CCK08 Progress Report

Finding Balance was a huge issue.

a. Stephen, Peter and I had to spend part of Saturday getting the house back to its normal chaotic state from the total disaster state it fell into. My youngest son and his wife came from Windsor to celebrate her birthday on Saturday and my daughter and her boyfriend came from London on Sunday for supper so we had both an ok looking home and delicious homecooked meals.

b. I was spending so much time at the computer that I decided it was probably as dangerous as sitting through a transcontinental flight. On Friday, I went back to line dancing classes and I'm also restarting t'ai chi. Stephen found a great walking trail. He does a speed walk to Tim Horton's for coffee (about 2 miles) and then picks up the dog and me for a more leisurely trail walk.

c. I'm splitting my computer time between this course and the things I enjoyed before - my google alerts and the blogs I follow on google reader. I'm also spending a bit of time every day looking at pictures on flickr.

Useful Things I've Learned and What I Need to Learn Soon
1. Following the video on how to get all the introductory messages out of the google inbox by setting up a label for CC08 took away that feeling of being overwhelmed by the volume of introductory emails. However, once the label was applied, I only pull the introductions up once a day and I don't read nearly the same proportion of them.
2. I am really, really grateful that I can go to Delicious and find the blog addresses provided in the introductions.
3. Finally I've gotten around to creating an igoogle homepage that truly reflects my needs and increases my productivity.
4. I want to create a Wordle which I will then re-create using Calligraphy for the March page of a calendar the Calligraphy group is producing. Our date night here is Calligraphy classes. In the Windsor area, it was years of Choral Singing lessons.
5. I also want to explore my family communication options as this month the phone bill was $250 and it was mainly our kids phoning home and Stephen calling his dad and aunt. We don't want to limit the calls - just reduce the expense.