I have a Christmas Conundrum.

I have about three people in my life who are impossible to buy for.  They either have everything they want, don’t need anything, or have no interests or hobbies of their own which make it easy to buy for them.  I know that last year, I did okay, but this year, I’m at a total loss.

I think I’m going to send these people’s Significant Other (or someone who knows what they want) out shopping, get the difficult recipient the gift they want, stick my name on it, and I’ll cut the buyer a check.  It just seems easier.

Am I breaking the spirit of Christmas law doing this?  Everyone gets what they want, there’s no particular disappointment involved, what’s the harm?

I’d been feeling pretty beat up lately as far as working on MK was concerned.  Intended or not, I put it on the backburner. That is, until I had been chastened by a customer I had forgotten to touch base with months ago.  There’s no incentive quite like being embarrassed.

Even though I worked to make up for the embarrassment, the point is that I worked.  And, I felt pretty good about the work I got done. Sometimes, getting the work done is more important than the sentiment.
BlackBerry

I have been keeping track of Organized Christmas because there are few things I find more pleasurable than being organized and Christmas (these few things may or may not include winning the lottery and naps).

And every day, they diligently send me another task to complete on my Christmas Countdown so I can get ready for Christmas.  I haven’t even started reading the countdown entries, much less gotten a binder together to keep track.  I currently have a very slapdash Excel file that I’m using to keep track of holiday receipts, and what needs to be planned for [The Boy's] annual Christmas party.

I’m trying to fight letting this over-planning for a semi-distant holiday mean that somehow, my life is spinning out of control.  I tell myself, I am very busy: I am going to school, I am working full-time, I am working part-time.  I’m trying to balance.

But at the same time, I’m very acutely aware that I have a finger-tip grasp on all of the things that I am trying to get done.  GTD, productivity, and organization practices are life practices designed to help busy people get everything done.  But my practice of this art comes in fits and spurts.

An engine works harder when it starts and stops (city driving), than it does by working continuously (highway).

I also have to keep reminding myself that wearing a hair shirt doesn’t make me a better person:  killing myself working on the skulduggery projects in my life doesn’t mean I’m  better person.  It might just mean I’m a masochist.  Sure, I need to plan a time to make Christmas cookies for Christmas, but I really should be fitting it into my schedule because I like it, not just because I feel like I have to do it for a productive Christmas.

I can say with authority that I do not have the flu, swine flu, HamAIDS, Hamthrax, or Hammonia in any way, shape or form. So, cheers to that.

I can’t even tell you what I do have, except to say that it feels like I have a dust bunny in my throat at approximately clavicle level that won’t move at all when I cough.

Right now, I took oscillococcinum as a preventative (again, I know I don’t have the flu), and drinking a lot of water (any water for me is a 100% increase than what I usually drink – pass the Diet Coke, please), and my three-cigarettes-a-day is now whittled down to nothing.

I don’t feel any better or worse than yesterday, so I think that’s an okay sign.

The thing that makes me nuts, though, is that I finally feel the drive to take care of my body when it is broken. Obviously the smoking is not helping, and I make excuses about my hydration with the Diet Coke as a substitute for water. But I just feel gross right now, and I want to feel better. More importantly, I want to feel better all the time, not just when I get over not feeling well.

I’m at the point where I’m really just tired of smoking. It’s more of a pain in the ass than not, so I’m really working on being done. Not eating like a little kid and having healthy and balanced meals is even a fun challenge: I like to cook, I like to be organized, I like to plan meals, no sweat. I can stick with that.

It’s the working out that’s going to suck. It hurts a lot for me to work out – and not even in that “ooh! Feel the burn!” kind of hurt. As in, “I am laid out on my back for two days after 30 minutes on the elliptical” hurt because of persistent hip and knee problems. I would like working out if I weren’t so terrified of being crippled for days afterword.

The best part? Presentation tonight – I think I’m going to lose my voice midway through. Charades, anyone?

Things I know now that I wish I knew in college:

1. Steal food from the cafeteria – you never know when you’ll be desperate for a snack.
2. Get everything done in the morning so you can screw around all afternoon.
3. Keeping your dorm room organized and spotless; it will help when you live in your own space.
4. Better yet: don’t live on campus if you can avoid it.
5. Start the project when it’s assigned, even if it’s just perusing Wikipedia.
6. It’s a lot easier to print flashcards to study than it is to hand-write them.
7. Learn how to be prepared when things go wrong on projects – it’s going to happen.

I still stand by the idea that it has been the best for me to move my locus down to the basement.  I have a massive space heater right now that cranks out the BTUs, and makes the room liveable.  I also have most (I’m still in the process of moving things down from my bedroom) of my things at my fingertips.

But the purging is never-ending – bags and bags of random crap I’ve been accumulating since before moving to this new home is getting pitched.  And I keep kicking myself, thinking, Why didn’t I do this before?  Why did I move all this garbage?

I think the garbage bag weighs more than I do at this point.

I had a weird moment with The Boy last weekend while visiting Binkles at BGSU. And it wasn’t feeling like a couple of codgers at the college party he invited us to – but that was actually pretty awkward, even if it was genuinely-intended.

My brother is currently finishing his art degree, and taking glassblowing and ceramics (I think his concentration and passion is glassblowing). I started out at AU as an art major, but burned out midway through my junior year. AU had drawing, painting, ceramics, sculpture, computer art (sort of), printmaking, and photography (sort of). There weren’t textiles, glassblowing, jewelry-making, animation, imaging, or interactive multimedia courses.

Bitter? Why yes, why do you ask?

At any rate, things turned out for the best, and I have a Business Administration degree and am currently working on my MBA. I’m very supportive of the arts, still, and very much hope that part of my life’s work is devoted to the arts in some way.

Walking through the massive halls of the art building at BG, I casually mentioned to The Boy, “I’m really glad that things worked out the way they did. If I thought I’d floundered at AU, I would have epically failed at BG.”

After a few moments, The Boy took a breath and said, “Yeah, you do kind of benefit when you have metaphorical ‘horse blinders’ on.”

At the time, I thought it was an odd comparison to make, but I think that ultimately he’s right – he saw me through all of those agonizing years in art classes, and is able to make that statement with authority. I cannot take the overwhelming distraction of frenetic creative activity: I get sensory overload and I shut down. I cannot function with too many options, and BG just offered way too many options in a field of study I wasn’t meant to master.

I, myself, am still turning this idea over in my head, musing all of the underlying implications of this statement, and how to asses and apply it for the future. Time, I’m sure, will reveal a lot of what it means to operate best with “horse blinders” on – and how to use this skill (if it is a skill) to my advantage.

Oof, apparently, I need to be careful when trying to post an actual post using the WordPress for BlackBerry app…  It got eaten.

Holy crap: today was so busy, and my brain is so mush, that I might have to make this it….

Well, except for the fact that I’m working on my baked goods for the Food Bank Bake Sale at work: pumpkin whoopee pies with maple cream filling and…what else?

I’m having trouble thinking of the “what else”.  What would go over well with a group of financial planners and their staff?

I subscribe to several feeds of varying nature: some of them are strictly for boredom-curing (Savage Chickens, anyone?), some are hobby-related (The Kitchn, ftw), and some are information-based (Daily Blog Tips, ie).

One of them is a frugal-living blog.  I like spending wisely: it keeps me with a car to drive to work, food to eat, and a little extra when I want to splurge – all at the same time.  Sometimes, the advice is good, and I have run with it; sometimes, it seems a little more cheap than frugal, but hey – some people get off on being cheap (making your own detergent- really? I don’t know about you, but my time is better spent doing other things than making laundry detergent).

But this is the second time that I’ve been offended by a frugal living blog (and their community of commenters) because of the negative things that they’ve had to say about Direct Selling businesses.  For those not in the know, Mary Kay is a member of the Direct-Selling Association.  It is not a pyramid scheme – which is illegal in the United States (MK wouldn’t have celebrated it’s 50-year anniversary if it had Bernie Madoff’d it’s way there).

At any rate, this blogger basically went on to say that these companies, like Mary Kay, Advocare, Longaberger, and Pampered Chef, use duplicitous marketing techniques that emotionally blackmail customers into buying products.  In the frugal community, direct selling is used as a perjorative: associated with dirty materialism and the worst that capitalism has to offer.  I have marketed my wares to potential clients, just like any other business would: I have offered deals, coupons, and incentives to buy – just like any other business has.

The long and short of it is that there are some consultants – not just in MK, but in every business – that can make the whole bunch look bad.  But the reality is that when you buy from a direct-seller, you directly support the person who is selling to you.  I am lucky to work in a district of women who have worked their way from independent consultants to directors – of their own merit.  These women have earned cars, jewelry, gifts, trips and pensions – by working hard.  If they didn’t work, they didn’t make money.  These are all professional businesswomen.

If you don’t like my product, fine – a "no thank you" isn’t going to kill me.  But don’t get on your high horse about "buying local" when by boycotting your local MK consultant’s party you are shitting in the shoe of that ideal.

And for those in the frugal community who think that somehow they are above the marketing – well, good for you, I guess.  You are able to demonize a group of people who are working their own businesses into nothing more than succubi looking for their next dollar.  I defy you to find a business that never marketed, that never advertised, that never asked for a referral for their products. Mary Kay Ash went from being a single mother to a multi-billionaire whose product is now being sold in over 50 countries. 

I suppose it’s all in what you want to support.  Frugalists who want to find better deals on cosmetics by purchasing from a drugstore are also buying products made outside of the United States for pennies.  They support companies that use saved profits by underpaying their outsourced labor to pay faceless shareholders in a company could care less about supporting women who want to start their own businesses.  Hey, if that’s worth it to you to save a dollar and not feel "emotionally blackmailed" – well, I suppose you have every right.  It is your dollar.