Projects and goals for the next year

I start working tomorrow as a contractor at Google. Due to the non-disclosure agreement I signed the other day that's as much as I can say about that.

It is nice to know that I can do things like make plans in advance, go to the doctor, pay bills on time, etc.

I've been thinking about what to do with my spare time now that it's not taken up with guilt over work that I should be doing, or looking for a job.

Here's what I've come up with so far:
-Renewing my German, which I have let languish lo these 10 years.
-Cooking more! Lunch is free so I can put in more effort when I get home.
-Gardening! I'm excited to sit down and make a garden plan. It's time already to start some from seed.
-Art! Burlesque figure drawing is becoming a monthly thing with Nicole, which I'm greatly enjoying, though I need to do more in between.
-Either taking some classes or doing videos/games to get more in shape. Luckily there's a good walking trail for use at work.
-Working on some mental issues - more confidence, less anxiety.
-New glasses, finally. It's been about six years I think. Various other medical condition checkups.
-Pay off debts. It's looking likely that bankruptcy will be the best way to go.
-Online courses. FEMA has several, MIT has 1500 (!) and the EPA had some as well.
-Volunteering. Now that my own bills are paid I can get out there and do stuff.
-Craft projects. I have some that have been stopped midway for years.
-Learning new skills. I've been wanting to get into either embroidery or cross stitch, plus I'd like to try carving with my new Dremel.
-Fixing bad habits. Or at least starting good ones-it's difficult when you don't have a schedule. Now I do!
-Catching up with people. Whenever my life isn't going well I tend to stop talking to new friends, distant friends or anyone I haven't caught up with in a while because I don't want to dump my problems on them or whine the whole time.

I'm sure I'll add to this list. I'm also sure I'll probably spends most of my free time paying video games, messing around on the webs, or watching Netflix instant, but at least I have ideas for when I start feeling antsy.

Snow Day

You would think I'd learn by now to copy anything I write. I spent half an hour obsessively describing how to replicate the Shepherd's Pie I made this afternoon, and when I went to save it my router had crashed and I lost the post. Then again, my computer shut down without warning shortly after, so even if I had copied I probably would have lost it anyway.

The recipe was convoluted so I don't know that it's really worth saving.

Snow day here in Seattle is lovely. Unfortunately it's dry, powdery snow - a few inches piled onto a thin sheet of crackly ice, which is over a few inches of more powdery snow - so it's no good for sculpting. That's usually what I do on snow days, take pictures and make snow sculptures, which never turn out nearly as grandiose as I planned.

Here's something badass: so I have this goldfish that's been living in the rain barrel that my landlady installed to prevent our basement from flooding. It catches the runoff from the roof and drains into the backyard through a hose. When the water's flowing it all works nicely, but in the summer when it only rains every few weeks it becomes a mosquito breeding ground. A pond goldfish is a great, low-maintenance, chemical-free solution. Goldfish pee is also rich in nitrogen, which is great for your plants.

I've been worried about Jenny, our fish, in all this cold. Yet every time I check, she's still swimming around happily. I just went out and stomped around taking pictures with my nose (had gloves on, touchscreen is heat sensitive) and checked the rain barrel. The spigot and/or hose is too frozen to drain. This will become an issue fairly soon and I have no idea how to solve it. It's three-quarters full, instead of only a few inches, and most of that is chunks of ice and slurry. I stirred through with a bamboo stick to make sure it wasn't a complete sheet of ice, so that oxygen can get to Jenny, and there she was at the bottom, swimming around happily. Amazing. What a badass fish.

I'm off to build a fire and then try to earn some cash from this work-at-home job. It's Leapforce, Search Engine Evaluating. If anyone's looking to see if it's a scam, it's not. It's legit. If you only put in a couple of hours, it'll take a few weeks to get paid, but the more hours you put in, the faster your deposit is made. Also make sure you track your hours carefully. I'd use a software or an Excel spreadsheet.

Let's see how far I get before my PC shuts down. Once I start the contract at Google, I need to pay back all of my friends for lending me money during my 4 month unemployment, pay 2 months rent, then save up enough to get my Macbook fixed. But nevermind all that. I start work at the end of the month and it's snowing out. Lovely!

Stress!

Freelance tip #1: Just because your paycheck arrived super-quickly the last time, do NOT budget for that to happen again.

My last mailed paycheck arrived on the same day that I thought it would be mailed, so I assumed it would be that quick again. Not so! Now my rent check was mailed Saturday and is probably in the hands of my landlady already. Will my check arrive tomorrow? Not until Friday? I have no idea. And I have $12 to my name. Bad scene!

Also, I'm making sure we have everything set for our big long meeting next week, and remembered that way back in October before I took time off to finish my thesis, the GIS guru and I had discussed installing HAZUS on one of the computers in the office so that I could run some scenarios and do some analysis. For the most part, I don't need this until next month, but I suddenly realized that actually, having a couple of maps would be useful right now, and I'm kicking myself for not taking care of that earlier.

There's also this bit of imbalance where I'm not sure if I should take the initiative in contacting people or if I'm overstepping my bounds as a contractor. It makes me question my actions in a way I didn't anticipate.

On a more positive note, here are some tips that are helping me get some work done from home, many of which were gathered from Lifehacker:

• Make a schedule that works with your natural schedule
• I found myself only able to get down to work around noon, but then I was able to crank away until dinner time. So I set that as my work schedule, rather than trying to force myself to wake up every morning at 8 or 9 and get right to work. Before I start work that gives me some time to wake up, take care of house chores, cook, work out, etc.
• An aside to this: if I bring my computer up to my room when I go to bed, this schedule will fail. I'll stay up late doing stupid stuff, sleep in through my alarm, then spend hours the next morning in bed doing stupid stuff on the computer. My Precious stays downstairs at night now and I can check e-mail on my blackberry so I don't have to worry about missing a time-sensitive e-mail.
• Set up a work space
• It's not a private room where I can close the door and remove distractions, but our cafe setup is made for working, and not as comfortable for relaxing. It helps to have others working at the same time. I can leave my Wacom tablet and hard drive in the same place, and the printer is there, too.
• The pomodoro method (set a timer for 25 minutes, work until it's done, take a 5 minute break)
• I just started this and today had so much to do that getting myself to focus wasn't an issue, so the jury's still out on this one. I can see how it would work well, though.
•  Task list
• At the beginning of the week, I make a task list with several items, grouped by deadline or project. Throughout the week I cross them off as I go, and if I hit a wall on one item, I check my list and switch to something else. Whatever is left at the end of the week goes on the next week's task list. I e-mail a copy to my client so she knows what I'm working on, and can add items if she thinks of something that would be useful.

I'll add to this list as I discover more or tweak these things. Hopefully I'll also figure out some stress management ideas. I was on the Wii Fit for an hour this morning but I don't feel like that helped.