Simplifying Life

Aril

Hello virtual friends:j
Back to annoy you :rotfl::rotfl:I'm a very naughty girl. I am around most days but only log in if I feel I've got something worthwhile to add which is about once a week!!
I spent yesterday morning mainly window shopping in a bid to get some ideas for gifts for people and came across a lovely book about spending ways to destress....some of the ideas were to go blackberry picking [I'm taking full advantage of the free child labour available this week and doing that with the small person and my friend's son later in the week:D], identifying birds in your garden and cloud watching. There was even a book of pictures taken by the cloud watching appreciation society...some of them were fab!! One of the other suggestions was sitting around the table as a family playing games...as a consequence I've just been comprehensively stuffed at Yahtzee by the small person but we did laugh in the process!!!
I have just discovered the joy that is the car boot sale and have been along to a couple recently. Have bought very little but spending the odd 50p does shut the material girl up:D The small person has had an absolute ball though as he's discovered how to make his pocket money stretch even further than in the charity shops. He has been buying stamps and we met an incredibly nice chap last week who is an adult collector. He gave my husband his mobile number and told him to contact him as he had a load of spare stamps that he's been waiting to give to a young enthusiast. Last Monday he gave the small person 1500 stamps which the small person has literally spent hours over the last week sorting through when the weather's been dire and he's not been with his friends. It's given him enormous pleasure and been a bonus with all this rain. It has restored my faith in people and the small person has done that old fashioned thing and sent a handwritten thank you letter.
I'm still reading my WW2 books at the moment. It is amazing how people still find humour in the most dire of circumstances. Anyway I came across the following in War Wives that I'd like to share:
"If you get a bundle of sticks and try to break them you can't. But separate them and one by one and you'll break them. That's what we must do....stick together!"
Thought that quite apt for our modern day living!
Arilx

ceridwen

On a totally different theme to my usual - but still a simplifying one - been reading one of the latest "posts" at ZenHabits blog and thinking "Whats that?" about a lot of the things he mentions - but see maybe some possibilities in there for me on management of my personal p.c. which I hadnt thought of. I've still not figured out 90% of whats what - as find it all too confusing for me in a lotta ways - but there, for instance, thinking "Does that mean I could file things by just clicking on "archive" and then using the Google search to find stuff I've "filed" this way?" - "hmmm....worth an investigate". Think I might find one or two things I could possibly use....

http://zenhabits.net/2008/08/12-new-rules-of-working-you-should-embrace-today/#more-951

I tend to be rather into the whole Open Source idea - partly personally because I have a tendency to scatter ideas around as they come to me - as I want to see them used - but there have been a couple of occasions where someone else has stated that they were the one who had come up with it and duly gone on to profit personally from them (errrr....excuse me....according to "old paradigm" way of thinking its the originator that gets any kudos/profit going!). Thats not what was meant to happen - but with Open Source type way of thinking - not a problem - everyone's ideas are all in there in the melting pot and no one individual can take credit/profit from another individual's idea. (Tends to fit with my "head, hands, heart - all parts of the Body are equally necessary" way of thinking.)

ceridwen

Hiya Aril:hello:

We missed you!

Nice to see your "post" - yep, I rather like carboot sales as well - when I can get to them - just having a wander...that does me. Reminds me - must pay a visit again to a regular one we have hereabouts.

I've been buying a coupla books - identification for the purpose of: so got one on trees and a couple on mushrooms (whoops....I can hear Marcus in my ear now - ie the guy who ran the foraging course I was just on....saying "mushrooms....FAR too risky....even experts can make mistakes......12 people got ill recently on a course run by a mushroom-picking expert").

mary43

Aril - good to see you again. You've been missed.
But you seem to be having a good time in the 'simplest' way which is brilliant. Car boots - I love them and normally limit myself to a weeny amount to spend but oh the feeling of wealth when I come home with more than one bag of 'goodies'..............even if it is all for someone else for christmas !
Nice to hear your 'small person' is getting into stamp collecting. I thought it was a hobby that was in its decline with these days of computers, ps2 mp3 and anything else in that line. And what a kind man to be so good. Does restore faith in human nature when you meet someone like that.
Love the quote and oh how apt it is. Definitely one to keep.:j

ceridwen -I'm totall lost with the computer lark of 'filing' and stuff like that,
Be lost without my memory stick where everything but everything is shoved on it. Still found floppy disks easier though. They took less stuff but I could at least stick a label on them, pop them in my drawer and find the right subject matter I was after. Now I have to pop in my memory stick and trawl through all sorts of 'unconnected'' stuff.
As for 'archives'.................. I'm lost on that one.................lol

Well, its a wet bank holiday but promises to brighten up later............so the weathermen tell us. No plans to do anything special....being enroute to the coast our main road is mayhem so its less stress to stay home and just relax. Might try and do a bit more to my 'crafty bits'.........we'll see how the mood take me..

Have a good day

Charis

ceridwen wrote: »

"Does that mean I could file things by just clicking on "archive" and then using the Google search to find stuff I've "filed" this way?" - "hmmm....worth an investigate". Think I might find one or two things I could possibly use....

quote]

Hi Ceridwen

I think this chap hasn't kept up with the changes in MS Office. Not surprising if he isn't using it, I suppose. You can already search for documents and files using the 'Search' facility in Windows (on the Start menu in Win XP) and there is an MS Office program called 'Groove' that allows users to collaborate on documents in various different locations, which most large offices would be using. The benefit of using Groove is that you don't rely on third party online backup, you just sync machines. I would not want all my personal files available to someone who hacked into an online facility, whatever their motives were.

For backup in the event of hard drive failure, I bought a 250GB external hard drive that just plugs into a USB port. I use a system of folders within folders, with things stored with other similar things. The 'My Documents' Folder is full of subject folders. If I can't decide which of two folders to use, I store a file in both. I keep meaning to burn my photographs to disks but never get around to it. Photo files take up a lot of space, especially if I fiddle with them in Photoshop Elements and get variations on the same photo. I'd better put that job on my winter list.

I had 'Google Desktop' on my machine for a while. It catalogues everything on your machine and, like Finder on an Apple Mac, it is supposed to take you straight to a file with just a hint of the name or contents. The drawback was that it slowed my machine to a crawl - which may not happen if you have a dual core or quad core processor.

I do use Wikipedia and Wiktionary frequently but advise caution when using information taken from those sites. Because anyone can alter and add content it's best to double check with another site before relying on the information. Most times if someone posts rubbish someone else will change it but not until they have had a chance to realise the rubbish has been posted. It's really just a matter of using your judgement, the same as it is on blogs or on this site.

2cats1kid

Evening all. Had a nice day out visiting friends. 6 adults and 3 kids, and each household was supposed to contribute to the food. Well, as usual, I totally overcatered, and so did the hostess, and the other family totally forgot they were meant to bring food! I took a walking taco for main, and banoffee pie and key lime pie for dessert, and the hostess had laid on a barbecue, loads of salads, a strawberry dessert, chocolate cake and carrot cake!


Anyway, my Christmas present to the host and hostess has been scuppered - I was going to make sloe gin for everyone and the host offered me a glass of his home made.....sloe gin. Darn. Thinking cap back on then!

I'm going to go away and bloat for the evening, as I have thoroughly overeaten - well it would have been rude not to try everything, wouldn't it?

mary43

Hi all

2cats - sounds like you had a 'fun' time............all that food.......yummy. Makes me feel hungry but got to be careful what I eat at the minute.........last night a filling fell out the back of my front tooth -its a capped tooth and hanging on by a thread I think but hoping to get into the dentist s.a.p. and have a filling (cheaper than having it out and putting on my denture at the minute) Mind you our dentists version of an emergancy if appt. in two weeks, maybe more !
Kids were acting up this morning just when I didnt need it...........son phones up as it seems his birthday cheques I sent from me and mum hadn't cleared and they should have been. Rang our bank and they'd been cleared from our end so explained to son to keep chasing his bank up. He's just come back from a few days away worshipping the Beatles in Liverpool (been an addict since his early teens -we thought he'd grow out of it but at 40.....no way now). So, trying to have phone conversation with kids muttering, shouting and carrying on.............talk about headache...........thankfully they''re both out now and all arguments have ceased.
Better still, son e mailed to let me know he rang his bank, cheques have now cleared and also he's moving to a bigger rented house with closed in back garden, much safer for baby grandson, and hes so thrilled its got a shed ! What is it with the male species and sheds ?? Hes also sent me photos through via e mail.............just need some ink now to print them out. Looks like he had a lot of fun.
And I'm that thrilled with myself............just made a sort of joke type christmas pressie that cost nothing, absolutely nothing ! Its a tube in a jar, fill the jar around the tube with rice, pulses or something like that and its somewhere to hide away things like keys, emergency cash -stuff like that. I'm doing one for my son, and teenage grandkids will think they''re a hoot......................lol
So, what started off a bit of ***** day is turning out a bit more on the positive side......................:j
Hope you're having a good day

oompahloompah

I've started saying "NO" to people (or "No Thanks" to be more precise - got to remember my manners!) when it is something I would rather not do, don't have time for or complicates life in other matters - like at the weekend we were invited to a friend's house but asked not to bring the kids as thiers were away overnight - this would have complicated things no end with having to take them to the babysitter (my MIL is happy to watch them occasionally but insists they go to her), then collect them either too late for their bedtime or really early (about 7am) Sunday morning to have them back home in time for their sports matches etc etc. I did consider it, but then thought, why? So I politely declined.

I was worried about declining my friend's offer but I just explained it all to her and she understood. This has given me the oomph I need to be more assertive in future!

mary43

oompah - good for you !:T
We're all guilty I'm sure of saying 'Yes' to other people for all the wrong reasons and sometimes we have to think of whats best for 'us'. Its a hard habit to break and I'm having to work on it but I'm getting there.
Good luck:j

Greenshieldstamp_2

Hi everyone,

Just a flying visit to share a quote and a weblink.

'The best things in life aren't things'
Art Buchwald

and the weblink to the Winston Churchill Memorial Trust which awards grants to people with good ideas to travel overseas.

http://www.wcmt.org.uk/

The 2009 categories for eligibility include the following, which may be of interest.
(I don't have any connection with the site, just thought it might be useful.)

Science and Technology
Applications are invited from a wide spectrum of interests in Science and Technology, including alternative energy.
Treatment and Rehabilitation of Traumatic Injuries
Those working with wounded servicemen, accident victims and sports injuries: including medical, psychiatric and physiotherapy staff.
Mental Health and Care in the Community
Those involved with the social services, including medical and legal practitioners, researchers, policy makers and residential home staff.
Adventure, Exploration and Leaders of Expeditions
Please note that team members of expeditions should not apply.
The Arts in Secondary Schools and City Academies
Those involved in teaching, developing and participating in Fine Arts, Drama, Dance and Music.
Writers: Journalists, Authors, Biographers and HistoriansEnvironment, Food and Rural Affairs
Those involved in the countryside and in food production, including animal welfare, environment and conservation.
Business, Manufacturing and the Engineering Industry
Those involved in any related aspect of education, recruitment, training, design, and project management.
Sport
Sportsmen and Sportswomen offering projects with an emphasis on local participation and inclusivity.
Young People
Those aged 18-25 (under 25 on 31 December 2009) with a worthwhile project to benefit the UK community, and personal development.

Best wishes
Greenshield