and happy. I’m so grateful for this opportunity.

I found this picture on New Year’s Day outside of Tres Hombres restaurant on Highland and 33rd. My first instinct was to pick it up and keep it. Mike didn’t think that was a good idea.

“Don’t take that. Whoever dropped it might come back looking for it.”

I looked at my find, turning it over in my hand. I suddenly felt guilty.

“Fine, I’ll put it back, but if it’s still there when we get out of the restaurant, I’m taking it.”

Mike imitated my voice,

“They better find it or it’s going on the Internet!”

I nodded. It sure is.

This picture is strange to me because it’s obviously a home party. They are drinking out of two different kinds of disposable cups. There are chips in a bowl. There is an ashtray in the forefront, so it can’t be a restaurant in Utah. Smoking’s not allowed.

Yet, the decoration of the area makes me think it’s a restaurant. There are tiki torches, bamboo all along the back wall and a parrot hanging upside down from a perch. Where are these guys?

Is this a Halloween Party? The “first hombre” on the left is wearing a head scarf, a big gold earring and a cape. He seems to be the only one dressed up, but a Halloween Party might explain the decor. Plus, some of the disposable cups are black. It’s really hard to find black cups unless it’s Halloween or you go to extra trouble of going to a party store.

Most importantly, there are no women in this picture. When I was in high school, this is the kind of party I would find myself at, pretending to drink, so they wouldn’t spike my Diet Coke. A party with all guys sitting around a table talking too loudly. I was at so many of those parties during my teen years that I couldn’t even count them.

When I look at the full size picture, I can see many more details: I just realized that it’s not potato chips in the bowl. They’re lemon wedges. I see one lemon peel sitting on the table; the meat has been eaten out of the wedge. There is a case of Coca-Cola on the far left of the picture.

It’s definitely a Halloween Party. One of the smaller disposable cups has pumpkins on it. Man, I feel sorry for the pirate on the left. He’s the only dude that dressed up. I hope there was a prize. Nope, I’m wrong. He’s not the only one dressed up. The arm in the forefront snubbing out a cigarette is dressed up as a prisoner with a striped shirt.

Based on the condition of the photo, it has been sitting outside for a while. It’s not like someone dropped it on the way out of the restaurant just before we came along. The picture is faded, warped and dirty. How strange that I would find a Halloween picture. All things Halloween are drawn to me. I take them under my wing and give them a place to breathe.

Yesterday was our first day without CES at Las Vegas. When we planned this trip, we decided to take an extra day in Vegas to relax. If you asked me, I would tell you that I relaxed, but my relaxing looks an awful lot like work. We went to Pottery World, where I took a series of gorgeous pictures that will show up on Starling Travel on Wednesday. You get to see them here first because you’re my favorite readers.

We then went to the Ethel M Chocolate Factory and Cactus Garden, where Mike took lots of pictures that will show up on Starling Travel this morning. Then we looked around the new factory stores in the heart of Las Vegas. It was a day just as full of activity, picture taking and writing as the last week did, but somehow, I felt it was relaxing.

Maybe I relax best when I’m working…

CES ended last night at 4pm. I know for a fact that I didn’t get to see everything. I’m shocked that CNN’s entry about the five things that they saw at CES has absolutely zero correlation with the things I found the most interesting at CES. That’s the beauty of being able to read multiple reviews of an event like this. Each person sees the world through different eyes. The best part of the Internet is that you get to see the world through the eyes of so many different people.

Mike and I are spending a couple more days in Las Vegas to cool down from the show. This trip has been six days of work from the moment we’ve woken up to the moment we went to sleep. Sometimes we were up late into the night writing entries and talking excitedly about what we had seen. The word invigorating usually accompanies the word tiring.

So, the next couple of days, I’m going to chill out. I’ll still write every day, but I won’t be filling my mind with new data for six hours a day and exhausting my body with as much walking. I hope the city is calm and abandoned this week so I can just wander and enjoy quietly.

Salt Lake City is the home of Franklin Covey. They are the “7 Habits of Highly Effective People” people. The entire Franklin Covey philosophy has somehow become so intertwined with the LDS church here that sometimes I think that Franklin Planners are the LDS approved day planner. Their advertising campaign right now is “Resolutions Begin With The End In Mind.”

Somehow, even though the Mormon population loves Franklin Covey, I love them too. They appeal to my sense of organization. I can organize with my Treo software, but it’s just hard to say goodbye to the secure feeling of a paper organizer. I haven’t had a Franklin refill for several years, but this year, I decided to use Franklin for my personal journal.

I write in a personal journal every morning before I even touch the computer. Starting this year, I have been writing in the notes section of the Franklin Planner pages. I chose the 8 1/2″ X 11″ size (Monarch), hoping that there would be enough room for me to write every day. So far, it has been alright. I’m not using the Appointment Schedule to plan my day. I still use my Treo for that. My To-Do list consists of “Write blog entries” so I don’t really have a lot of tasks to check off lists. I am keeping track of how many blog entries I write every day in it. I’m also writing the exacts of my exercise because the program I use on the Treo to keep track of my food journal doesn’t allow me to write the details.

It’s amazing to me how excited I have been about this. I was eagerly awaiting the first of the year so I could start writing in my new journal. It doesn’t really make sense to me. Last year, I wrote on pages that I had created for myself after years of trying out different journals. For the last four years, I have written on 5 1/2″ X 8 1/2″ paper. Now, I’m using the 8 1/2″ X 11″ form factor. I don’t know why this excites me, but it does.

I could keep my journal entries on the computer or even on my Treo. I could write my blog totals on a piece of paper hung on my desk. I could write my exercise in the notes section on my exercise program. I have so many options, so I have no idea why this is appealing to me. I guess I’ll try it for a year and see how I like it. If it works out, I’ll keep it.

I am sitting in the Kodak booth’s Press Area. There is Wi-Fi here, so I can connect online. I’ve had trouble with connecting to the Internet with the Bluetooth on my cell phone. Mike blames it on my notebook computer. I don’t know what the problem is. I guess I haven’t made the appropriate sacrifices to the Electronic Gods lately.

My blue badge allows me to sit on the chairs and use their Internet access. I’m grateful just to sit right now. That’s how tired I am. We have been walking for six hours a day for the last three days. I am just grateful for a place to sit and write.

I feel a little bit like royalty because I have access to a little area that no one else does. No one except the hundreds of other press people here. In the CES press room, every computer is manned, every ethernet cable is connected, and every chair is full. There is no place to sit in the press room, much less than get any work done. I have been doing most of my writing while sitting on the convention room floor and in the hotel room.

There is so much to see that I will be able to write daily entries for The Gadgets Page for weeks. I feel bad for not being the one to “break” all these great stories. There’s just no way for Mike and I to compete with the fifteen guys here from Engadget. The truth of the matter is, I’m not here to compete with them. I’m here just to find the interesting things and report on them. Engadget gets it “all”, I get it interesting.

For now, I’m just happy to have quiet place to sit and access the Internet.

I saw this entry on PostSecret last Sunday and it screamed to me. I have the exact same problem. Rothko? Nope, I can do a fake Rothko. I got one hanging in my living room right now. Picasso? Yep, I can’t even try to do that double face stuff. I don’t like how it looks, but I consider it art. Pollock? Nope, I can dribble paint all over huge canvases. The only thing that stops me is the fear of making a mess.

Ironically, I enjoy the work of the “non-artists” far more than the “real artists.” If I can figure out a way to do it, then I want to observe it more.

On another note, has anyone noticed the Modigliani imitations that are all over the place lately? At Prints Plus, Bed Bath & Beyond and even at my local art shop, there are Modigliani rip-offs all over the place. That’s another form of art that I don’t really care for, but since I can’t recreate it, it must be art. When I pointed out the many places with the Modigliani-inspired pieces, Mike just shrugged. Does noone care about this? It kind of bugs me that a bunch of fake art ripping off someone’s very distinctive style is floating around.

It’s like the Thomas Kinkade rip-offs that are everywhere. I worked in a place that had a three Thomas Kinkade rip-offs hanging on the wall in front of my face. The were hung in an uneven row (the middle one was slightly higher than the other two). I did my best not to look at them, but sometimes I was so bored that it was either stare at them or the person at the desk across from me. I hated those three paintings, just for being crappy rip-offs of a bland artist. Sure, I can’t do it, so he MUST be an artist, but that doesn’t make me like his work any better.

PostSecret‘s beneficiary is the National Hopeline Network. It is a 24-hour hotline (1 (800) SUICIDE) for anyone who is thinking about suicide or knows someone who is considering it.

Every morning, Maggie spends some time in the window sill. Sometimes I wonder if she is getting her “light therapy.”

I kind of thought my Press Pass would be like a magic card that can get me into any place. We came a couple of days early to CES so that we could attend the Press Conferences that were available. The first one that we wanted to attend was the Panasonic Press Conference at 3pm yesterday. It was being held at the Panasonic booth on the exhibition floor.

We were excited about what Panasonic has to show us, so we arrived a little early. That was probably our mistake. We tried to go on the exhibition floor, but we were stopped by the guard. He was firm. “Exhibitors Only. No Press.” We tried to explain that there was a press conference on the exhibition floor. I showed him my list. He just repeated the same story, “No Press. Exhibitors Only.”

We tried the Information Desk. He called someone on the phone who told him that press could only go onto the exhibition floor when escorted by an exhibitor. He suggested that we could call the exhibitor. I began to realize that the employees of the Las Vegas Convention Center were completely clueless. He said that we might be able to get a yellow wristband from the exhibitor. We tried to explain it to him again,

“You see, the Press Conference is in booth 9405.”

“Press isn’t allowed.”

“But it’s a PRESS Conference.”

“Yeah, they don’t allow Press in there.”

We tried the information booth at the front of the building, but that was just as useless. The big kahuna in the blue shirt there said that we could get one of the mysterious yellow wristbands from the Press Room. We had gotten our badges at the Press Room, but there had been no mention of any yellow wristbands.

We walked back over to the Press Room and asked the woman in the blue shirt about the yellow wristbands. She said, “Yeah, we’re not doing that anymore. There should be someone there to escort you in.” We took her word for it and walked all the way back to the door by the Panasonic booth. By then, they were letting in anyone with a blue badge as if there were no problems with allowing Press into the Press Conference.

It made me feel as if I had imagined the whole problem…

After fighting with the convention center employees about whether Press were allowed in the Press Conferences, we were tired and less willing to jump through hoops just to attend. There was a huge line for the Sony Press Conference. We started waiting in it, but then we found out that the line we were waiting in was for registered people only. We would have to wait in a different line to register. At that point, we had been so frustrated by the whole process that we just sat down and waited for them to get so busy that they would let us in.

Five minutes before it started, they stopped worrying about registration and just let in anyone with a blue badge as long as we handed them a business card. I guess the ease of getting into the Sony Press Conference makes up for the problems with the convention center employees.

Mike and I went on a lovely trip to San Diego back in October. It was a life-changing trip because it made the both of us want to move to California. We have lots of friends that live in San Diego and we seriously considered moving there, including looking at apartments while we were there.

After months of consideration, however, we have decided to stay in Salt Lake City. The attraction of old friends and beautiful weather year ‘round just can’t compete against family and low housing costs. This is the second time that the two of us have seriously considered moving to California and have decided to stay.

In some respects, I feel so relieved that we have decided to stay. I love the mountains. I love my family. I even find a sick amusement at the lack of separation of church and state. I love it here despite the cold and the snow.

I also feel trapped. I feel a little bit like George Bailey. My friends have gone to make their fortunes in San Diego and I’m still here. I wasn’t even trapped here by horrible circumstances like George was. My father didn’t die. The Savings and Loan wasn’t going to go to the evil Mr. Potter unless I stayed. I stayed because I’m too cheap to pay $2K a month for an apartment that isn’t as good as my 873 square foot, mouse-infested, haunted house. Well, that and I don’t want to miss out on my family’s lives.

I guess I’m never going to move out of Salt Lake City. I’ll have to be happy with my hippie-infested area of Sugarhouse, because that’s the most liberal I’m going to find for three hundred miles. For the last few months, I have looked at every item I owned, trying to decide if it should follow me to San Diego. Instead, they are all staying here with me. I’m relieved and I’m disappointed. It’s such a strange ambiguity.

I got a new laptop last week. It wasn’t a Christmas present. Mike got it so I would have my own computer when we went to CES to cover the show. It’s a tiny thing and only weighs about three pounds. I love it and I want to take it everywhere.

Right now, I’m at Barnes and Noble in Sugarhouse. They have lots of tables here and I feel right at home with the other computer people. They have wireless access here, but I would have to pay to use it. I don’t need it. I can write offline just as well as online. Heck, I can write by hand or on my Treo. I don’t NEED a laptop to write, but the right tools help make things easier. When I get back home, I’ll upload this to my weblog, but for now, I’m not connected to the Internet. I don’t really need to be. I don’t need the Internet for words to flow out of my fingers.

There is another wireless access point across the street coming from Sugarhouse Coffee. They only charge two bucks a day and the signal is pretty strong here. It’s the kind of coffee shop that’s filled with pierced youth. I don’t think I would feel comfortable bringing my shiny new laptop out of my backpack there, but I can get the signal from the safety of the book-megalith. Of course, there are pierced youth here, too; just less of them.

The phone above my head rings twice. There is a piece of paper taped to the handset that says, “NOT A PUBLIC PHONE,” in all capital letters. I didn’t even know the phone was there until it rang.

Why? Why am I more excited about writing at Barnes and Noble on my laptop than I am at home on my full-sized keyboard? What is the attraction? I’ve sat in this very store writing before on my Moleskine, but I haven’t done it since that day. Why did I have to wait until I got my laptop? It doesn’t make any sense to me.

I took this photo last November when the sun was still willing to visit us sometimes. The words “No Dancing Zone” has been spray painted onto a dumpter behind the beauty supply shop. What does it mean?

What do I want from this year?

I will weigh 130 pounds

I want to be at my goal weight of 130 pounds. I am closer this year than I have ever been. I weigh 154 pounds right now, so that’s only 24 pounds to go. With my goal so close in sight, being at goal is my number one New Year’s resolution this year.

We will pay at least $3500 a month to the IRS.

Last year, we paid over $2500 a month, so our goal is to pay $3500 a month. We are busting our butts to get this debt paid off right now. The IRS is not the kind of people that you want to be indebted to. Sometimes it feels like with everything we’re paying, we just get further in the hole with them, so we are just sending them everything we can every month.

I will stay self-employed.

It was a hard decision to become self-employed. Health insurance is a major concern, but we have that covered with COBRA for all of 2006. After that, we’ll have to access other options. I don’t want to be tempted back into the business world. I want to continue being a writer and enjoy it. I refuse to let my fear send me running back. I will do whatever I need to do to stay self-employed this year.

That’s it. Those are all the resolutions that I have this year. I always feel like there are ways for me to grow as an adult. I want to be the best person I can be. Wish me luck!

These were my New Year’s Resolutions for 2005:
I will weigh 130 pounds.
I will have finished writing Looking for Christ.
I will have paid at least $2,500 a month to the IRS.

It seems like most people forget about their resolutions during the year and don’t remember they had anything to say about them until December 31st. Well, here we are. I remember vividly what I said I would do. How am I doing now?

I will weigh 130 pounds.

I don’t weigh 130 pounds. Last year at this time, I weighed 170 pounds and I wanted to be at goal by now. I’m not. I weigh 154 pounds right now. I’ve lost a total of 16 pounds over the year, which is good, considering that I would have gained that much and more if I hadn’t worked so hard this year. I didn’t make this resolution, but I am 16 pounds closer to it. I’m happy!

I will have finished writing Looking for Christ.

I haven’t even finished one more chapter on this book. When I did NanoWrimo in 2004, it really burned me out on fiction writing. LFC has sat dormant for over a year now. I have the rest of the book mapped out, but I haven’t wanted to write fiction for quite a while. It’s supposed to be fun, so I’m not going to worry about this until it’s fun again. NanoWrimo got a lot of writing out of me, but it burned me out. I’ll come back to this when I’m ready.

The main reason I started writing this book is because it was haunting me. It’s not haunting me as much as it did before. I’ll start writing again if it won’t leave me alone. Otherwise, I’m happy to leave it as it is.

I will have paid at least $2,500 a month to the IRS.

This is the one resolution that I succeeded on. We still owe a lot to the IRS. We are still working our butts off to pay them. We actually paid a lot more than $2.5K a month, so I’m very proud of us for our accomplishment this year. Yeah!

This year has been hard for us, but I’m glad that I’m here and happy. Hard work is good. Growing is good. Paying off debt is good. I want many more successful and happy years to come. Thanks to all you readers out there who give me notes of support. I appreciate each and every one of you. I hope you enjoy my writing next year.

My CES Press Pass came in the mail today. I’m smiling as I type this. This is my first piece of external validation. I want to kiss it.

I had no idea that so many companies would want to feed me because I’m a member of the press. Why couldn’t they have fed me when I was poor and starving?

We have just started a blog that is about health and fitness. All my writing about exercise and eating healthy is threatening to take over Pick Me!, so we’re branching off Starling Fitness:

• Starling Fitness – Fitness, diet, and health weblog

You can find all my thoughts about exercise, eating healthy and playing fitness video games there.

Wish me luck!

I’m taking some time off. I have no idea how much, but I wanted to wish you a Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

If you have no idea what I’m talking about, view this commercial here:

• Happy Chrismahanukwanzakah!

Don’t bother with the angel, just watch the Hindu Santa and the Jews. It’s a funny little commercial that is trying to sell you cell phones, but it is so indicative of the holiday madness that is going on.

Whatever holidays you do or don’t celebrate, may you be joyful this season!

What would Christmas be like without It’s a Wonderful Life? You say you’re sick of the movie? Ok, watch the edited version:

• It’s a Wonderful Life in 30 seconds with bunnies

I couldn’t count how many times I have watched that movie. It is truly a perfect Christmas story. What our new generation needs is a Christmas movie that is just as perfect and timeless. I wonder where it will come from.

The last truly good Christmas movie that they have made was A Christmas Story. I’m always surprised when people tell me they have never seen it. How could they have not seen it? I never saw it in a theater. I never consciously sat down to watch it. It was always on television from December first until after Christmas. I’ll never forget the scene where his friend gets his tongue stuck on the flagpole. That’s another great Christmas movie, but it was set in the fifties. It’s time for a truly wonderful Christmas movie set in 1982.

Here is the Bunnies version of It’s a Wonderful Life:

The Bunnies also did a version of The Christmas Story:

This list is almost exactly what I would write if I had thought of it first.

• Eight Life Hacks for Health, Wealth, and Happiness : kadavy.net

When Mike and I sold our huge house in West Jordan, I learned this tip the hard way:

Live Small – What’s that, you can’t afford a three-bedroom, three bath house with a huge yard and garage in a neighborhood where #3 is possible? Good. Then you won’t buy so much crap. You’ll save money in the long run, and you’ll be happier, too.

What David doesn’t tell us is WHY this is true. When we lived in a big house, there was never a question about whether we had room for anything. If I found a crappy exercise bike for ten bucks at The DI, then I bought it, without thought. Now that I live in an 873 square-foot house, we have to weigh EVERY purchase. It makes me conscious about what is important.

Via: Lazy Trainer – Tips to Being Healthy, Wealthy and Happy

The humidity is low. We run the humidifier 24 hours a day, refilling it when it goes quiet, but it cannot keep up. The tropical plants that shouldn’t survive a Utah dehydrated winter are wilting. Somehow, Mike will keep them just healthy enough to last until the swamp cooler turns on again.

At night, when I pet Maggie, I can see electric sparks fly. Every time I touch her ears, a tiny flash of static electric light flares. She doesn’t cringe at the shock. She purrs loudly instead. She climbs on my belly and gives me a kitty massage. The moments before I fall asleep are illuminated only by static electricity.

I got my Press Pass for CES this morning. I’m smiling to myself. I’m press. They reviewed what I’ve been writing for The Gadgets Page and decided that I’m good enough to be press. I’m a writer. I’m a reporter.

When I go to CES, I’ll have access to the press room. I’ll have access to all the keynote speeches without having to get a ticket. I’ll get to go to any sessions for free. I’ve never attended a convention as press before, so I’m excited to see if it’s different.

Most importantly, this is the first real external validation that I am a writer. I wish I had something to take a picture of and show you. I guess as soon as I get my press pass, I’ll post it. I’m just jumping up and down happy about this!

I finally finished it. I’ve been crocheting this blanket for months. I bought the yarn online and when I opened the box, the green fleck yarn was flecked with red and yellow and the green was a Christmasy green instead of a dark sage. It wasn’t at all what I imagined, but I started the blanket anyway. I eventually got used to the color because I was crocheting with it, but a couple of weeks ago, a friend asked what I was working on.

She thought it was a Christmas project.

Yeah, that reminded me of the day I opened to the box, slightly disappointed. Now, I have a huge Christmas blanket instead of a camping afghan like I wanted. Fortunately for me, Wild Oats is collecting blankets and afghans for the homeless. I can donate this blanket, feel good about myself and start crocheting a new camping blanket.

That’s the last time I buy yarn online…

Last year, we didn’t sell enough Google ads to rate a gift, but this year, we got a present from Google. It’s the coolest little thing. I wish I could buy one for all my techie friends. In the nice case, there is a 4-Port USB Hub, a 128 MB USB key chain storage device, a wireless optical mouse with the wireless transmitter built into the mouse, a retractable USB cable, a computer earbud/microphone, a USB light, batteries for the mouse, a hand strap and drawstring bag.

I was totally impressed and it immediately disappeared into Mike’s office. He had claimed it in the name of Starling Studios. I had to reclaim it just to take pictures of it. Otherwise, it’s his. It felt so good to receive something like this in the mail again. We used to get little things like this all the time from computer and Internet companies. After the Dot Bomb, all these cool little toys dried up.

It feels like we’re in another bubble. That’s okay. We’ll ride it until it pops again. This time, we’ll make sure we have a nice cushion built up to break our fall.

In July of 2003, we moved from our big house in West Jordan to this small house in Sugarhouse. When we moved, I looked the house up on the county records and I remember it saying that the house had 950 square feet. Our previous house had 3500 square feet. We gave a lot of furniture to The DI that year.

We’ve lived here for over two years now. We’ve had three Halloween parties here. This is our third Christmas in this house. We’ve gotten used to the size of the house and found ways to fit the treadmill in the corner of Mike’s office. We live with my bicycle on its trainer in the living room. We live with both our bikes in the living room in the summer since we can’t lock them up on the porch anymore. We’ve grown accustomed to this house and its size.

Since we’ve lived here, the house has actually felt bigger than the county records said. As far as I know, the county assessor isn’t allowed to come onto the property to calculate the square footage. They have to make an estimate from the curb. That makes their job easier, but it also leads to errors. Most of the time, the errors are in favor of the home owner and the estimate is lower than the actual square footage, so the owner doesn’t have to pay as much in taxes. I had good reason to believe that this house was bigger than 950 square feet.

We’re only renting here, so we’ll eventually have to leave. It’s only inevitable. We’ve looked at the floorplans for potential new living spaces. I found one with 901 square feet that has a similar floorplan to this place. I was trying to convince Mike that it would be a good place for us, but he didn’t like that it was even smaller than the place we live now.

I was worried that the floorplan showed a place that was MUCH smaller than our current place. I was curious and I wanted to know the actual square footage of the house. I got out the tape measure and forced Mike to hold the other end. When all the measuring was done and the calculations were made, I was shocked: 873 square feet.

Even now, I don’t believe it. I measured it with my own hands. I made the calculation twice. Mike checked my work. All of this, yet, I feel like this house is so much bigger than 873 square feet. A home is so much more than the amount of floor space. A house is so much more than its walls and placement of the bedrooms. A mansion can feel cramped and a closet can feel spacious. A home grows or shrinks based on how much love is in it.

Maggie, my cat, is sitting on my lap, purring loudly. Since I’ve started working from home, she has made it a habit to sit on my lap the entire time I write. Sometimes I feel like she’s glad that I’m home because she gets extra attention, but most times, I just feel like a warm pillow.

Sid, the dog, has taken to following me around the house in the hopes that I’ll drop some food. He’s rewarded about fifty percent of the time. It’s not like I’m feeding him treats. I’m just clumsy and sometimes food falls on the floor. Anything down there is fair game to him. He loves carrots. He thinks that grape tomatoes are toys. He’s quick to take anything. He’ll take it to the food dish and start eating it there. If it’s good, it’s gone. If he doesn’t like it, I’ll find it on the floor with a couple of teeth marks in it.

No wonder we have mice. Linda, my other cat, and I saw one a couple of weeks ago. It was only an inch long (not including the tail) and it scurried between the floor boards and the wall, just like in the Tom and Jerry cartoons. Linda jumped off the couch and paid vigil at the point where the mouse disappeared for almost an hour. She was very quiet and sat still, just waiting, but the little guy was in the basement and long gone.

Maggie found a mouse under my desk. Mike and I were snuggling on the couch with Maggie when she jumped off us quickly scuttling under the desk. We saw her pounce on it and play with it for a bit, but it must have gotten away. This house is over a hundred years old. There are holes and pathways for small animals all over. With the settling on the northeast side of the house, the cracks are getting even larger.

I usually clip the cats’ claws, but since I realized that we have a mouse problem, I’ve left their talons unshorn. I don’t want to have to call an exterminator. I don’t want to have to get a live trap or some poison. I don’t even want Maggie or Linda to actually catch a mouse. All I want is for them to scare them away so I don’t have to deal with them. I’m even at peace with cohabitating with the mice. Maybe they’ll eat the grape tomatoes I accidentally drop. Sid sure won’t.

As I exercised on the elliptical trainer in the hotel gym, I could see the construction workers laying bricks on the new addition. There were three of them, but the only one who was working was the guy in the mustard colored jacket. I could tell he was talking to the other two guys as he aligned some of the bricks. He stopped for a moment to make a point, gesturing with his hands. His chopping hand movements made him look a little angry. He went back to tending the alignment of the bricks while the other two brought up a steaming bucket of mortar.

They were working on the last two rows on the top of the building. The scaffolding stayed on the other side of the property while the man in the mustard jacket reached down from the roof. One of the other guys hoisted the heavy bucket of mortar up and dumped it into the tray. The guy in the mustard jacket slowly moved the tray and a stack of bricks to the area that needed work.

He lowered trowels of mortar onto the line of bricks. Every once and a while, a bit of it would fall, making the long trek down to the ground. He brought out a corner brick and mounted it on the edge of the building. When he pushed the brick down, even more mortar fell down the long length of the building. I watched as he placed brick after brick along the line, ignoring the discomfort of my workout. I could feel the sweat threatening to inch into my eyes and I wiped it away with my fingers. I had been working out for about forty minutes and the man in the mustard jacket had completed a row.

I smelled the pungent odor of my own sweat and I hoped no one else could smell me. A noisy group of men had arrived to sit in the sauna. None of them noticed the work going on right outside the huge plate glass window. I saw the other two construction workers approach the bricklayer, and I realized that they had been gone for a long time. They were carrying paper coffee cups with plastic lids. One of them had brought an extra coffee for the guy in the mustard jacket. The three of them took a break, huddled over the cups for warmth.

By the time my workout was done, the other two guys were busy bringing up another steaming bucket of mortar while the guy in the mustard jacket set the alignment of the bricks he had placed. I hope they got time and a half for working on a Saturday.

Mike and I went to Barnes and Noble the other day looking for a book for him. We didn’t find one, but I bought three books for myself. I haven’t got a chance to read them yet, but I’m excited about all of them:

Digital Fortress by Dan Brown: I enjoyed reading The DaVinci Code, so I thought I would give another book a chance. The premise of the book is that someone has created a code that is unbreakable and it puts the government in a bad situation. The hero is a mathematician, which I like. The only problem with the plot is that anyone with a random number generator can create an unbreakable code nowadays. Cryptography has gotten to be a big computer issue, so I’m wondering if Dan Brown has the “skillz” to actually write this book. I guess I’ll see.

You Can Heal Your Life by Louise L. Hay – The book I picked up is the fancy schmancy version with lots of pretty pictures and full color glossy pages. I don’t know why I was willing to pay ten bucks more for this book, but I had wanted to pick it up for awhile and I thought the paper felt good. I have long believed that there are psychological reasons for some of our sicknesses. I thought I invented the idea until someone told me about this book that has been around since 1984. I thought I’d read her take on the whole idea and see what she recommends about my stomach pains.

Pretties by Scott Westerfeld: Ever since I read Uglies by Scott Westerfeld, I have been waiting for this book to come out. This is a sci-fi book set in a future where everyone undergoes surgeries to make them “pretty” at the age of sixteen. Our hero narrowly escaped her surgery throughout most of Uglies, but at the very end, she was taken into the large facility and changed. Will her friends be able to rescue her? Will she even want to be rescued after she becomes “pretty”? I put this book on hold at the library, but when I was at Barnes and Noble, I already had an armful of books, so I decided that I would actually buy this one. This is the book I’m most excited to read.

I just finished reading this book, so I’m free to start in on my new ones.

Blink: The Power of Thinking Without Thinking by Malcolm Gladwell: I just finished reading this book. I picked it up and read over half of it in an evening. It is a non-fiction book about the ability of our minds to make split-second decisions. Some people call it intuition; others call it a gut reaction. Whatever it is, it’s usually right, even when we can’t articulate why it’s right. I was kind of hoping this book would tell me how to use this ability to my advantage, but it is focusing on stories about the phenomenon instead of how-to instructions.

Click here to read the best quotations from the book:

• Quotations Weblog » Archive » Blink by Malcolm Gladwell

When I said I was hibernating this winter, I wasn’t lying. I’ve stocked up on enough reading to keep me busy for a couple of weeks. Maybe by then, I’ll be acclimated to the weather enough to be willing to venture outside.

Steve Pavlina wrote a really good entry about social responsibility. His premise of the article hinges on those things that bug you about the world. They bug you because you’re supposed to fix them.

• Steve Pavlina’s Personal Development – Why Not You?

Years ago, I decided to take a back seat to the problems of the world. I stopped watching the news and decided to focus on my own happiness. To be honest, this approach has been very beneficial to me. I’m happier and I’m less angry at the world. Now, when I notice things that really make me angry, I actually CAN do something about them because I have taken care of myself to the point that I can give some back.

I don’t take Steve’s way of viewing the world. Just because I notice a problem, doesn’t mean it’s mine. In that entry, he said:

“Responsibility for fixing the problems of the world rests on your shoulders. You can give up control, but you can never give up responsibility.”

I think he’s wrong. I take a more personal approach. I prefer the Michael Jackson view:

“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself and make a change.”

After all, I’m the only person I can actually control.

I wrote an entry a while back about the words for snow in which I talk about my lack of belief in the saying that Eskimos have hundreds of words for snow.

• Pick Me! » Eskimo Words for Snow

It turns out that snow isn’t the only thing that people say these sorts of things about. Language Log uses the word “snowclone” to indicate commonly recurring phrases. Cultures that “Have X words for Y” is a snowclone that has been around for a while now, in addition to the “No word for X” category.

• Language Log: Snowclone blindness

These sorts of language follies can have a strong impact and seem to be used for propaganda. Most recently environmentalists are saying that the Intuit have no word for sunburn, but because of global warming, they better learn one. Anyone who has ever been skiing knows the sun gets you twice: once from above and once bouncing off the snow. I highly doubt that the Intuit have no word for sunburn and it makes me wonder what other shoddy research those environmentalists have bandied about.

Sometimes, when I can’t think of what to write, I’ll look out the window to my left. The other morning, the blinds were closed, but I parted the slats so I could see out. The sky was glowing at me and suddenly I knew what I was going to write. The pink only lasted less than a minute before it was a washed out yellow. I’m grateful I was there to see it blush.

Her fingers are wrapped with the blue yarn and she holds her crochet needle like a pencil. My grandma taught me to hold the crochet needle differently, so I am amazed that she is able to make any stitches at all. Her hands shake and the process seems like a struggle to me. I can envision my fingers making the same stitches: single crochet, triple crochet, single crochet. It would take me half the time to make as many stitches as she is making, but it doesn’t feel like a struggle to her. She is talking amiably to her friend, both of them completely unaware of my discomfort.

It would probably be rude to take a picture of her hands right now, huh? I’ll just have to remember this when I am old and my hands shake. I can only hope that it won’t feel like a struggle to me by then.