Tanya

While working at not looking at the keyboard, work at not looking at the screen. One of the biggest problems is, when you make a mistake, you notice it on-screen and immediately look at the keyboard. You become frantic trying to remember where the key is, and even when the keyboard is covered you find yourself thinking about taking a peek at the keys instead of focusing on finding it through trial and error. Try to picture the keyboard in your mind and fill in the missing keys one by one.

Close your eyes, type a few COMMON words (cat, the, low, pie, flea, zero, quit), then see which letters you already know and where you need to improve.
Once you know where your weakness lies, work up from there with words that make great use of those letters: Keep losing the L? write about lollipops. The B? Write about bumblebees. Mixing up the G and H? Write about heights.
Memorize where the key is. “B is beside N and N is below J. J has a beveled line so I know how to find it.” Keep your eyes closed, focus on what you THINK is right, write a short line, and adjust on a new line (betty bought a bag of bumblebees from bob). If you find yourself writing a short line about nu,nlenees, re-write the same short line only this time reminding yourself to move to the left one key when you reach that awful B. Repeat it until you get it right, then choose a new line to write using the same letter. You’ll soon find you have a feeling for that key, and have magically learned all the ones around it at the same time. You know, those ones you kept accidentally pressing.

Most importantly, practice it frequently. Type your Google searches with your eyes closed, then re-type if you’ve made errors. Anything short, type it with your eyes closed. For a while your typing WILL slow down as you learn the keys, and yes you’ll likely start off typing gibberish, but in the long run you’ll find that your typing overall speeds up as you learn each new key until eventually you don’t need to bother with writing lines anymore.

It took me forever to finally up and get it done, but I can now comfortably use both programs.
I did two self-paced courses over two and a half months, combining the learning of Introductory to Advanced MS Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint and FrontPage (Business Computer Applications 11 and Data Management 12). I also learned other junk, but it wasn’t included in the course, I just read them while waiting for my tests. We used the book A Guide to Microsoft Office 2000 Professional for Windows 98—it has a lot of broken-down practices that make learning pretty painless.
If you’re a self-starter, a good book with lots of practices will likely be enough. Others may want to look up courses at local education centres.

I like my doctor, he’s a great doctor, he gives a crap about my mental health. I could get well just having him in my corner. But, that’s the problem.
I like him so much I don’t visit his office when I need to. I feel like I’m making his life more difficult when a medication doesn’t work, so instead of going back after the medication runs out I just stop going.

So, as I see it, since persons with a mental illness are known to dislike their psychiatrists… If I get myself one I dislike, when the medication doesn’t work I won’t feel bad for making him do more work for me. All I want the psychiatrist for is to get myself on a working medication. And that’s all he wants to do with me.

Makes sense right?

We finally found a replacement massage mold for the one i cracked and have been whining over for ages… only now i’m too lazy to make my favorite soap.
Making my own soap not only makes me feel all lovely on the outside more than regular old store bought soap, but it serves as incentive to shower, which is a difficult thing to do when in the depths of depression. Now i just need to get motivated, stop being lazy and make me some soap.

We make gel candles. Nice and simple, and very pretty. We haven’t made any candles for almost two years now, since moving into our new home. All out of gel candles and tealights just aren’t as pretty, need to stop being lazy and make some more gel candles.

i have an entire drawer full of cards from people. this is the last thing i have to get past before i can mark this thing as completed, but i just can’t seem to do it. it’s like some BIGHUGE horrible offense. i know it’s totally normal to throw out a card, you don’t have to keep them all and nobody’s going to get offended, but it feels like i’m ENDINGTHEWORLDDD!!!11 over a card

would those seeing this entry feel offended to know their card was thrown away?
has anybody managed to get past cards? how did you do it?

I’ve wanted to do this for years now. I believe in Santa. I am 22 years old and yes damnit, I believe in Santa. Sure, maybe not the same way a child believes in Santa, but I believe in Santa and I want that picture really bad.

Crap knows if I’ll ever complete this goal. I’ve never even seen a mall santa that allows adults. But I want it that bad, and it will stay on my list until I get it.

I’ve done this and continue to do this. It keeps me feeling good all year long.

I buy toys for children at christmas through the Burnaby Christmas Bureau.

I started with a few toys one Christmas after finding out our local Christmas Parade was also making a call for donations. From there it grew and continues to grow with each Christmas. A few toys became a toy for each month, which this past christmas became thirty toys. I found that in collecting toys all year instead of just at Christmas I was keeping the child in me active, and keeping my heart warm with thoughts of others. It’s become an addiction, I couldn’t live without the feeling giving these toys leaves. :)

It happened naturally once I started spending less time in the house. And I went beyond my goal of making a carton last 14 days, it ends up lasting 15-16 days now. The money saved is awesome and all, but the look on my mother’s face when I make them last is priceless. :P

Our transmission needs fixing, it’s needed fixing for some time now. When we got the estimate on repairs it was up to $2000-2200CDN. We’ve been saving up money to get it fixed… but nowhere near enough yet. $500. If only other important things would stop getting in the way, we’d just be that much closer.

With social phobia, some days the car is the only option. So getting it fixed is a must. I need a money tree. boo.

a coworker says yesterday, “it’s such a sunny day, nobody should have to work indoors on a day like this”

as much as i agree with that comment, i don’t know how to respond. it’s one of the most common bits of small talk, everybody’s always on the weather. one should know how to respond to this but I just don’t get it. after she’s said the same thing four times over the eight hour day i’ve still not come up with anything beyond nodding and smiling, she clearly was looking for something verbal but i just don’t know what to say.

how do the Done This thingers come up with something to respond with?

This isn’t quite what I’d intended when adding this Thing to my list, but hey, it’s a start. A frustrating one, but what can you do.

I got a job, I found out on Friday and I start on Monday. It’s my first job.
I have to dress all officeish. Have you ever tried to make over your wardrobe in two days? Not. So. Easy.

Pants, I hate pants. I have two pairs of pants for five days. I’ll be pantless for three days! Tops aren’t so difficult, but I won’t have any pants to go with those tops. And that’s only covering a week, I can’t exactly wear the same five outfits until Fall.

I have one shoe, a black shoe. Shoe stores are filled with sandals, and appear to have forgotten that not everybody can wear flip flops to work. Especially those deprived of the prettyfoot gene.

Why oh why did this have to come when Summer fashions are out.

I’ve finally done it! I braved the salon and got my hair cut to my shoulders, it used to be mid-ass. It’s going to take some getting used to, i’m not so sure I like it this short… but at least now I won’t burn my hair on the stove ;P

I’m up to 2-4 glasses per day. By having a bottle of water after my initial morning can of soda I’ve found that not only is it easier to drink water, but my soda consumption has dropped from five cans to 2-3. With the price of soda up here, and Diet Crush no longer putting coupons in their cases, that’s one very big plus to drinking more water.
We’ve started keeping a load of bottles filled with water in the fridge, so it’s right there when I go to get my soda and getting the water isn’t such a pain compared to soda. Using smaller water bottles (500ml instead of 1L) has made the process less painful as well, the thought of having to drink 1L before I could have another soda wasn’t so appealing.

Yay water!

I took the ICBC Practice Test and scored 84%
To pass on the real test you need 80%

I’m not sure if that’s a good score, being it was a practice test. It seems pretty low to me, so I’m a little more scared than before to take the written test. I’ve held myself back from taking the real test because I fear failing, and 84% is just way too close for me.

If you could rate the difficulty of the written test in your area, how would you rate it?
If you’re in BC, I could really use any input you can offer on the test. Things you got wrong that might be worth my re-reading a few times, tricky questions that made you rethink your answer, etc.

I have no plans to quit, I enjoy smoking and don’t much care about my health. I care about money though, and I can save around $85 each month by just making a carton last two weeks. Right now i’m smoking a carton in 9-10 days and having to buy an extra 4-5 packs on top of that at about $8.50 a pop.

The plan is to make a carton last 14 days, which equals out to about 14 cigarettes a day. so i have to cut out six cigarettes somewhere. And slowly, when I have tried to cut out too many I’ve ended up falling back on the next carton.
So starting with two cigarettes a pack on the coming carton (i’m on that “extra 4-5 pack” load right now), then when I return to the gym at the beginning of May cutting out the last four by not taking smoke breaks at the gym. Shouldn’t be smoking while exercising anyway ;P

The money saved is going into our Savings account, eventually going toward a new car in 12 months. the thousand saved would definitely be a great help.

because people are less scary when they smile back

and when they don’t smile back you’re too angry to bother being scared anymore anyway ;P

we have been doing everything BUT painting it. i know the color i want, it’s a dark brown about the color of dry dirt or chocolate. it would help the color of everything else in the bathroom. in our case, the darker the walls, the lighter the bathroom will be. the fixtures are a pinkish-brown color, the countertop a faux marble, the shower wall a slightly darker faux marble. white walls look dirty against the marble and the bath and toilet always look dirty because of everything surrounding it. i also want to paint the counter a slightly darker brown with slightly lighter doors. as you can see, i’ve put much thought into this. a full year’s worth of thought. so why hasn’t it been done? because my mother and i will NEVER agree on anything. i think it’s perfect and worth trying, she on the other hand doesn’t like the idea, but she isn’t spitting out any ideas for me to work eith either. i may just steal some money and do it while she’s at work one day with plans to get home late, because i’m really sick of stepping in our bathroom. i’m disgusted by it.

This entry correlates with another goal of mine, de-junkifying my bedroom. We found out earlier this month that the person we were sharing rent on storage space with no longer wishes to participate. Our closets are already full (all five!) the storage room in our house is packed to the door and STILL all the boxes here don’t fit. Rather, they didn’t.

I started going through all the stored boxes in my room two days ago, all my dresser drawers, all the clothes and bags and random crap in my closet… the ones sitting in the middle of my floor
...i was rather shocked!

I’ve spent almost the entirety of now three days clearing out things i don’t really NEED, especially if they’re just sitting in a BOX hidden away where i can’t even SEE them.
So far i’ve filled two garbage bags with trash, a garbage bag with clothes for charity, a garbage bag with stuffed animals for charity and two boxes of stuff I’ll be selling in a garage sale. I’ve compacted ten boxes into three and completely emptied my dresser drawer. I can now see my closet floor, under my bed, and have half of the upper closet available for boxes as well.

BUT after all this, I still have to go through all the boxes in our rented storage space to make it fit in the house. And we’re only talking my bedroom here right now, I’m still going to have to go through the rest of the house to make space as well!

I can now see just how bad I’ve become, and if I never want to do this again I have to make some changes… because there will always be another box to deal with if I don’t.

The question is, how do you stop being a packrat? How do you know what you do and don’t need for later? My problem is the “i just need another shelf” type… times fifty. :|

well, i managed to write out what was on my mind. and two days later a friend of mine sent out what was on my mind. and whaddayaknow, i got a great non-threatening response. but that’s just email. and i didn’t send it on my own.

better than my usual “write->delete->rewrite->delete & give up.” now to send those thoughts on my own, and hopefully one day feel comfortable saying what’s on my mind in person as well.