At first, Google Reader was an alien beast to me. I had a multitude of opposition. What do I want a collection of feeds for? Don’t my bookmarks do the same thing? That would take me forever to move them over to a new system!

And it did take forever. I didn’t start using it for everything at first. Just the websites I liked to check every once in awhile but was not personally invested in. You know — the silly sites and guilty pleasures like Cake Wrecks, Lolcats and Post Secret. But then my circle of blog friends began to grow and one by one I added them too.

Now my dear precious Google Reader brings in everything from my favorite Kijiji feeds informing me of local garage sales –> all of the Chick blogs at my fingertips –> an identical listing of podcasts as what’s on the iPod so I can listen while doing boring stuff around the house.

Literally anything with an RSS can be put in there. And you’d be surprised – these days everything is RSS. It really is an amazing tool and I am so glad that I was introduced to it. With all things technology, it hasn’t intruded on my life but enhanced it — with whipped cream and a cherry!

This morning I discovered that the Reader team had sprinkles waiting for me too.

Sprinkled!

These new tools promise to make my experience even better and I wanted to share the love.

1. Subscribe as you surf – go to your Settings, then look for the Goodies tab. Scroll down a bit as its second from the bottom. It gives you a link that you can drag and drop onto your browser’s toolbar. Clicking that link when you are on a webpage instantly takes you to Reader where you can hit subscribe. Without having to find the RSS, then copy and paste it over and then hit subscribe. WAY faster!!
2. Send to — this feature is newer and allows you to turn on the option to easily share posts to other social sites like facebook, twitter, tumblr, digg, reddit, the list goes on. Again go to your Settings page but look for the Send to tab and customize to your hearts content.
3. Submit your own ideas and vote on other’s ideas to improve your reading experience! Yes, this is basically the Reader team wanting you to do their marketing research for them, but it is so remarkably satisfying to see them working to do things better and wanting my puny insect of an opinion that it really is irresistible. Why do I feel like a… oh what the hell… Vive la Revolution! Click here to give your humble contribution.
   

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Continuing on my graphic novel parade, I picked up 300 last time I was at the library. The stand the Spartans took never ceases to interest me, and Steven Pressfield’s Gates of Fire on the same topic is one of my all time faves.

The movie is accurate, frame by frame, to the novel. It’s really a matter of do you prefer still images of scantily clad figures or moving ones. Under those criteria, I put this book as one of the very few in my “The movie was better than the book” category. Though I do feel an obligation to mention that there is even less leather in the book on those already scantily clad figures, if you know what I mean.

The page of single most interest to me was when Leonidas speaks the word hubris, naming it as the fatal weakness of his opponent Xerxes. I had to google it to get the full meaning. A mostly unrelated matter made me google the word humility this morning. I found this article and really enjoyed it.

“We often confuse humility with timidity. Humility is not clothing ourselves in an attitude of self-abasement or self-denigration. Humility is all about maintaining our pride about who we are, about our achievements, about our worth – but without arrogance – it is the antithesis of hubris, that excessive, arrogant pride which often leads to the derailment of some corporate heroes, as it does with the downfall of the tragic hero in Greek drama. It’s about a quiet confidence without the need for a meretricious selling of our wares. It’s about being content to let others discover the layers of our talents without having to boast about them. It’s a lack of arrogance, not a lack of aggressiveness in the pursuit of achievement.”

In my heart, I’ve gone from quiet mouse to putting myself out there (and feeling terribly uncomfortable about it) to settling into what I am good at and enjoying the confidence I have in myself and others have in me. I thought, with my religious definition of humility in mind, that getting to this place in myself meant that I had lost humility. This article gave me a fuller appreciation and the ability to see this particular virtue not as a hinderance or a roadblock but as a key to all that lies beyond today.

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I really really really need a cleaning schedule. My skills in tidying and organizing are unmatched. I do believe I have conquered the menu-planning and grocery shopping demons. But my days as a stay-at-home mom have left me in the habit of doing all my house cleaning – the vacuuming, kitchen, bathrooms and dusting – in one day. And it’s not getting done.

Well, sometimes it is. But when it is not, I shudder to go into certain rooms and I don’t enjoy cooking when the kitchen is a mess. More money gets spent on fast food and the anxiety related to it all being left until I have one chunk of time to dedicate is stressing me OUT!

I must change.

Since kicking myself in the pants for the past few weeks has failed, I am toying with the idea of a daily cleaning schedule. Something I’ve never tried before.

My answer began by opening Google Calendar. I created a new calendar. I gave it a pretty pink color and designated a task to each day. On {pix-elated} paper it looks good.

I’ve made the transition from SAHM to working mom over the past few years. It’s been a long haul. Crossing my fingers that this is the answer because it is the last piece of the puzzle. Once I can get this down, life can settle into that steady rhythm my heart is crying for, that unmissable beat that gives extra room for freestyle drum fill sections – the spice of life!

Do any of you find a daily versus one day blitz works for you?

So here’s the plan I came up with…

Monday – Vacuum the house, Any necessary Ironing
Tuesday – Kitchen: Counters, Sink, Mop
Wednesday – Bathrooms: Everything
Thursday – Wash Bed Linens,  Menu Planning, Pay Bills @ end of month
Friday – Grocery Shopping, Dust, Water Houseplants
Saturday – LIVE
Sunday – Bake and eat tasty treats

My logic is as follows:

• I am home Mondays and Wednesdays and so want to do big jobs those days.
• And yes, bathrooms are a big job – we have three in the place we are renting. Too many imho!
• Tuesday and Thursdays are lighter because I’m working.
• I totally need reminding to water plants or they just shrivel up and make me sad.
• And Sunday seems to be the day of late that I am hungry for something sweet.
• Laundry is a non-issue. When the hamper is full, I wash. lol

What do ya think?!

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In celebration of his recent book publication, Ethan Gilsdorf, the author of Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks, is offering quite a promotion! From his website:

What is your geekiest secret? Your freakiest fandom moment? Your most embarrassing gaming gaffe? In a brief essay, photo or video, we want you to spill the beans.The folks at Fantasy Freaks and Gaming Geeks Headquarters want to know about that time you stalked your favorite Star Trek celebrity to a coffee shop, made a pilgrimage to a fantasy movie location, watched an entire season of Battlestar Galactica in one sitting, cooked a hobbit feast for your friends, or waited in line at midnight to buy a new video game. Or perhaps you have a photo of yourself posing with your fave SF/fantasy celebrity. Or perhaps you’ll shoot a video tribute to your geek lover, or give us a video tour of your collection of Star Wars Pez dispensers. Whatever the geeky, gamer, or freakish tick or obsession, we want to see, read, and watch it.

This what I get for surfing Goodreads instead of cooking supper… more books to read. more geekness to behold… but what the hell? Only live once!

I wonder, I wonder, I wonder what I could submit. What will YOU submit?

Think fast though — the clock is ticking! We only have until September 30 to enter and the prizes look like loads of fun.

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I’ve suspected it but simply didn’t want to admit the truth. The massive 3 feet around plant taking up a prominent space in my front garden is a wildflower. Albeit a pretty and prolific one as it makes this purplish blue bells on tall stalks. But immediately upon finishing to bloom, the entire plant – stalks and all – go brown and die. Not a green leaf in sight.

I am tired of the tease. Such a hopeful growing spring of green that ends in dry brittle crackling brown. I want things that last in my garden and decided to yank it.

As soon as my shovel starts to get under the roots, I begin to doubt. The internal conversation I have goes like this…

This is going to turn my garden into a living representation of Sunnydale, CA after Buffy was done fighting evil.

Yes it will. But it needs to come out. It looks horrible and the entire garden is being planned around a lie.

But what will go into its place?

I don’t know. Something.

What?!

I don’t know. Whenever something comes, it will go there.

Well, how can you make this massive change without a plan?!!!

I just know that this is the right thing to do. Shut up and dig.

From there it was fun getting my fingernails all brown and noting how shallow the roots actually were and then having to hack the very flat, very wide root ball in half in order to get it out of the ground.

But on top of all that, I had an unmistakable feeling of connection – that the physical action was the mirror of an internal weeding – that I’ll probably have a big hole in my heart for awhile – but that if I waited and listened and imagined and watered enough, something amazing would get planted there too.

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