To my friends:

However you choose to celebrate the passing of time and new beginnings,

I wish you joy!

Status Update — 4Q2008

I can’t believe time has gone by so quickly but here we are. It is time to take stock of how I did with my “Resolutions 2008“.

Giving
Goal 1: Make 18 trips to long-term care facilities in 2008.
Status: I made 12 visits total, before ending my relationship with the Center in September.

Goal 2: Volunteer at least one weekend a month as a medical advocate.
Status: This was also through the Center so it didn’t happen.

Goal 3: Take call on the crisis hotline at least two nights a month.
Status: See above.

Goal 4: Increase charitable giving by 50% and make quarterly donations.
Status: Success! I also sponsored a second loan through Kiva in this quarter. I’ve chosen women entrepreneurs (one in Cambodia, one in Uganda) to support.

Fun
Goal 1: Join a “fun” volunteer organization.
Status: This one I removed second quarter. I didn’t want to ‘have’ to do anything else at the time.

Goal 2: Take a full week vacation, preferably out of state.
Status: Unfortunately, (for my co-workers especially) this didn’t happen. With the current situation at work, I don’t think this will happen in 2009 either. I’ll have to figure out a way to take better advantage of long weekends.

Reading
Goal 1: Read 52 books, or an average of one per week, in 2008.
Status: I read 63 books. Overachiever much?

Goal 2: Read primarily biographies/memoirs and the works of John Steinbeck in 2008.
Status: I completed 38 bios/memoirs and 11 works by Steinbeck.

I fared much better on the personal goals I set (and didn’t share here). They were less concrete, and therefore less easy to quantify, but I can still see improvement from last year so overall, I am pretty happy with the strides I made in 2008.

So, yes, I didn’t accomplish everything I had hoped to at the beginning of the year but I am sure I accomplished far more than I would have if I hadn’t kept these goals in front of me during the year. I know some people think resolutions don’t work but I couldn’t function without some sort of goal-setting exercise. I work best with a game plan, even if I fall short of the desired outcome. I need that ability to look at the point at which I started and where I am to keep myself on course. And thankfully (?) there is always something about me that can stand improving.

On the bookshelf, #2008-63

The Last Lecture, by Randy Pausch

I bought this book specifically to read at the end of December. I always try to find something special to read to commemorate the passing of a year and this book, focused on how to live one’s life, seemed like a good candidate.

From the bn.com site:

“We cannot change the cards we are dealt, just how we play the hand.”
—Randy Pausch

A lot of professors give talks titled “The Last Lecture.” Professors are asked to consider their demise and to ruminate on what matters most to them. And while they speak, audiences can’t help but mull the same question: What wisdom would we impart to the world if we knew it was our last chance? If we had to vanish tomorrow, what would we want as our legacy?

When Randy Pausch, a computer science professor at Carnegie Mellon, was asked to give such a lecture, he didn’t have to imagine it as his last, since he had recently been diagnosed with terminal cancer. But the lecture he gave—”Really Achieving Your Childhood Dreams”—wasn’t about dying. It was about the importance of overcoming obstacles, of enabling the dreams of others, of seizing every moment (because “time is all you have…and you may find one day that you have less than you think”). It was a summation of everything Randy had come to believe. It was about living.

In this book, Randy Pausch has combined the humor, inspiration and intelligence that made his lecture such a phenomenon and given it an indelible form. It is a book that will be shared for generations to come.

I kept it together pretty well throughout most of the book. However, the last section entitled “Final Remarks” had me in tears on every page. It makes you think about things in your own life and how well you really know the people you consider to be closest to you. How lucky (if I may use that term) for Randy’s children to have this account of their father’s life and evidence of his love for them. Every child should be so blessed.

I swear, this is the last book I’ll read in 2008. Tomorrow is all about the movies.

On the bookshelf, #2008-62

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death: Reflections on Revenge, Germophobia, and Laser Hair Removal, by Laurie Notaro

Oh. My. Stars. I have not laughed this hard in MONTHS. YEARS, maybe.

This was one of the books I downloaded on the Kindle (for ZERO dollars, thankyouverymuch!). I had two appointments today so I dropped the Kindle (I need to give it a name, don’t I?) in my bag thinking I might have some free time to read while sitting in waiting rooms.

Okay, let me just say, if you read this book (or anything that causes you to laugh so hard that you snort and tears run down your face) do NOT choose the Outpatient Testing waiting room to do it in. People who obviously have important, possibly life threatening, things to worry about do not want to see a grown woman burst into uproarious laughter while sitting beside them in a very quiet waiting room. And no, giving them something new to worry about (like, is that woman off her meds and do I need to call Security?) is not a public service. No matter how you spin it, it comes off RUDE.

Do, however, feel free to read this in the dentist office’s waiting room. Those people are desperate for something else to think about and anything that does NOT sound like a drill is welcome.

From the bn.com site:

Join Notaro as she experiences the popular phenomenon of laser hair removal (because at least one of her chins should be stubble-free); bemoans the scourge of the Open Mouth Coughers on America’s airplanes and in similarly congested areas; welcomes the newest ex-con (yay, a sex offender!) to her neighborhood; and watches, against her own better judgment, every Discovery Health Channel special on parasites and tapeworms that has ever aired–resulting in an overwhelming fear that a worm the size of a python will soon come a-knocking on her back door.

In Notaro’s world, strangers are stranger than fiction. One must always check the hotel bathroom for hobo hairs and consciously remember not to stare at old men with giant man-boobies. And then there are the lessons she has learned the hard way: Though it may seem like a good idea, it’s best not to hire a tweaked-out homeless guy to clean up your yard.

The Cleveland Plain Dealer says that Laurie Notaro is “a scream, the freak-magnet of a girlfriend you can’t wait to meet for a drink to hear her latest story.” With The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death, Notaro proves she’s not only funny but resigned to the fact that you can’t look bad ass in a Prius. Don’t even try.

This book is simply a collection of humorous essays and reads much like a blog…IF your favorite blogger was hilarious EVERY SINGLE TIME!

So worth the money…if, that is, I would have had to pay for it. Which I didn’t! Double Score!

On the bookshelf, #2008-60 & #2008-61

A Year By The Sea, by Joan Anderson
An Unfinished Marriage, by Joan Anderson

Dudes, I read TWO books TODAY! Can you say ‘get a life?” I know that you can.

I bought these books on my birthday in November. I am intrigued by people who are courageous and humble enough to examine their lives and try to answer those questions that we all struggle with at one time or another: Who am I? Where am I going? What is important to me? What’s next?

In the first book, Joan Anderson’s husband was offered a new job in another state, and rather than pack up and go with him, she decided to retreat to their Cape Cod cottage. She spent a year there, with limited contact with family and friends, examining her life and trying to find out what is was she wanted for the last half of her life.

In the second book, Joan and her husband have reunited, now both living in their cottage and trying to figure out how to live together again.

I had hoped these books would be reminiscent of the book I read last December, Anne Morrow Lindbergh’s Gift From The Sea. Although well-written, they missed the mark. While Lindbergh’s book exudes wisdom, Anderson’s offers quips and pop psychology. They just didn’t relate in the same way.