No Deadlines

I honestly don’t know which is worse:

• A.   Having gobs and gobs of chores to do, all of them inter-related and requiring research and learning, with deadlines for some stuff, and the entire day, nearly every day, to work on these chores.
• B.   Having limited chores to work on, because everything is packed away except for four flashdrives and a laptop with limited capacity; no deadlines; and the ability to go to a place and use their computer with a nice big screen (or two!) for a whopping 3 to 4 hours a day.

A is what I had before my husband decided to retire. It was mind-numbing. Every morning I would stare at that long list of chores and wonder, ‘Which one should I work on? Is there one that seems shorter, so I can feel like I’m making progress?’ (Inevitably, that short chore would turn out to be HUGE!) ‘Can I break this big chore into smaller pieces? So far, I’ve done research on X, L, and S, and now look, they all come together in this big knot, along with 6 other things I haven’t even begun to research!’ Over-whelming. Enough of that, and your mind truly goes numb. It ceases to function.

B is what I have now, as we wait for repairs and renovations to get done on our house. If you follow me on facebook, you know that we’ve been ‘living’ in one room for a month. To attempt to stay sane, we go out each morning to use those wonderful computers until lunchtime, then go home to check in with the workers. (At least they’ve mostly stopped finding more water-damage problems that need to be fixed. Now, if the carpet would just arrive…!) After lunch, we go to the gym for a couple hours, ending with 20 minutes in a massage chair before we go home to spend the evening watching tv, probably reruns from Netflix.

With everything we need to survive until the house is sold scrunched into that one room with us, there is only a path through the room, really. Only one of us can get up and move about at any one time, and unless they wander outside that room, they are probably blocking the other person’s view of the tv.

B is also mind-numbing. I start the day eager and happy to be working on a REAL computer, grit my teeth and put my body through its paces in the name of health, and then settle down to do… absolutely nothing.

Hey, something for me to research tomorrow! CPR for numbed brains! You know, for when we finally do get to settle into a new house and I start having deadlines again.

Learning New Tricks 1

Remember that old saying, “Old dogs can’t learn new tricks?” Now that science says older people should be learning new things in order to keep their mind sharp, this ‘old dog’ is determined to learn new tricks. Even if I’m not a ‘spring chicken’ anymore.

Happily, there are plenty of opportunities to learn new things, ranging from free to costing quite a lot.

FREE - Tandy Leather offers free lessons in working with leather, from beginning to advanced. Generally, these lessons are offered on Saturdays for 5-6 weeks. I am in the middle of my 3rd class with them, learning to lace and sew leather projects. Usually, I come out of these sessions with 1 (maybe 2) projects done, but there are a lot of different lacing techniques to learn, so I am keeping my projects small and otherwise unadorned (no carving or stamping), and I am finishing one project a week.

A couple months ago, I discovered dospace, located in Omaha at 72 & Dodge. They offer crash courses in various computer programs. Afterwards, you can go in at any time (that they’re open) and use one of their (many) computers to practice and do projects in that program, so you don’t actually have to run out and buy it. I’ve taken 3 classes from them, and try to get there for a couple hours each week to practice on the programs we don’t have.

YouTube offers lots of instructive videos. We’ve watched many on using particular types of materials for specific pieces of costumes or props, and more on makeup techniques.

Company websites sometimes have instructional videos to show you how to use their products. Smoothon, for instance, will show you how to make molds, and how to use those molds to cast items in resin. Hubby really enjoys doing that, and that’s how he learned the method.

Television is a relatively ancient method of learning, but still an active teacher. I think the best (easiest) to learn from tv are cooking and sewing. There are other opportunities, such as doing a mosaic tabletop with pieces of broken china or tiny glass tiles, but too often, you get 1 or 2 10-15 second shots of some of the steps in doing that, with verbal instructions for the entire process delivered at 90 miles per hour. That has never been enough ‘learning’ for me to actually try it, although it is for other people.

Of course, you might get a book from the local library to teach you how to do whatever you have a hankering to learn.

Hmmm. I’m running out of room, and I haven’t even gotten to some of the learning opportunities that cost money. And actually, I intended to write about the different ways people learn, but I’ve wandered quite a ways from that topic. Okay, then, this is Part 1 of “Learning New Tricks”. Stay tuned for future parts, one of which may or may not show up next week. It all depends on if I find some other fascinating subject to talk about before then.