Every year, I make a set of New Year’s resolutions. I know there are lots of folks who find such things useless – why make ’em if you’re going to break ’em? – but the process of figuring out what to resolve helps me focus my attention on what’s important to me. Usual categories include my faith, exercise, personal achievements on my life to-do list that I want to make progress on, and areas in software development that I want to learn more about/work on. I’m behind schedule, though – today’s December 31, and the list hasn’t even been drafted, much less culled to get the set for this year. Resolution #1: no more procrastination on New Year’s resolutions! By the end of tomorrow, in order for me to feel like a completely on-top-of-things individual, I will have come up with my set of New Year’s resolutions. Whether I’ll post them or not, I haven’t yet decided.
Difference in Styles
My hubby and I have been debating something recently, and this afternoon brought to mind those old Meyers-Briggs personality tests. (That’s the test that gives you your own set of initials based on Extraversion/Introversion, Sensing/Intuition, Thinking/Feeling, Judging/Perceiving.) At one point in our discussion, I said something along the lines of “I understand that’s how you feel, but that doesn’t help me get any closer to us deciding whether to do this or not!”. Conversations like that frustrate me horribly! I want an action plan to come out of the conversation – if we’re going to do X, then we need to do Y and Z on this timeline to prepare for X. If we decide we’re not going to do X, then we can do A and B instead. This fuzzy feeling stuff doesn’t resolve the X or not X question!
Luckily, we’ve been married long enough, and worked together through enough conversations like that, that they usually just make us laugh. My poor husband, though. . . he’s got a wife who wants to set up a Gantt chart for her life.
The X(mas) Files
No more carols ringing forth from my radio and my computer speakers. No more plotting the approach to the mall parking lot. Christmas – come and gone, in the relative blink of an eye. Pondering it as a kid, I spent weeks refining my list for Santa. Now as an adult trying to grasp and hold onto more and more of its meaning to me as a Christian, still it sneaks up and surprises me. I thought I was in the Christmas spirit as I floated around work on Tuesday, enjoying the relative peace and quiet, and the snowflakes falling outside. Then I thought I had the spirit when I was in church, singing Silent Night in the glow of candlelight and contemplating the birth of our Saviour. And then Christmas Day, watching my daughter open her presents, enjoying them one by one (she’s _still_ got presents she hasn’t opened yet), I thought I caught yet another glimpse.
Today, somehow it feels like I still missed it, like I’m still looking for it. I could give some smarmy feel-good statement, like Christmas isn’t just one day of the year. But I know that it really is, in all sorts of senses. Christmas has always seemed like that one day where the world doesn’t seem quite so messed up. The day after Christmas, that feeling of purity still echoes faintly, but doesn’t ring through nearly so clear. I’m not saying that my life is messed up in any sort of unusual way – this isn’t a confession to the world of some great character flaw or tribulation. Just the regular character flaws and tribulations brought into the world with that apple back in the garden. The Christmas spirit I look for year after year is that glimpse back into the garden, before the serpent slithers in. And I know I’m doomed to be disappointed – we’re not granted that sight here. But Christmas always seems to be just a hair away. It’s sort of like a child’s excitement about the chance to see Santa if she just got up at the right time. If I just looked at the right time in the right spot. . . sang (in the right key!) the right hymn. . . gave of myself to the right person. . .
I remember hearing some Christmas story somewhere about an offering laid at the feet of a statue of the Virgin Mary and her babe. Something about one particular offering making the baby Jesus smile. That’s the sort of thing I’m looking for, I think. And that’s the sort of Christmas spirit I want to teach our child.
More geek stuff. . .
UML for Java Programmers, by Robert Martin. Draft version.
Geek stuff
Geek alert: the following will not be useful to most folks, but serves as a handy area for me to dump some things that I’m going to want later for various projects that are stewing in my brain. If you’re interested in seeing just how much of a geek I am, this’ll give you a peek.
* The Design Patterns Java Companion: had a copy of this years ago when worked through a Design Patterns study group. Had since lost or lent my printed copy… glad to find it again.
* An RSS FAQ: wrestling with a way to let a bunch of us locally publish, and then release to a central repository or reference point. If I get it working, I’ll give a better description.
* Bitter Java – nonprintable version of book. Useful if you’re deciding whether to buy it.
Merry Almost Christmas!
Traffic into work was non-existent (everyone’s soaking up their vacation time), there’s a chance of snow in the forecast for this evening, I’m dressed up to go to church this evening, and life just generally seems wonderful! Merry Christmas, everyone! I’ll be piping Christmas music into the nearly empty hallways here at work, and caroling along through my coding.
Santa Pics
Saturday I tried to get Cora’s picture taken with Santa. After her nap and a bath, I primped her hair and dressed in a beautiful green velvet dress. She looked adorable and she was happy. Doesn’t get much better than that in baby picture-taking land. I had scoped out a mall that doesn’t get much business lately, which also means that its Santa line was nearly non-existent, even on the last Saturday before Christmas.
Got to the mall, easily found a parking spot, and headed towards Santa. So far, so good- Cora’s interested, even curious, as we approach Santa’s area. There’s no line to speak of. . . only a few kids wandering up to give Santa their wish list. Cora and I step up. My plan was this: either hand her to Santa or, if that doesn’t look like it’ll work, sit with Santa too and get a Mommy and Cora picture done. Seeing as I hate getting my picture taken, this counts as one of those sacrifices you make for your kids that they don’t appreciate at the time, or possibly ever.
That sacrifice turned out to not be necessary. While Cora was interested in Santa and his workshop, my little girl turned into Worf (a Klingon from Star Trek Next Generation: as in, she “clings on” to my shoulder) and would have nothing to do with looking anywhere but at the fibers of my sweater. So, instead of a beautiful picture of Cora with Santa, we’ll have to make do with this one. . . [that’s probably how she viewed Santa, anyway … ]
Overwhelmed. . .
Ever just been so overwhelmed with the thought of all that you ought to be doing or want to do that nothing gets done?
“What Should I Do With My Life?”
(From Fast Company) “Those who are lit by that passion are the object of envy among their peers and the subject of intense curiosity. They are the source of good ideas. They make the extra effort. They demonstrate the commitment. They are the ones who, day by day, will rescue this drifting ship. And they will be rewarded. With money, sure, and responsibility, undoubtedly. But with something even better too: the kind of satisfaction that comes with knowing your place in the world. We are sitting on a huge potential boom in productivity — if we could just get the square pegs out of the round holes.”
More quotes: “The shortest route to the good life involves building the confidence that you can live happily within your means ( whatever the means provided by the choices that are truly acceptable to you turn out to be ).” For quite a while, I dreamed of being a financial planner, helping folks figure out how to live this particular thing out. (Turns out, while I love the idea of helping folks figure it out and get there, I’m not too enamored with the actual work itself of financial planning.)
The article is adapted from a new book by Po Bronson, called “What Should I Do With My Life?”. It’d be a wonderful Christmas present. . . (hint, hint)
Christmas craft craze!
I vow to have made my last Michael’s run this year. . . my craft supplies are stocked with more stuff than I can possibly do in the limited time between work, mommyhood, and sleep (oh, to have more sleep!). Yet I still am lured by the siren call of one more neat project, one more craft that just would make the holiday season complete. Yesterday’s purchase was a set of white card stock with which I hope to make snowflake picture frame ornaments. The hope would be to make these each year, putting in that year’s new pictures of Cora, so that she’d have a full set by the time she was too embarassed to let her mom put those ornaments on the tree.
But there’s no reason that that particular craft needs to happen between now and the 25th, other than it’s the holiday craft season! Similarly, I have wooden birdhouses downstairs that have just screamed to be decorated as little gingerbread houses, rather than remaining on a shelf completely bare of paint or ornament. And the pile of yarn left over from other projects that just might be usable on the next one is a source of great amusement for our cats. Still, every time that flier from Michael’s comes, or I run across a new craft idea (there’s one in a new magazine called Budget Living – use those Christmas lights to poke through an artist’s canvas to make a neat lighted picture – bare canvas with a constellation of Christmas lights). . . well, I add another item to my mental want-to-do list.
Maybe when my daughter’s old enough for us to do crafts together, we’ll make beautiful things and I’ll be able to pass along my crafting disease. For now, I must suffer alone. . . and the stockpile of supplies continues.