Ann's Multiple World of Personality

Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Good morning,

This is me. I am working very hard this morning on getting everything in place. We've been working this last for five days on the new dashboard and my life through TP Assist and my mind program. We didn’t use the Dragon yesterday so we are little out of touch. We also didn't get a chance to talk to Linda so were on the touch in that direction as well. 

Today was riches big fishing day he went or is going down to Alabama. He left about a little over an hour ago. He is just going with Ron and already his second wife Bob called to see if everything was on track. You got a feel a little bad for Bob he's the one that has to stay behind. We were doing okay at letting rich go this time. We know that we have a lot to do. We did talk to Bob and Linda last night for dinner.  We went to our Mexican place and that turned out okay. It seemed to go passed very quickly. I'd spend some time eating that was unfocussed -- I like to have the chips keeps my mouth occupied in my brain just trying to figure out how to get the guacamole to hang in there with the salsa on the chip but more seriously things were focused on riches big trip and him leaving I did. I did try to talk to Linda little bit more she's focused on taking care of Bob and her last argument with him so or not getting much of a discussion between the two of us it's a start though.

As to anything going on with rich – – it seemed to be a pretty calm morning. He had done most things the night before such as get out the suitcase and pack his coffee and get things ready at the door last moment like his computer and coffee mugs hat etc. he woke up a few minutes before the alarm clock, handled the coffee and then we talked for probably 45 to 50 min. About that time he remembered that he didn't remember he needed his fishing license. So we're very quiet while he was taking care that. He's pretty on edge to make sure that he gets everything done right. After that he got his clothes ready jumped in the shower and we found that he had left his credit card on my desk. I left it first by his phone and that I thought it's probably better to leave the credit card phone and book by his stuff going out the back door, and then we told rich what we were doing so he would also put that back in his mind. Not to say that his mind is not good processing before big trip, but there's so many things to be thinking of. I was happy that he appreciated having his credit card back he said, "Oh, is that out?" Funny rich - just hope he doesn't forget when he is at a restaurant or something.

This week I've been into thinking through what it must mean to have the Zen of fishing. I think all this preliminary part is getting him just to the boat so he can concentrate properly on throwing that line out and out into the water and catching big fishes.  There is so much on his mind like some of his friends went to Mexico and the send pictures back with 8 to 10 pound fish, so somewhere in riches mind he's thinking he could also catch that big fish in Alabama because he hears a fish can be big. He did a lot of work preparing his fishing lines getting them onto the reel. He has so many fishing poles like 10 or 12 and each is dressed just right to have a particular kind of lure for particular kind of fishing scenario. It takes a lot to be a fisherman.

There's been so much time and attention this last couple of weeks on his fishing trip; that now I'm feeling a little bit tired. It's h to imagine that his world and what's going on in his mind is so much different than what's going on my mind. We were working on a system of collecting things as per the tutor – ship of David Allen that we had our Kindle out and we were typing in notes to her as we were reading last night. When rich came out, he started to give us the things that he was thinking about for us to remember to like he told us that for tonight's dinner we were supposed to have our left over Mexican meal, and then Wednesday and Thursday we are supposed to have the Polish sausage rice and peas. And then, Friday and Sunday we are supposed to have the jambalaya. And then of course on Saturday we will be eating out with the girls. Looks like rich left us $146. He left it by my computer where we would see it. It should be plenty and we should have money coming back with us. We had to write down simple things like remember to take the jambalaya out of the refrigerator on Thursday. It must be hard being rich, he remember so much for us

We told him that we would concentrate on doing simple things like getting the clothes washed. We thought that was important when we watched him dress he showed us that he was wearing his old socks without the elastic and him. It hadn't occurred to our brain that he might not have enough clean clothes to take with him. We had asked a day or two ago that he had enough clean clothes to pack and he said yes and he was very good at not pressuring me to do the clothes. That is on me. He said that he's left the house in pretty good shape I haven't really paid attention to where was that. I know he did give us new flowers in that he separated the old okay flowers and through away the dead flowers which left a beautiful loose bouquet of daisies. I still see a couple coffee cup and a couple socks left here and there, but he was right mostly it's picked up. Save for the bedroom and imagine for the kitchen. There might be a few things left on the dining room table but not much. He did remind me that if I wanted to do something I could take some of those things out of the box from work because my sewing room looks terrible. While remembering that … okay with that down on our dashboard. We'll talk about more that in a few minutes.

I do want to say as far as this David Allen goes – I picked up a book from him through the Kindle. I don't know if it's a regular size book or not, the last writing that I got from him and paid six dollars for wasn't very much of anything at all. So I'm not sure if this $12 book is a whole book or just a partial book he's got me very money conscious. Basically David Allen is of productivity speaker. He is supposed to have several million people following him, and you know us, it means were thinking of him as a superstar. Okay I have to come back to David Allen in a minute.

Our alarm rang, and it told us to get our medicine, and then while we're in there we figured out that we should count the medicine so if you take care of that task. It turns out we have about three weeks of medicine, that our Ritalin needs a prescription refill, and that we have to stop by at the pharmacy. It might be a case of overkill, but I need to talk to him and find out what the program is all about, and I don't mind getting a new prescription list that I can give Dr. Marvin to keep.  Or, maybe it would be a good idea to bring the list home scan it and e-mail it to him so he doesn't have extra paperwork sitting around. I think that I'm very much like him in that our worlds revolve around the computers. He's much better at getting up and around because he has people to talk through to through the day but everything organized is on that computer or his iPhone. I made the necessary changes on the dashboard like remembering to take my medicine. I think that's it of the interruptions directly. Let me go back to thinking about Mr. Allen.

We were just having words with Dragon I'm learning to do things that I don't know how to do yet and I'm trying to be patient and take the time out to learn it right away when it  first gets to be a problem like learning how to spell correctly words that have been put on incorrectly. It's a matter of first getting back to the word and then highlighting it and then giving it the command like to I can say the word it DEL E TE. If I said the word it would just erase everything that I have just said. The spelling part is to get it to figure out which word I didn't like the spelling of and that it highlights it and then I have to let it give me several options and then I choose one or two or whichever option I like best as far as that ideas they give me. Okay enough of that

I don't know enough about Allen to really philosophize about his work. The most important thing I've learned so far is that we need to collect all our different thoughts part of that for me as a writer is to be writing in the blog. I came up with this idea naturally much longer a goal then Mr. Allen started talking to me about it, but if we want to forget about things that are on our brain, then you have to have some kind of collection source that you can trust to put all these ideas or questions or Task or goals until you're ready to work on it. Whoever wrote our program TP assist new about Mr. Allen and incorporated his work into the program, so although I don't know a lot of Allen I do know a little bit about the kind of thoughts he has people process through. Yesterday I pay paid for the mind jet program and that the TP assist program. There is no doubt in my mind that I want to make it work. We still have the school loan money in there so it seems like a lot and I'm trying not to abuse riches good sense of nature but I figured it was worth the $80 for the first program and the $40 for the second program. Both of them are renewable in a year or two. I think I got two years on the second and one year on the first. I did want to go too far into it because I know the program is going to be revised, and I don't want to get stuck with having the old copy. One of them had offered a forever contract, but I think it only included minor updates. When I went to pay for the mind jet program, I had to talk to a real-life person and he said they were updating the program. I believe I did get the extra insurance for life support such.

I wrote down a couple things about Allen and what I was reading last night. The first one is to remember to clarify what I would like the outcome to be. This is speaking to tasks and things I need to get done, and then the next step is thinking about what the next physical step is going be, then the last step is to trust that we have a system to put the information in as our collection spot.   Another thing that we figured out her was pretty much data by him was that he said that we can train ourselves like an athlete to be faster more responsive more proactive and more focused in our knowledge work. I heard about knowledge work before I think it comes from Peter Drucker was a major player several years ago but I'm finding him quoted all over the place now. Knowledge work is that things get done with our mind without having to go and be doing physical things; it is the proactive way of progressing from one thing to another. I will get back to this more later, but I do like the idea that things happen with our mind. Such as my first book was all be writing down what was going on in their mind. It works for me.

There is a little break there we had to make some stops to do – well whatever you know okay let's move on. I'm stopping to give the kitties a pet. Missy finally got our attention but now she full company standing on my desk or drafting table. They aren't being very cooperative. I don't want him on the drafting table knocking things off. Good just him knocked him off he didn't go down easy. Now he's trying to push around the pen on the floor I don't know where they get off thinking that I have time in the middle of the morning to be stopping for a good pet. We did just up and open the windows to get some natural light in here. When that be nice if that was the only thing that was on their mind.

Okay clearly here I have lost my train of thought I might have to reread a little bit to find out where I left off seriously.

Less serious that I guess I had been on David Allen. I don't know what else to say about him right now because my minds discombobulated. So, I think we're going to pause on that part and then just go back to our newer thoughts on what is happening in my dashboard. Actually it's my dashboard and my life they are two parts of the TP assist program. I think I'm going to go through and go down the outline in general and let you know what kind of things are happening there. I don't know what I'm doing for time – wait a second let me check that I think by eight o'clock I was supposed to write Linda or check on some parts of what is happening on the schedule so I guess that fits just in line with what we want to do now. We want to check on to make sure that were doing everything. We did go over this morning and we have it to a point that I think is good for us but it's still new so there's other things to be learned. The first section is the in tray, but for now that is empty and that's where you wanted to be. To get things into the in tray or to some of the other sections we press a button that says TP assist capture for the mind jet. This is a nifty little window that comes up and it gives you a space to put down any thoughts that you're having and then he gives you the selection of locations for the idea or the text to go such as we have are set right now for strategy, and outcomes, calendar, actions, incubator, reference, and in tray.

This also works for adding other things to the dashboard so that if I said … remember to vacuum the floor then I hit that it should go to that safe place that when I get back to the dashboard program I press "process" and then my note to vacuum the floor shows up in the in in basket tray when I get around to processing the in tray then I have to decide where that note is going to go. I think right now, I am going to drag it down to the at-home section of my actions. And so that when I go back and review that section it will tell me all the things that I was posted to that. It has something to do with being at home such as I've got five items right now on the at-home list. The items are to get Duyen's sewing machine ready to ship, and I need to engrave riches fishing shirts, consider what to do with the tree, unpack a couple items from the work boxes in the sewing room, and now I will remember to vacuum the floor. I decided that if I still need to consider it throughout the day I will keep open the tabs are the links to each of the items, so that the first thing I do in the morning is to open items by pressing the + after the main topic. We are going to go through the whole thing once just to give you a general idea and then I'll try not to belabor it so much. Sorry that this part is going to be pretty long.

Okay we went to the in tray now my in tray is empty again because I just put that note somewhere else the next area is the task summary and in this area were collecting task by things that happened in the past, things that don't have dates, things that are happening today, things are happening tomorrow, things that are happening in less than one week, things that are happening in less than two weeks, things that are happening in less than one month, and things that are happening greater than one month. This is a beauty of the system when I had been working I had written a system where different colors would mean about the same thing so red – red meant sister was hot on my case I had to do something immediately, the single color red meant that I was supposed to do it within the day, Orange was 1 to 3 days, yellow was within a week, blue was within two weeks, green was within the month, and black was things that were already accomplished. In some ways I might have been inventing the wheel because other people may have had something down before that that would've helped me organized, but what it did for me was organize my mind to think in certain patterns, so when I saw this system it was like yes this is the one because it contained all the elements of things that I've been trying to do in the past, except it was easier and more fun and more proactive.

We are going to let go of the things that happened along with all the other times beside no date and today.  All the other time periods are close because I really don't need to be watching them all the time after I get done. The first time first thing in the morning make sure everything was the right spot then the things I don't need I close. So under the no date I have that note about remembering to clarify the outcome, the next physical step, and trusting in our collection spot. I also have things like check mail meaning the mail downstairs, getting laundry back on schedule, something about being a doer and not a dawdler, and then not to drive myself bonkers. These notes could've come from 1 million different things, but let's just say for now that they found their way to the date section. I'm thinking that with no date – can mean that they're things that I need to be thinking about on pretty much daily basis so I want to keep it up without adding to a new date each time.

The next section is on the things that are happening today, and here we have things such as I need to check for my tax money I expected to come in today or pretty soon from now because it's within two weeks of it having gone out.  I also want to complete the next interview and because I wanted to get it all down right – when I was reading the book last night it was written to complete the next interview on NY 11201.001 Fisher by sitting down with earphones and foot pedal. Open Dragon, transcriber and word. Format a sheet. Close original and load eight audio recordings to transcriber and assure Dragon is on first so that it can transcribe in the background. Begin audio, type and relax. This is one of the main tasks that I have today. The other things that it says on my list of things to do today are to remember to eat the chicken for lunch, to do something to get rid of the Outlook reminders, finish Duyen's quilt by putting on the binding and then to remember that tonight's dinner is the Mexican meal leftovers from last night.

Then we skip down to our next major section on strategy and outcomes. The main headers in this section are purposes and principal, vision, goals and objectives, areas of focus/responsibilities, projects, and “waiting on” from rich. This is a major very heady section and some of the things here are less likely to have to be done right away but kind of like setting our perspective on things that are in our life. For example under the purpose/principles we went back and took something from our mission statement from probably about nine years ago. It had been one of the first few pages in our blog book in 2003. It states:

I will respect myself by being honest with my thoughts and feelings. I will love myself, my God, my family, my friends, and people I meet along my path. I will honor my freedom and independence and cherish my right to make choices. I will strive to be capable. I will be responsible for happiness, and I will share whatever wisdom I learned in offering help to others.

I suppose by this time I could go on redo that statement but so far it still works for me so because I don't have to think of that all the time I'm going to close that window.

The next paragraph is the vision. I've only got one thing down here so far and basically it says that I want to make every day happy and useful but even if we are an unhappy we still would like to strive to be useful if not to ourselves at least to others. The section needs more work but I did want to dwell in anything right now. I can handle it later on.

This next section is very big it's the goals/objectives. Basically of the outlines what a typical day-to-day schedule look like so that:

·         By 5 AM – I will wake up, grab a coffee, and either check in with the computer with rich or Facebook - especially through the Kindle

·         By 5:45 AM – I will go to the computer and check my – but priorities more towards the computer. By this time I'm thinking rich is getting in the shower or is getting ready to leave and I have to re-orientate myself to being in my office

·         By 6 AM – I will copy today's priorities under the summary

·         By 6:15 AM – I will start my blog entry and take care of all other correspondence

·         By 7 AM – I will take my medicine

·         By 8 AM – I will try to write a note to Linda/or talk with her – check project actions and day-to-day

·         By 9 AM – I will start laundry

·         By 9:10 AM – I will try to do the first thing on my list followed by the next. This is the major meat of my day

·         By 11:30 AM I will have lunch and finish laundry if necessary and here I am supposed to think about the Flylady

·         By 1:30 PM I have to check the dashboard again especially the actions and by 2 PM I will check in with Linda and maybe have some popcorn

·         By 4:30 PM I will be closing down my projects

·         By 5 PM I will try to be eating dinner

·         By 5:30 PM I would like to be moving toward sewing

·         By 7 PM I would like to check in with Linda, take my medicine, and then check my schedules and priorities

·         By 930 I would like to be reading

·         And by 10:30 PM I would like to be either going to bed with rich, or deciding that it'll be a late night and then plan accordingly

Pretty hefty list of structure for me, but I had to do something because I was getting ahead of myself I couldn't I couldn't figure out with all the things that I needed to do. Now I can at least just check on my list and think I am at least in the ballpark, or it gives me permission to be okay with whatever's happening at the time because I've made a literal choice, I'm not just randomly doing things. Of course I love to do random things but I'm not getting things accomplished here and feeling good about what's happening.

The next section is areas of focus and responsibilities and here we have three items right now one says school meaning Jones international University and then the second one is the Alliance for American quilts Q. S.O.S.  Then the third item is the part about being an athlete that we have to train ourselves to be more proactive and I think that has to do with just our system of organization.

Under the school section we have the three classes that we are involved in right now meaning adult education theories by Prof. Knowles, the business grant program by Dr. Hargiss, and the strategy class that is coming up next.  Under the Knowles class I put things as far as an intro, and then I listed the eight separate weeks that we would be in the program. And then under each program week I put down with the link the two papers that were written that week that I had stored in Word program. With the Dr. Hargiss program I also listed a conclusion which is something that reminds me of how the final class ended up and any final notes I have to do to be taken care of it. Such as right now I feel like I have checked in for the last time and although the room is open for probably a week I've recorded everything I want from the program to OneNote, we recorded the nice comments that Dr. Hargiss left us at the end and we notice that we got 100% on the class which means we had 995 points out of 1000. I will take that any day. It also reminds us that we have to go back and follow up with the survey at the end of the course. We haven't done that so far but I think it's something that's worthwhile. The reason that it doesn't get done is that it's rather intimidating is 35 questions long.

The next area of focus or responsibility is ours situation with the Alliance for American Quilts. What we did with this section was to list things under two things right now and I'm sure more will go on to it later like maybe correspondence with Amy. Maybe I can do that now. Good the first two things are transcriptions that are complete and the second thing is transcriptions to do. So when I press transcriptions complete I see the transcriptions completed for Testa, but McCoy, Carter, and Wasilowski. Behind each of them I have a link that goes directly to the recording that we had on them, and it also includes the transcript that we typed out from them.  The next set of things under transcriptions to do we include the name and recording for Alexander, Brackman, FindleyWolfe, Breland, Lynch, Michalski, and McCarroll.  These are the people that we need to do next. These come after the interview we have to do today on Fisher. And then of course we have the item which is centered which is correspondence with Amy, I think that we have her on one note, let me check that to me sure. Cool I just linked it. So correspondence with Amy goes back to all the letters that we grouped together in OneNote that she wrote to us or us to her. This is what I'm talking about as far as efficiency it is wonderful.

The next major topic is projects. We don't have a lot in this category yet but what we do is a good start. This project includes things that are number one doing something really special for rich every day and then I said in February and then on the specific date which was entered as letting him go fishing and reminding him to be happy. I think that doing something nice for rich every day is a good special project. The next thing I have is quilting which list out all the different items that I can think of that as projects. And then there's one more project that is the housekeeping which I am going to put under the title of Flylady. This is where I think I'm going to go back to her Flylady Journal I think it is called the control Journal, and when I'm on top of my game enough to be thinking about Flylady means doing things and zones like particular rooms that need to be cleaned or habits such as making the bed, getting dressed in the morning, taken a shower, and cleaning the litter box – all those kind of fun things are not good to get into all that today, but just to know that it is under projects anyway the time now is 8:30 AM.

And, we’re moving on. I do want to say something about the various topics. It starts off in the very center with the dashboard and that is colored in forest green. I did the color coding of this couple days ago. And then the next sections are the main topics like one were talking about now under strategies/outcomes is in a deep red, and then a light purple followed by a pinkish purple. The links aren't as special as in color just that I want to notice that things are progressing by step and I want to be able reference later by which color. I think also now looking at it there's a lot of white links and that's things that I've had it since I was doing the coloring I can wait for a specific day once a week – once a week would be good when we make this something that we do on a Sunday.

The next topic we have is a small one and this is the things waiting for rich. We generally have about five sections – right now one is rich to go fishing and then I have a little special note that says day one rich leaves at 530 and on time I might go back and add another link to it so that I'll do that now. Okay what I just did was I put down the Alabama trip I forget the city now. I might remember that later on but then under that I put rich left about 5:30 AM and he's on time. All that other little notes that I think will go with this as I go along and then I'll be able to add all the different trips that he goes on with the club or on weekends so this'll be just special respects and keep up-to-date with what he's doing. The other four sections are things that rich has to look at, things addressed to rich talking to somebody like right now he needs to talk to his accountant, things that rich does inside the house, and then last things that rich does outside the house like doing his errands and such.

The next major section is things that might show up on my calendar. I don't really know how to distinguish this between the task list or not. The upper part on this one has though two subheadings. In that one of those things are day and time specific actions like right now. I had Bob and Linda for last night because we are meeting specifically at 530, and then I have Dr. Marvin appointment for today at 4 PM and then the other main one is day specific information which is things that are coming up like I knew that I had to get some information from the pharmacist for Dr. Marvin and we had to we need to stop by at the pharmacist to check with their drug prescription program.

That's all there is to that section and then now the next section is a big section on actions. I think some of the actions are going up to the upper part as far as the to-do list but I don't have it all figured out yet.  The main sections under actions are things such as calls, computer, office, home, anywhere, errands, and review. I will try to be succinct but this is a very important section, because it includes a lot of things that are happening pretty much by area. My call section has things like I have to call the hospital financial people and see if things are on track with my Medicaid. They had a task to do and I need to follow-up and I need to call Dr. Knowles asking her to talk to Catherine to resolve problems of getting my other class registered, and I have to call Catherine about the classes if I don't get a hold of Dr. Knowles or even if I do that I need to keep with that track. And then under her computer I just have remember to blog which is what I'm doing right now I would like to say something there in that we're setting ourselves up with the Dragon to be able to get things done on paper very quickly, have a specified time in the morning, and really get our thoughts down on paper. Frustratingly enough I'm going to have to take in consideration how much time it takes to edit and reread. But moving on…

The home section is things like I need to get Duyen's sewing machine ready to go with Kerry and Joe which might take some forethought, I wanted to get rich’s shirt to engrave, although that's the shirts that he is wearing this week, so won't happen this week. Some of these things aren't really specified to go up on top yet. I think that might be something like when I make these topics active maybe that's when they're going up onto the top. I also have to consider what to do with the tree and I have to unpack a couple items from the work boxes in the sewing room – that was riches suggestion before it left. I think that's about it for the home section. For the school section, I just have down that that I'm going to start my new strategy course on Sunday, March 5 and that I have to skim the table of contents. Somewhere down the line I put that as a to–do item for when I go to Dr. Marvin's. If I take the book with, I can skim that in the 10-15 minutes while waiting for his appointment.

Under the anywhere topic – I have just listed right now the sewing weekend for the girls and then I broke that up between things to bring and things that I am working on for projects. So as far as things to bring, I remembered the blocks the cutting board and Rotary cutters and that I have to remember to bring the computer programs Microsoft and Dragon for Connie sue computer. But, that's all I've really got listed right now. I have to get back to this one later on. This is part of David Allen's program though is that you get things down and then you progress to where you are thinking about it and then you leave it on the dashboard and you don't have to think about it again for a while. Allen wants to have what he calls an open mind like water flowing so you can take care of anything that is strictly in front of you and he then relates that kind of thinking to karate. And I'm really for that position.

The next section is on errands and right now I've got to errands. The first one is that I need to deposit three checks from rich and those are sitting on my desk already signed, and then the second item is that I have to go to Best Buy and look for USB adapter that is big enough to hold six or USB plugs because my system next my computer is just totally unruly. The last section is review. Under this section I have scratch, which meant that I had a note that I needed rich to look at to see what he wants to do with. It was a stray note handwritten. And then there is something an invoice from St. Rose center that I have to have him look at and see what to do with it. It didn't belong in my paper pile.

I do have a waiting for others section, but I don't have anyone right now I'm waiting for this be somebody beside rich. At this point we’re over to the left side of the dashboard. When the smaller topics are closed up the both sides the last topics that remain are balanced. And I do want to say that I have a picture in the background. It's a picture of a couple shelves in Ann's shop – the quilted basket. Basically, I just wanted a nice gentle background that wasn't too demanding. I love the fabrics on this particular shelf which is a shelf for blues from her Civil War patterns. It's very calming.

Okay now back to the other red topics. 

Under the main one, I have agendas and I think this is different from some of the other things, but, but I haven't really figured it out yet. I know that it allows for somebody's name and then then it adds a space for less. One part of it is an agenda for one-on-one conversations and then underneath that is meetings. And then, I put underneath that is vacations. Under the one-on-one and I have listed Linda for one thread and for that I have to apologize to her for being so much off schedule. The next person I need to address is the twins. I don't know what to do about traveling late at night or asking them to stay I feel out of place. Not sure what to do just I have to ask. I just have listed one meeting here of Dr. Marvin at 4 PM – where the other notes that I had with Dr. Marvin were things I had to do in getting ready. And then the last section under vacations I've got listed things like going to Minnesota for Connie sue Connie sue on April 13 to the 17th, the first Saturday sampler, and for Saturday with the girls. I have to work out the space too in that I think I've got them over on the right side for something or another. But shoot I have to clarify this part later – right now it's getting closer to nine o'clock I really want to finish what I'm doing so I can move onto the next significant that laundry scheduled at nine. I can't believe I would leave writing for laundry.  Wow!  This must be the new me because it certainly wasn't the old me.

The next red button under the main section is TP assist and that has to do with the program itself I'm I want to go back and was later that set of instructions. Looks like it's got a space for instructions and notes, but I will think about that later. There's another major red section. None of these have as big a section is what was going on over on the right. The next red one though is the incubator. This is for things that I want to do some day but later on so it's not really scheduled in yet, like I'd like to make it to Minnesota this year to see my mother, but I don't really have it down to a time. Other than it’s on the back of my mind. I wrote something this morning in that I should be paying attention to the kitties, because were thinking it through this morning that they are almost 14 years of age. And, we have to figure out – I mean I think cats are old at about 18, so they might be in the elderly ages now already. I'm thinking it might change how I should be looking and thinking about them and how to process the next stage of their life. Anyway it's an incubator it is something, but it's nothing concrete right now. I can close that window.

I don't know what's going on with this next section. There's a journal section and that's pretty much a major section and it supposedly collects all the different things that are going on process wise during the day, but I'm not sure. I just tried to press enter a few times. I'm not sure what it takes to get that moving. Right now it's only list out the 2012 sections, and then the February sections, and then the dates the 26th and 27th, but it hasn't listed anything for the 28th which is today. So, I'm not sure what I have to do to get that moving. I just tried a few things but I'm still not sure where. I'll have to look it up when I more time later on. But the things that might be include are things like yesterday, we had Journal items for watching out for the tax money, I needed to finish the daughter-in-law's quilts. I don't know what comes with that I have to really think about that later. Okay, that's the beauty of the system like this is that it just allows you to put down things you don't think about now but have been bothering your mind unconsciously. It is just processing over and over stirring up your frustrations because there's that gestalt thing where you want to complete things and so this is part of it is allowing you to do that. Under whichever section – I'll get a handle on that later. I will have to open up some windows – curtains. But now it's 9:06 AM I'm really trying to watch my time. I said laundry 9 to 9:30 am but I'm getting close.

There are only two major color red topics left. One I don't have too much use for yet, but topic is supporting materials. The only thing there so far is I've got a link to the 2012 receipts that I was working on yesterday it went all the way through January and February. I put on Excel under two sheets where the first worksheet has all the different receipts according to date. So generally, first obviously comes before February 23 and in general I put the date to the time because it is generally on receipts. And then, I put down what the store was like Walgreens or Wal-Mart, and then I start listing the items that were purchased by the codes that are listed on the receipt. It goes all the way across like probably about 30 to 40 columns across. There are actually three lines to each day per store entered so that labels are on the first line and then on the second line there are prices and then on the third line there's a space between that store and the next. I hope that makes some kind of sense. But then at the end of the line I've got different subsections that total, such as there's a column for discounts, column for the subtotal, there's three different tax columns, I think that's for state tax, local tax, and county tax. Most items don't have all three but there's a few that do, so we had include all those I also have one column for tips and one column for the totals. So then, at the bottom of that I have a section for adding up the numbers. On the sub-total I have about $1120 for items before taxation and I have about $1170 for totals after taxation. It looks like then taxes were about $50 worth of the total expenses; I mean that's bad but it's paying for something important right.

On the second Excel sheet, I’ve got the same information, but it's put a little bit differently it groups things by the kind of store the item is. For example, my categories are for car, gas, and merchandise for the car and it would also include repairs anything to do with cars. The next section is for eating out. We don't have a lot there because rich hasn't collect a lot receipts will have to check his credit cards have forgotten to fill in the section accurately. The next section is on pharmacies like Walgreens and CVS. Then there's a section on sewing with cats right now from Quilt Basket and Joann’s which seems to be my primary stores I shop at. And then there's the biggest section which is the groceries and merchandise primarily from Wal-Mart, but it will include other grocery stores like Dominick's, Jewel Osco or Food for Less - wherever rich happens be shopping. I think as far as cash receipts this is the area that riche has done the best with because he is very conscientious of it. It also includes areas for all the things you buy for cats, cleaning goods, and paper goods, and grooming needs. It looks like for the last two months we've spent $700 before tax and $726 after-tax. So, like I said, this is probably not a real bad thing. It means that were spending about $350 a month on each of those items. Good thing to know – somewhere I would've thought it more, but I was budgeting just the groceries alone to be about $400, so I'm not really a far off.  Rich is really terrific shopper. I saw through the items when I was looking at them one at a time that really the most costly items were things like what I liked like my fruit cups and my peanut butter and my grapefruit juice and that the ocean spray cost a lot more than water.

The last section is called the reference section and originally I thought that might not hold so many things, but it really does because this is where all of our we have scanned into the computer PDF files – I guess the other section under task where I put the bills I wanted rich to look at might have gotten erased. We needed to move things from the right side to the left side we don't have to go and call that now just have to look at something seriously. It's not a major problem because I have a copy of the bills do some more to figure out. Back over on the resources side I have five major categories that are income or banking, medical, government, home and cars, and leisure. Under income and banking, I have listed everything that is happening with First National Bank of Brookfield, American Express, St. Rose center, Jay's cash receipts, the game checks, as well as having one section for the 2011 taxes and another section for retirement.  Under the First National Bank of Brookfield I list the four different accounts and in each of these accounts what you end up with is all the documents that belong to that like there is receipts you get from the bank and then there's the receipt that you get month by month.

The St. Rose, Jays, and games those are the different income sources from rich he's got a few more that are getting recorded yet like he gets his retirement check from JV us, but we'll have to figure that out later. It's an auto deposit to his bank so maybe I'll pick it up during that when I look at the bank accounts specifically. The American Express is self-explanatory and it's I think Bass Pro credit card that rich is really using. I don't have anything listed under my 2011 taxes because it went into the accountant.

The next sections are not as big. I think, but maybe so – I think it just doesn't go deep. Like right now the medical has a section for rich and one for me and then a section for pharmacy or drug store.  And that basically is just a list out all the different bills we have in each, and then under the government section, I've only got a few things in here so far because nothing's really come in for the first two months, but that might include the SSI or the disability checks anything have to do with the government. The next major section from the references are our home and cars and this includes one section for the cars and SUVs, one section for insurance one for furniture and one for utilities. The utilities account covers things like Comcast, phone and the electric bill. Under the furniture a section is Ashley's which is where we got our bedroom furniture that rich is still making payments.  And then under insurance we have pretty different accounts one for rich and one for me from State Farm. We still need to check out if we should be under the same policy financially speaking. And under the cars and SUVs section we have the Hondas and Toyotas three Hondas and one Toyota. You're probably are aware by now that we bought cars in early January, well maybe you are not, but that section also includes repairs and anything else that has to do with the running of the cars gas to. We still have to deal with paperwork from the high lender and the CRV along with the pilot and the civic.

Wow. That was a lot it's now 9:29 AM and I'm worrying about word Linda. MI haven’t been able to talk to her for a couple days, so want to get the laundry done, so I can get back to looking over my general schedule and then we have to we might want to check and see what needs to be gotten ready for the trip to Dr. Marvin's.  Basically I and to the pharmacy and the USB cords but now it looks like it will come after Dr. Marvin's which is going to mess things up there.  Shoot better think that through again. I know that other people have busy minds too and certainly some of the things they may be going through are a lot more important but it does kind of blow me away that there's so many things on our minds to go through and sort.  Many minds maybe, but our one brain isn’t so big. I'm going to keep this note in the background - maybe minimized. I want easy access to OneNote because I wanted to be important software for us.  But, I need to get this out of my mind too and be doing something practical.  It is not that writing a book is impractical yes yes yes that's what this is all about! We are writing a book. What you thought it was more technical than all that? It's just a matter of getting our thoughts out right now. As far as we feel we’re about as empty as we get. More on the order of David Allen's free-flowing water the more you can get out of your brain; the more you can focus on just one thing at a time. This is the thing that really needs your time and gives you the most appreciation for being who you are at this particular time in your life.