Today was a busier than usual day. First I nearly got my Elven Druid killed when she insisted on yelling at the top of her lungs in a cavern where a bunch of people had died. We didn’t die, and she is no longer cursed, so I call today’s adventure 100% positive.

Then I went home and let the dogs run around for a while. Padfoot has discovered that being fenced in is not his style, so he spends most of his days attempting to find ways around the many fences we have been erecting, repairing, adjusting, raising, and so on. Yesterday, we learned how he is getting out now, so this weekend the plan is to raise that section of fence another 3-4 feet. But until that escape route is thwarted, he gets to be locked in a kennel or in the house while I’m gone. Storm, the other dog, just watches him as he runs off, then she comes to me and whines as if to say, “Mom, Padfoot’s run away again…”

I’ve always felt that life is never dull, but sometimes I help it along a little too much. What’s funny to me is that over-scheduling seems almost natural, but these days my idea of over-scheduling is much less rigorous than it used to be. I used to schedule myself with 60+ hours of stuff to do in a week. “Sleep is for the weak” was my motto. These days, I like to sleep. I think having a kid helped me realize how much I like to sleep, since he does his best to deprive me of it. Jaryth believes that mornings start sometime between 4 and 6am. I instituted the rule of no TV before 7am and no video games before 8am. This kept the sound down a little until he started watching “The Tigger Movie.” That movie is evil. Evil, I tell you! Firstly, there’s the theme–where Tigger no longer wants to be “the only one” and wants to find his family. Finding his family is fine, but why does that mean he can’t still be special? But what’s really bad is the bouncy song. Jaryth likes to imitate it. He bounces off the walls–yes, he slams himself into the walls and bounces off of them. We got an exercise trampoline which he likes to use to start his super-dooper-alley-ooper bounce on. And since you’re crashing into things you have to make the crashing noises at the same time. Luckily he hasn’t tried bouncing off of sleeping (attempting to) mommy. But that’s not why I’m busy. Some of the things I’m doing right now include:

Sugar sucks. I gave up eating anything sweet three weeks ago, or was it two weeks ago? I guess two, but it seems like forever. I keep hoping that there will be a point where I won’t feel these intense cravings for sugar or something sweet. In fact, I can say with some honesty that the cravings are not as bad today as they were on July 1st. But saying that is like saying that my bathtub isn’t as wet as the ocean because there isn’t as much water there. Yes, the cravings are less, sorta, but when they hit, they hit hard! Jaryth is watching “Monsters, Inc.” and he just got to the part with the abominable snowman. “Sno-cone?” he says, and I immediately start wanting a lemon sno-cone. I don’t even like sno-cones and I especially don’t like leman! And then all I can think about are sno-cones, or maybe ice cream, or perhaps a popsicle or maybe a lollipop, my cravings don’t care.

So my newest life plan is to try out quitting sugar (and basically anything sweet) for the next few weeks. I started on Sunday, July 1st, which must have been a week ago now, right? I have discovered a few things in the short period I’ve been off sugar:

• I am, sadly, addicted to caffeine. Mark was telling me that and I was sure he was wrong, but man, today without Diet Coke, my head was aching and my temper was short.
• The cravings are ugly. I find myself thinking about sweets at the most random times. And if I don’t immediately start doing something else, they can end up taking over my head.
• Tea and toothpaste are my new best friends. I have drunk about a gallon of green tea today (read somewhere that it inhibits appetite — maybe because you’ve got so much tea in your stomach?) and brushed my teeth like four times (my dentist will fall over in a dead faint).

I feel almost ridiculous posting anything about this experiment after only two days, but I also feel like if I don’t I’ll give up sooner.

I was reading Leo Babuata’s site Zen Habits for a while now, and one of the things he recommends is the idea of living without goals. This is something I struggle with. I struggle with the idea that I should declutter my life of goals. I could argue that goals are how I’ve achieved what I have in my life. But when I think more closely, the reality is that the goals were a side note. In fact, some of the things I am most happy with or most proud of happened without any goal around them at all. For instance:

I grew up knowing I had my heart on my sleeve. Every emotion I feel seems to start on my face, move to my mouth and then register in my brain. So when I find myself thinking “they should just calm down” about someone (other than myself, of course) the irony isn’t lost on me. For the fourth year in a row, I am participating in the About.com Readers’ Choice Awards. I set up some categories related to web design, in February solcited nominations, and now the finalists are getting votes. As in previous years, some people feel that there is a problem. Their site isn’t a finalist or they think another finalst is cheating or they can’t vote or they can, but too often or something like that. And they might start with a letter to me, but then they will move on to nastygrams and sarcastic comments and more. This happens every year. I explain the rules, remind people that you can’t be a finalist without being nominated, that cheating is not tolerated, and that About.com is doing all they can to make things fair. And then I (try very hard to) let it go. Ultimately, I think that it’s great that people value these awards enough to get so upset about them. But I’m not interested in freaking out because of them. I want to stay calm and recognize that the awards will do what they do whether I am upset or calm. So I choose calm.

The hard part of changing my lifestyle is that while it’s going great, it’s easy to keep doing and not get frustrated. But when it’s not, it’s not. I’ve now had two weeks in a row of either no weight loss or weight gain, and my measurements have gone back up. And this is after I started going to CrossFit twice a week to try to get more fit. I know, I know, if I’m weight training I’m going to grow muscle and that weighs more than fat. But I’ve only gone to CF three times, and I doubt strongly that 2 pounds of muscle were formed in that time frame. I’m hoping it’s water weight and that if I just drink more water and wait it out this too shall pass. One success: I was able to keep from downing all the valentine’s chocolate in the house (which is really just one small box of See’s, but still…) after looking at the scale this morning. So, I’m trying to cheer myself up by posting the Valentine book I did for NORBAG (North Redwoods Book Arts Guild) It has the quote inside “Be around the people you want to be like because you will be like the people you are around.” And then in the heart cutouts I wrote artists, writers, book artists. The cover is this cabbage rose paper I got in Seattle with an appliqué heart that came on a card I got a while back.It’s an accordion book made from a kit that my mother-in-law gave me. Like many of the books I make, I liked it so much I didn’t want to send it out to the swap. :-) But I did, because I don’t need 90 million books lying around. I hope whoever gets it likes it too.

I have decided to read or re-read all the books on the list of finalists for best Science Fiction and Fantasy from NPR. I just finished Dreamsnake by Vonda McIntyre. This is one of the first science fiction books I remember reading and re-reading. I know I read others before this one, but this one really stood out in my head as something really interesting. Mark was laughing because my copy (most likely from 1978 when it was published) was tattered and worn. Because I’ve read it so many times. Today I’m starting The Last Unicorn by Peter S. Beagle. This is another favorite from childhood. I’ve read it easily as many times as Dreamsnake, and I’ve of course seen the movie several times. 1632 should be coming in the mail in a few days. I requested it in a swap on Goodreads, and I’m trying to find 1984 in my collection.

I think of myself as a rational but open-minded person, but one of the more “woo woo” theories that I strongly believe in is the power of intention. I believe that if you set your intentions clearly and deliberately, you will manifest those results in your life. Whether or not you believe in this as a type of mysticism or just a practical application of goals setting, I have done it in my life many times with great success. Many times without even knowing I’ve done it. (Unintentional intension?) I remember doing it deliberately when I got my job at About.com (then The Mining Co.). During the training/preparation series, I went to bed every night thinking “I’m really sorry for the other people who are applying for the HTML site, because it’s mine.” I also expressed mental gratitude for the person who ran the site (for a few weeks or months) before quitting and letting me have it. But what made me think of this was a post I read on Unclutterer today. She had made a resolution for February to clean out her office. But shortly after she made that resolution, there was a death in the family and she had to leave to deal with that for half the month, and she abandoned the resolution. Then, when she came home, her family decided to move and she ended up clearing out her office anyway. Sure, it mostly happened because she had to move, but that’s part of the mysticism (for me) of intention. If you are good at manifesting your intentions, they happen whether you mean them to or not. And I would bet that by setting and meeting monthly resolutions, she is good at manifesting her intentions.

that I wanted to buy seeds online again like I did last year. The problem is that I had recycled the last seed catalog I’d received. So I was just going to go online to choose my seeds. Then Mark came in with the mail and what was in it? Besides a packet of LTCs (some very cool ones, by the way) was a seed catalog. Yay! Apparently I need to buy seeds. Of course, it’s supposed to snow tomorrow (maybe). But that doesn’t mean I can’t order seedling trays so that I can start my seeds indoors. Watermelons here I come! And if I’m really lucky they might be ready by July 4th. Are you coming to my Fourth of July party? We’ll be having home grown watermelon. Other seed plans include:

I’ve decided to compile a list of all the things that I’d like to change in my life (or do or improve, etc.). This is kinda like a master goals list. The point is that I can’t achieve my goals if I don’t know what they are. So here goes in no particular order:

• Eat less junk food - ultimately I want to get it down to 1 day a week or even just a few hours on that one day
• Bake my own bread
• Eat NO feedlot or factory meat. I want to only buy or raise my own grass fed meat and poultry.
• Have an artisan turkey for Thanksgiving in 2011
• Eat 5+ veggies and fruits per day.
• Sleep at least 8 hours a night.
• Go to the dentist every six months.
• Grow a vegetable garden - and expand it every year. This year I’m expanding to potatoes.
• Work out 30+ minutes per day (beyond our daily walk).
• Cook 3-4 meals a week.
• Read to Jaryth every night.
• Write a novel.
• Grow my site to be in the top 20 sites on About.com.
• Let’s get real, I want my site to be #1! :-)
• Build an eco-friendly house.
• With a tower.
• Ride my horse 3-5 times a week, regardless of weather.
• Go on trail rides with Betsy.
• Paint and draw.
• Create a website for swapping books with other book artists. Or (and) mail artists.
• Pare down my stuff to be more minimalist.
• Make cheese.
• Eat only locally-grown (within 100 miles of here) food.
• Support more local artists, farmers, shops, etc.
• Give something to someone every day.
• Get a tractor.
• Chickens - for eggs and meat.
• A small cow - for milk for cheese.
• Meditate 3-5 times per week.
• Yoga.
• Writing down what I eat.
• Journaling every day.
• Learn to make sushi I made sushi on Thursday night (photos to come soon)
• start seeds for veggie garden indoors (for earlier harvests)
• clean out the creek so that it flows better
• plan a nut orchard
• plant fruit trees
• give away at least 100 books in 2011
• clean my office
• write at least 1 review of an app or book that is pending per week
• build a bookarts swap site
• build at least one of the domains that I own
• move one site off of my home server onto its own site
• send more postcards - 1 per week at least
• read 100 books or more in 2011 (I’ve already read 14 – check out my GoodReads profile to see what I’m currently reading

For this week, I’m focusing on the following: