I’ve moved my blog to a self hosted version instead of wordpress.com hosted. If you find any broken links, just let me know!
Happy Fastnacht Day
Today is Mardi Gras, Fat Tuesday, Shrove Tuesday or where I live, Fastnacht Day! The Fastnacht (or Fasnacht or Faschnacht) is way to use up all lard, sugar, fat, and butter before Lent. In the Pennsylvania Dutch area, fastnachts are sold all over the place, including the grocery stores. I personally can’t stand them, but I know so many other people love them. When I was in school we used to get either a fastnacht or a glazed donut with our lunches today. I’m sure they don’t do that anymore since fastnachts are not healthy at all.
Here’s an example of a Glazed Fastnacht I bought today.
Hope everyone has a very Happy Fastnacht Day!
More Awesome: Goal 1.02 Complete
For my February book, I selected Managing Transitions by William Bridges. I received the book for free from work almost 2 years ago. We were supposed to have meetings about change. Of course priorities changed, and we never did have those meetings. I put the book on my bookshelf and basically forgot about it. I was looking at my bookshelf to and the name just jumped out to me. Since I’d never read it and it’s very applicable right now, I thought it would make a perfect book for my goal of Being More Awesome.
The book feels like it’s geared more towards managers than individual contributors. It’s not really a problem. I’ve read other books for managers and taken lessons from them to apply to my individual contributor role.
I did find the quotes on the side interesting. I enjoyed reading them, yet at the same time they sometimes became distracting. I’m glad they didn’t appear on every page.
I’m really glad I read the book. I felt it’s helped empower me with questions to ask my management and things to look for while experiencing a very significant change and transition at work.
More Awesome: Goal 2.01 Complete
Today I took advantage of the massive amount of snow we received in the Mid Atlantic States, and updated my resume. It was an enjoyable experience, yet also slightly depressing. I’ve spent most of the past 2 years working on 2 projects. While they were large, business critical projects, it’s a little sad to have so few updates to make when I haven’t updated my resume in almost a year. I’m hoping that my update during the second quarter will involve a lot more data.
Overall, I feel very accomplished today and slightly more awesome.
More Awesome: Goal 2 — Resume
This goal was triggered by a recent change in my work life (I still have a job). I’ve been known to slack on updating my resume. I think I once went almost 2 years without updating it!
Goal #2 – Update my resume at least once a quarter (4 times a year)
It’s a great idea to keep your resume up to date. My resume hasn’t been updated in almost a year. That is very not awesome of me! It’s not the most exciting goal ever, but I feel it’s a really important one.
More Awesome: Goal 1.01 Complete
From my first book, I selected The Age of Innocence by Edith Wharton, wiki article. It won the 1921 Pulitzer Prize, which is one of the reasons I selected it. I’ve heard so many good things, I thought I should read it.
The writing style is very descriptive but I had no problems reading it. Unfortunately I found I really did not like Newland Archer, the male protagonist. Not liking one of the main characters does make a book a little difficult to read.
I am quite glad I’ve read the book, though I don’t think I’ll be reading it again anytime soon.
More Awesome: Goal 1 — Reading
I love reading, it’s absolutely one of my favorite pastimes. Fiction and Non-Fiction, I love them both. While I love reading I just haven’t read as many books as I’ve liked recently. Which has inspired Goal #1 of being More Awesome.
Goal #1 – Read at least 1 book a month (12 books for the year)
Of course, there are only 9 days left in the month of January, but I’m still going to read a book before the end of the month. I’ve created a Page to track my goals.
Staying Organized: Home
To follow up to my Staying Organized: Work post, I thought I’d share the items I use to stay organized at home. Many of the items were also listed in my Work post. It’s one of pluses of providing so many items of my own for work. I get use them all the time!
Electronic
- iPhone – Oh sweet iPhone, how you make my life easier and more fun. I still have my white 32GB 3GS. Most of my home organization links to my lovely. My iPhone is always with me which makes it one of the most important items to help me keep organized no matter where I am.
- MacBook – My Macbook is about 2.5 years old now. I bought a MacBook because I hated Microsoft Vista. OS X was the lesser of 2 evils. I’m on my MacBook almost every single day.
- OmniFocus – I use OmniFocus to keep track of all kinds of things. I have a section devoted to my personal projects so that I can focus in on them when I’m not working. My bunnies even have their own project. I use it to remind myself when it’s time to order hay, medicine, and treats for them. It helps prevent us from running out of anything. I use OmniFocus on my iPhone & MacBook
- OmniOutliner – A great list maker! I use it track things I’d like for gifts and my monthly expenses. This could only be better if there was an iPhone app for it. If I’m using OmniOutliner, I need more than one column.
- SplashID – I’ve been using SplashID from my Palm OS days and I still feel it was one of the best purchases I’ve ever made! It keeps my login information easily accessible from my iPhone or MacBook. Simply great! I don’t have to remember login information anymore.
- 1Password – I believe I was first introduced to 1Password through a MacHeist and it’s great. 1Password & SplashID both hold and generate passwords. But 1Password has one feature that makes it so valuable to me, integration with Firefox & Safari. This is incredible. I hate working on machines without the integration. This makes logging into sites so much easier! I have 1Password Pro for my iPhone as well and use the copy & paste all the time.
- iBank – I track all of my expenses using iBank. I’ve been using it for years and I love it. I know exactly how much money is in my accounts. I upgraded to iBank3 so that I can sync with an app on my iPhone. Now I know exactly how much is in each of my accounts where ever I am.
- Delicious Library – We have a lot of movies, video games and CD’s in my house and with Delicious Library on my MacBook and iPhone I know exactly what we have and the format. This has saved us a lot of time and money with possibly rebuying something we already own but haven’t seen in awhile.
- Notespark – This online and iPhone application is my shopping list lifeline. I can edit a list from any machine connected to the internet or my iPhone. Updates made in one place are synced up next time I access the application from the other location. This makes the additions to the shopping list that I think of right before bed easy to capture!
Analog
- Moleskine – I keep a Pocket sized Moleskine inside my handbag at all times. Right now it’s a Pocket Ruled notebook. I normally use the Pocket Squared, but I’m trying something different. I jot down little reminders to myself or items to add to a list later. I’ve gotten very proficient typing on my iPhone but it’s still often faster to add it to my Moleskine.
- Circa – More wonderful Circa notebooks are used at home to keep me organized. For home, I normally use the 3×5 size or the Micro PDA. I’ll either use a leather fold over cover or the regular plastic, it just depends on how I feel. The 3×5 is getting harder to find from Levenger and I really hope that Levenger doesn’t discontinue either of these sizes since they are so incredibly useful for me. If they do, I’ll just DIY my own paper so I can continue to use them.
- Filing Cabinet - Since I can’t go completely paperless, my filing cabinet is very important to me. I’ve tried using filing boxes, but they don’t work well for my style. I just bought a new, small 2 drawer cabinet a few weeks past, and it’s everything I need. I have room to expand and all of my folders perfectly organized and alphabetized.
All of these items help me feel more organized and in control. Every item has been tried and tested and is sticking around. I’m always looking out for other things to see if they’ll enhance my organization and make things easier.
More Awesome: The Beginning
I don’t do New Year’s Resolutions. I’m goal oriented and resolutions don’t feel like goals to me. This year my main goal is to be more awesome. My goal was inspired by the Wii NHL 2K10 commercial with Ryan Kesler, Kevin Bieksa, and Jack Johnson. About 23 seconds into the commercial, you hear “I’m Awesome” which has stuck with me since I heard the commercial last year. I wanted a goal for the year, and this was the first thing that came to mind.
I know that ‘be more awesome’ is does not tick all of the S.M.A.R.T. (Specific, Measurable, Attainable, Realistic, Timely) criteria and I don’t really care. It’s the main goal. I’m going to set smaller goals under the main goal that will meet the S.M.A.R.T criteria. That way when I achieve the smaller goals, I’m meeting my goal of being More Awesome. I’m be blogging as I create, work towards and complete the smaller goals and how I’m feeling about the main goal. I welcome you along on my journey which I expect will be a lot of fun!
How to Contact Belen Echandia
The Purse Forum recently changed its rules to no longer allow Designers, eBoutiques or their companies to interact with members via their site. Their site, their rules, I’m not going to comment further. Â For some people this may make contacting one of my favorite companies, Belen Echandia, a bit more difficult. I’m here to help!
There a bunch of ways to contact Belen Echandia and to make it easier, I’ve broken it out by type.
Twitter
Jackie – http://twitter.com/JackieCawthra
Belen Echandia – http://twitter.com/Belenechandia
Facebook
Jackie – http://www.facebook.com/jackiecawthra
Belen Echandia – http://www.facebook.com/pages/Belen-Echandia/177222840983
email
So that no one gets spammed, I’m not posting anyone’s email address. But you can still reach Belen Echandia via email or the Contact section of the website.