The lovely Maureen Johnson on how not to go insane comparing yourself to others (hint: don't do it), with words of wisdom from the great Bill Murray:

The gist of his speech was: “Look, people thought I was going to be a huge failure, but then I got kind of lucky and made it. And I had and have lots of amazing friends, and we’ve seen each other’s careers go up and down. Take my advice: don’t go comparing yourself to other people. You will go insane. It’s pointless. Your fortunes may rise and fall, depending on all kinds of things you have no control over. Keep your friends. Never compare all the outward markers of success. Do what you love, because that’s all you really get and that’s all that matters and that’s all that will ever really work. And don’t be an as$h&^e.”

(Interesting, that last part is very similar to my #1 Rule for Life!)

This is a really stupid question to break radio silence for. But my answer is so huge, I have to! Behold, in reverse order, and skipping repeat stays:

• The house I own and live in.


• My parents' house in Cabbagetown.


• My parents' friends' house (bless them) near Casa Loma.


• My apartment on Kingswood, near the Neville Park streetcar loop. Lovely place, but loud from turning streetcars and stinky from the smoker downstairs.


• My apartment in Montreal, at Sherbrooke and Grey.


• K & J's house, up the hill from the apartment.


• Montreal Diocesan Theological College.


• My parents' apartment near St. Clair West subway.


• My apartment shared with Lisa in the McGill Ghetto.


• Royal Victoria College (the tower, not the awesome old wing. Alas).


• Duplex near Mount Pleasant Cemetery, with my mum.


• Another duplex around the corner. This is because I refused to do my last 2 years of high school in Grey County when my parents bought a house there. They eventually moved back to Toronto, which I consider total vindication.


• House on Roxborough St. W.


• My grandparents' house in Forest Hill.


• House in sort of the country, near Hilversum in the Netherlands.


• Apartment in Westlands, Nairobi.


• Maisonette (hey, that's what they called it) in university housing in Nairobi -- I have to get my parents to show me this one on a map some day, because I honestly have no clue where it was. Near a stable, though.


• House St. Andrew's Gardens (this is the first one I remember).


• Moore Avenue, the house with the yellow door.

I make that 19, counting the short-term stays. Not bad at all! I'd have to go with my present house for my favourite, 'cos it's MINE. But they were mostly really nice.

Lost robot asks for directions

Very cool!

Ah, eXistenZ. 1999* was such a great year for "the world around you is not what you think" movies.

*And, apparently, 1998. Shut up.

Actually this icon does not accurately convey my current feelings about work, which run more to "We're all DOOOOOOMED! Panic! Panic! Flee!"

It's an odd reaction to being given lots of money, I realize. But no doubt we will manage somehow.

So about those penguins...

I showed Jen the video, and she ran into her room and found a postcard of this.

Which makes me very happy.

I'll need a penguin icon if this keeps up.

Yes, I know I'm being frugal and everything, but my parents are going to France for 5 weeks and borrowing a flat in Paris for 2 of them and -- like Rome last year -- I would kick myself if I didn't go. So, yay Expedia (where I found the flight) and yay FlightCentre (where I booked the flight for $10 less) and yay Air Transat (which will be doing the actual flying)!

EEEEE I'M GOING TO PARIS! I haven't been to Paris in YEARS. And then it was only for 1 day 10 years ago, on my way to visit Jen in London. I'm due.

What should I do while I'm there?

Like the commenters, I totally want a flying robot penguin toooooooo!

Every time I read something like this, all I can think is "John Putnam Thatcher would not approve."

I miss those halcyon days when bankers were sober, stodgy, pinstriped, and averse to stupid risks.

Who wouldn't click on a link titled Online Gaming the Victorian Way?

I especially love the accompanying archival drawing, especially the guy on the left. Clearly, sprawling in a chair waiting for your friends to hurry up with their bit so you can do your bit has been around for a long, long time!

On Thursdays Jen has a class, so it's just me and Blue. It's quiet around these parts, but it does help me overcome my fatal tendency to gravitate towards the other person in the house and do what they're doing. This was a problem for me in university -- my flatmate in second through fourth year, Lisa, was a music student, which meant that she mostly did her "homework" in the practice rooms at the faculty of music. Whenever she was home was her down time. Lab-report-writing, complex-topic-wrestling, chemistry-major me found it waaaaay too easy to just hang out in the kitchen with her instead of doing what I was meant to be doing (all too often: phys chem lab reports, statistical mechanics, and spectroscopy). These days I have a similar problem: Jen tends to be home earlier than I am, I like hanging out with her, she lives on the ground floor (no stairs!), and she usually watches TV in the evenings. Sometimes it's even TV I want to watch! Oh, the fiendishness of it all!

It's compounded by another problem I've had for a number of years: not really considering my time between work and bed "important". I leave work late and mooch around downtown window-shopping. I've been a bit better about this since I got Blue, but I'm still not great, which only compounds the problem above (heck, sometimes I've barely got home before the GOOD TV starts).

I'm not going to flunk any classes by sitting on Jen's couch, but nevertheless I'm working on getting at least a few things done in the evenings. This evening I:
- read and made notes on a chapter for my exterminator course
- changed my sheets
- cleared out a box of hastily-tidied odds and ends that's been hanging around since Christmas
- changed the batteries in two of my smoke alarms
- did my accounts

The trick is to get home early enough take an hour to do at least some of this on regular evenings. Haven't been doing so well at that lately, even though I set alarms on my cellphone and everything. Maybe next week...

but particularly nellisir: We need to put in baseboards. We ripped everything out of the house as part of gutting it; we do have a few of the old baseboards, which are 8" high, but they are covered in the paint of ages and frequently full of holes.

I took a one-day course in trim carpentry last year, which was helpful, but I've forgotten (if I ever knew) the answer to the most important question: What material to use?

I'm probably too cheap and have too many walls to spring for hardwood (and we plan to paint the baseboards in any case). That seems to leave pine or MDF. MDF seems simpler to work with, especially for cope joints, but how does it stand up to use? Am I going to regret installing the stuff 5 years from now? Help!

Finances are on my mind of late, thanks to the global economic meltdown, which is having its effects on my workplace and on some of you as well. (Much sympathy.) I'm fortunate: my job, thank goodness, is safe for now, and is nice and stable at that. I don't think I'm temperamentally suited to be a freelancer -- I like knowing where my next paycheque is coming from and how much is going to be in it.

It always strikes me -- not in a good way -- that although I make more than twice what I did in my first "real" job 10 years ago, and am living in a lower-tax jurisdiction, I seem to be perpetually at the edge of my bank account. There's a good reason for this, of course: my apartment in Montreal was cheap cheap cheap, whereas my house takes roughly half of what I make after tax. When we started off this grand adventure, Jen and I set up a joint bank account, which we use for mortgage payments, tax, utilities, renovation expenses, and all the other exciting expenses that you come in for once you own a house. We each have a set amount we pay into it every paycheque, and Jen administers the funds (giving me a free ride). There's a complicated spreadsheet that she uses to keep track of it all. Anyway, my share is almost exactly half my paycheque. With that and the other regular payments I make (see below), I often wind up with... not a whole lot of money, actually, even on payday. (I should really stop ripping open my pay stub every other Friday and getting all excited. The number on it is totally illusory.)

There's also a bad reason: it's shocking how much I manage to spend on frivolities. After my trip to Italy last year I stopped updating Quicken. (Out of fear, I think, although actually as overseas trips go I don't think I've ever had a cheaper one. Or maybe I just don't like entering foreign currency transactions.) In January, as part of Operation Make My Life Better, I ploughed through the giant stack of receipts and statements and managed to catch up. This gave me an excellent opportunity to look at 6 months' worth of expenses in one go, and something I noticed was how few items seemed like a good idea months after the fact. There were a very few items of which I was able to say definitively, "Yes, I'm glad I bought that. Spending $X on it was totally worth it." There were quite a few necessities -- groceries, obviously, and vet bills. And then there was the alarming list of expenses of which I had to ask "What was I THINKING?"

I was also shocked by how often I'd paid off my credit card with my line of credit, which has been steadily inflating all year. I'd thought it was maybe once or twice; in fact, it was every other month. (Now I know WHY it's been inflating.)

As I mentioned yesterday, I really need to keep track of what I'm doing or things get completely out of hand. And I hate the feeling of being financially out of control, always have. (Unfortunate about that reluctance to look at my finances, then... I know, I know. I'm better now.)

There is good news. I'm enrolled in a defined-benefit pension plan at work, which is a chunk out of my paycheque but also means that my unused RRSP contribution room isn't accumulating quite as fast as it would otherwise... and defined-benefit pension plans are thin on the ground these days. I've been saving steadily into an RRSP since that first real job (I'm now paying back what I took out for the First-Time Home-Buyer's Plan), and that's an automatic payment from every paycheque. I also have an automatic payment into an ING account on every paycheque, so I do have a bit of an emergency fund. And my line of credit isn't yet out of control.

Still, it was time to take things in hand. What I'm doing:

• Continuing with savings and RRSP payments. Savings are going into a tax-free savings account.
• Paying a set amount to my line of credit each paycheque. Once it's paid off, I'll divert most of the money to savings.
• Keeping track of expenses and updating Quicken every 2 weeks.
• Trying to stick to a budget, and really considering every purchase carefully before making it. (So-so results so far, but at least I'm more aware of what I'm spending and what I should be spending.)
• Writing down major purchases I want to make (which in the past would have gone straight onto the credit card), together with approximate cost, why I need it, and how I plan to pay for it.
• Taking out only $20 in cash per week.
• Nothing on the credit card unless it's going to be reimbursed (e.g. dental work) or I have no choice (Internet and mail orders) or it's a known quantity every month (gym membership).
• Pretty much everything paid by debit. (Downside: I had way more transactions last month than my account allows. I'm going to have to pay slightly more for an account with unlimited transactions. I've also had some overdraft fees thanks to inept juggling of funds. Hopefully these hiccups are now behind me.)
• Tax refund goes to debt repayment.
• No more dipping into the line of credit except to cover short-term cash-flow hiccups.
• Tracking my progress on a graph, so I can see I'm actually getting somewhere.
• Finally, a slight stroke of luck: our mortgage came up for renewal, so we got a variable-rate closed mortgage at a lower rate (at least for now) than we were paying before. Our payments are going to drop a little, and if interest rates get too high, we'll lock back in to a fixed-rate mortgage. So that will help.

Inspirations: I've been watching a lot of Maxed Out, which is inspiring in that horrified "well, at least I'm doing better than that!" kind of way. (The website has budgeting tools.) I also found Going Broke, which I believe fairoriana recommended, really fascinating and illuminating, and am trying to put some of its conclusions (build in a waiting period; keep your long-term goals in mind; treat windfalls as real money that you earned) into effect.

So yeah. That's how the Great Financial Crisis helped kick-start me into doing a bunch of stuff I should have been doing anyway. How about you?

Well, that didn't take long! Having missed 3 days of April already, I shall try -- but only try -- to do better for the rest of the month.

I've been trying to Make My Life Better this year, something I often attempt but rarely follow through on. Don't get me wrong, my life is really good. I have a job I love, a great house in a great neighbourhood, wonderful friends and family, a sweet dog. That said... my job frequently drives me bananas, the house is neither finished nor tidy, I sometimes go weeks on end without seeing anyone outside my immediate circle, and my dog could use some manners. In short, there's always room for improvement.

At present, I'm trying to improve:
- my housekeeping
- my attitude and productivity at work
- my finances
- my fitness

These are all connected to a certain extent. I'm trying to make it to the gym three times a week (I fell off the bandwagon a bit when Jen started going to meditation classes on Thursday nights, and haven't quite readjusted); when I go regularly, I notice improvements in my mood and energy. (And it means I'm using my membership, which is a plus on the financial side.) I'm also using some of the same tools to deal with all of these areas. For starters, I'm trying to track my progress; I've noticed that it's all too easy to focus on everything that still needs to be done and ignore all the improvements that I've already made, so writing down what I do is really helpful.

I've also signed up with FlyLady. Yes, it's often a bit goofy, but I actually find the relentless good cheer and encouragement really helpful. And I love and NEED the philosophy that it's OK to be imperfect and that I'm not behind, I just need to do SOMETHING. Particularly at work, my self-imposed tasks often pile up really fast, and I find myself in the office at 7 p.m. when I should be home feeding my dog, paralyzed by the thought of everything I still have to get done. I need to give myself permission to say "OK, clearly I'm not getting anything else done right now, I'll start fresh tomorrow" at a reasonable hour.

I've been considering a 101 goals in 1001 days project, but I haven't come up with enough goals yet. I sort of feel like they shouldn't all be things I would/should be doing anyway, like painting my trim or loading music onto my iPod. Except, is that really a barrier if I haven't done them yet and likely won't without the encouragement? This is something I need to work through. On the other hand, most of the goals will keep quite happily until I've got my life enough in order to sit down and think about more goals. So I can take more time to ponder.

I'm also trying to work on some personal commandments a la The Happiness Project. Again, this is something I feel like I can take some time with. Jen is working on a variant of her Resolutions Chart; I like that idea too. Maybe next month.

Obviously, Jen has been self-improving as well, so any day now we ought to be shining beacons of mental and emotional stability, productivity, and tidiness. OK, perhaps not, but incremental improvement is very welcome too.

I've always had this feeling like if my life was going well in one area, it had to be catastrophic in another. If my house was organized, work was sure to be a disaster, and vice versa. I think a lot of the time I psych myself out. In a way, Operation Make My Life Better is an attempt to get past that.

I'll keep you posted.

I always love getting this:

Internal Server Error

The server encountered an internal error or misconfiguration and was unable to complete your request.

Please contact the server administrator, answerline@torontopubliclibrary.ca and inform them of the time the error occurred, and anything you might have done that may have caused the error.

More information about this error may be available in the server error log.
Apache/2.0.63 (Unix) DAV/2 Server at catalogue.torontopubliclibrary.ca Port 80

There's the judgement, of course, but also the touchingly optimistic assumption that I, J. Random Library User McPhee, may be sufficiently versed in computer technology to help them debug whatever's going on. (Although who knows? It's a big library system serving a couple of million people -- there must be some non-zero number of experts out there that actually COULD give them useful information.)

My online presence has been thin for the last while, mainly because of [work / trying to organize my life / trying to go to the gym more / dog / reading / fill in excuse here]. In an attempt to remedy this, I'm going to give Blog Every Day April a shot ...with the firm understanding that if it doesn't work out, that's OK and I am not going to beat myself up over it. Contradictory? Yes.

That said, without even trying hard, on my commute today I came up with 17 things that have been humming around in my head that I can blither about quite easily. (18 if you count this post.) So, really, if I can find half an hour a day to type them out, that's 2 1/2 weeks of April taken care of right there! Will they be interesting? ... not necessarily, but that's never been a guarantee around here, after all. If all else fails, I shall simply have to post pictures of my dog, or finally get around to telling you all about my trip to Italy, or list all the books I've had out from the library in the last year. It's a risk, I admit it. But. So.

THE BLOG EVERY DAY IN APRIL MANIFESTO

I commit to this idea and am determined to create something EVERY DAY in April, including weekends. Every day, I will find something to say. I embrace the reality that there is always something to talk about, if you are willing to take the time to look for it.

I, Electric Landlady, promise to blog every day in April.

More tomorrow! I promise!

I have lived happily for many years without coming any closer to the works of Ayn Rand than by glimpsing many a vaguely Tamara de Lempicka-esque cover across a high school classroom, and now I trip over two recaps of Atlas Shrugged in two days. What's going on?

...oh. Rereading the intro to that first one, possibly Stephen Colbert is to blame?

(Incidentally, possibly my favourite part of the second review is the comments -- especially the one that goes "I know this book is boring for the first 400 pages, but nevertheless it is the GREATEST WORK OF LITERATURE OF ALL TIME and anybody who doesn't appreciate that is a stupid poopyhead!" And I cannot for the life of me figure out if the commenter is serious.)

UPDATE: Um. Yay deja vu?

As promised to ozreison: baked beans.

This recipe comes from Johanna Burkhard's column in the Montreal Gazette, 1993, which means I've been hauling it around with me since second-year university. There's a reason for this; I make it at least a couple of times a year. It's really tasty and very satisfying, both as a meal and in that "I cooked a delicious meal involving dried legumes, GO FRONTIERSWOMAN ME" kind of way. (There's a recipe for lentils and rice and one for curried lamb with chickpeas and peppers on the same page -- must try both one of these days.)

Anyway, onward to the recipe!

( Read more... )

Obviously, this dish takes a little preparation -- it's not something you can easily whip together in half an hour on a weeknight. She suggests serving with sausage and thick slices of crusty bread, and/or adding slices of kielbasa for the last 15 minutes of cooking.

175 reasons to love the place. Awww.

Via comments on Steve Munro's site: The Rollerboat. I had never heard of this before!

I tend to forget how much of the waterfront is actually landfill. Maybe the Rollerboat is hanging out with that boat in Consolation.