MsHerr

On Thursday, I made another little trip to my local neighborhood Blockbuster to pick up a few more movies. As before, I went without a short list of what to rent, just scoured the shelves for the tell tale Focus Features studio band across the case. I made two selections: Vanity Fair and Talk To Me.

Once home, in order to make it a truly late night, I wasted a bit of time on my various social sites, including browsing 43 Things for goals similar to my 9. I came across moxie, who also wants to see all Focus Features films, only I noticed that her list and my list were very different. Being John Malkovich, for example, is on her list, but not mine.

I’ve been going off Focus Features view all films archive on their own website. But with a little Googling, I came across this Wikipedia article that has many many more than the 30ish listed in the Focus Features archive. Being John Malkovich is on it.

And so it appears, the Focus Features archive is not so comprehensive. But for now, for the sake of this goal, I think I’ll stick to that incomplete list. Maybe if I get down with a part deux goal, I’ll go off the full wiki.

On Monday, July 15th, a very dear friend of 14+ years reported for his second tour of Iraq. He was there for almost 9 months when the war first kicked off in 2004. It was toward the end of his service period, and upon his return, his status change from active duty to inactive reserves. A year ago, he reenlisted for active reserves. A few months ago he got orders to return to Iraq. This time, it’s for a year.

I’m not sure I have the words to articulate our friendship, except that he is one of those very few people I call home. With his deployment, our normal methods of communicating are no more. The best means of keeping in touch is once again the old-school means: handwritten letters. He says he prefers them anyway… they help pass the time.

And because every good goal has constraints… I will write one letter every week that he is deployed. Length, subject and format do not matter, nor that I receive as many letters in return. What matters is that I write. And that I actually mail what I write, which oddly enough, tends to be the less likely of the two.

When I was a little girl, my mom threw away all my Barbies because she was sick of seeing my bedroom flew strewn with toys that I never picked up. I was devastated, though in hindsight, I’m glad it wasn’t my Legos that met fate in a dumpster.

Long story short, I still am not the cleanliest of souls. And while I don’t get super stressed about the mess, I am absolutely infatuated with my abode when it is clean. Not to mention that my normal state of CHAOS (can’t have anyone over syndrome) means that I am unable to host guests as often as I’d like, especially the impromptu kind. That’s something I want to change.

And because every good goal has constraints… I once heard that it takes 17 consecutive days of performing a behavior to form a habit (twice as long to break a bad habit and form the replacement). That may be true, but taking inspiration from my friend Tyson Crosbie’s habit of setting 30-day goals, I will clean for 30 minutes every day 30 consecutive days. If I miss a day, the count will be void and I will begin again until I have met my goal.