Purging My Books
This weekend, I began Phase One of a larger decluttering project: purging our enormous collection of books over the coming year. This is the kind of project my mother has been hounding me to do for years, and one I’ve tackled in smaller ways before, but am committed to following through on this time. Here are the steps, as I see them:
- There are four major locations in our house where we have collections of books: each of the three bedrooms we use, as well as the front room downstairs, which we call the “piano room” but I also think of as our library, and was probably called the “parlor” a century ago when the house was built.
- Each of these locations needs to be tackled individually to sort out which books are no longer necessary.
- These books then need to be gathered up and dropped off at the Baltimore Book Thing.
- Auxiliary locations must be addressed: the kitchen shelf with my cookbooks on it, the box of books I suspect is lurking in the basement, my classroom shelves.
- Bookshelves should be cleaned/dusted.
- Any unshelved books need to be shelved.
First up was the piano room, which I began while my husband shouted at the Ravens-Houston football game and my kids played upstairs. In earlier purges, I’ve targeted novels I never liked or will never read, as well as graduate school texts I will never use again, but this time, I found myself being able to eliminate even more categories. A lot of my parenting books are gone now, the ones about babyhood, toddlerhood, raising little girls and new motherhood, and I winnowed my graduate school books down even further. At this point, I’ve got a laundry basket full of books, as well as three heavy black trash bags, all ready to be set free, back into the world. I dusted all the shelves (or at least, the fronts of them and the tops of the remaining books), and did a purge of knickknacks while I was at it. There are some piles of books on my bedroom floor, so my next goal is to move them all downstairs in the hopes that they will fit on the downstairs shelves now. Sometimes I think about sorting the library shelves by category, but I just don’t think I’m organized enough to maintain that!
Purging my books has been hard for me in the past, and it’s still a daunting task, but I felt calmer about it this time, and it was much easier to let go. Looking at titles about raising two-year-olds, I knew that part of my life was over, and if I ever do another graduate degree, I have a much better sense about what it will or won’t include. As my life has gotten more focused, I think my personal library has too, and that seems like a good thing.
Related articles
- bookshelf organization (audneal.typepad.com)
- Plumber Bookshelves (swagsofresh.com)
- A waste-less approach to the purge (thehappiestlife.net)
- The Great Purge of 2011 (cozycakescottage.com)
Lice: The Sequel
If you need me, I’ll be crying quietly over in the corner, while doing laundry. Sigh.
Reducing Screen Time: Strategies
Image via Wikipedia
One of the resolutions I’ve made for 2012 that is most daunting for me is to reduce screen time. This has been an ongoing desire of mine, but I’ve not yet found the strategies that work for me. Here’s a list of some I’m considering:
- keeping a screen time log for myself for a week (I expect this to be horrifying, which is probably exactly why I should do it)
- setting some get-active goals and tracking my progress
- eating dinner in front of the TV less (I know, it’s a horrible habit and bringing the end of Western civilization closer and closer)
- being active during screen time, including doing stretches or lifting weights while watching TV. I think using screen time for active Wii games would be a good switch here too.
- cutting down on the most purposeless/time-suck ways I am on the Internet. Blogging is okay, stupid gossip websites are less so. And specifically, maybe check those embarrassing sites once a day, but no more.
- I think it would also be helpful to make a list of “good” uses of screen time: blogging, Family Movie Night, shows like “Top Chef” I enjoy watching with my girls, and let myself off the hook for those.
- accepting that I don’t need constant access to my inboxes and that sometimes, emails can wait until later to be answered. I don’t think I could fall asleep without checking my work email in the late evening at least once, but I certainly don’t need to check as often as I do.
The big piece will be focusing on myself; I think I do fairly well in monitoring my children’s consumption and screen hours, as well as keeping screens out of the bedrooms, but my own habits have gotten untenable. I don’t have a smartphone, which I think is good for me, but my laptop is on far too often, and too often I’ve got the TV on in the background as well.
Blech. I know this isn’t a new insight, but I really think one of the road blocks to keeping resolutions is that trying to be a better person also means acknowledging all the ways in which you fall short, and who wants to think about that for too long?
Newsflash: resolutions also often involve stopping doing things that are easy, and replacing with things that are hard. Sigh.
Related articles
- Screens in the Bedroom, and Everywhere Else (jackieregales.com)
- New Year’s Resolutions 2012: Reduce Screen Time (lenina.wordpress.com)
- Healthy Habits for TV, Video Games, and the Internet (education.com)
Resolution Check-In
Laura at Geeky Mom just did a resolution check-in that inspired me to do my own, so here goes:
- clean out the basement and buy a chest freezer: no progress at all, but to be fair, this was always a summer/spring break project
- go to a poetry reading and join a poetry group: no reading plans, but have been in talks with a friend about a group, and it looks like it is moving forward
- write 100 blog posts: I’ve written four so far, not including this one, which I think is doing well for less than two weeks into the year
- go to the beach: again, not on tap for January!
- reduce screen time: no progress at all. Must develop some concrete strategies for tackling this one: post coming soon.
- exercise more: I walked home from school once so far, which is 1.5 miles, and I have investigated a Pilates class I’d like to try, as well as inherited Wii Fit Plus with Balance Board
from a friend. I also did a Just Dance
session, which I enjoyed and am willing to count as light cardio. Not great, but not too bad.
- finish War and Peace: no progress at all
- write poetry: today I wrote a title, which I’m counting as progress. Have a deadline coming up, so need to get moving on this.
- keep a teaching journal: no progress, because I can’t find the one I bought specifically for this purpose and am frustrated with myself about it. Must resolve somehow.
- spend more time with friends: so far this is probably my most successful resolution! I went for drinks and nachos with my fellow Girl Scout leaders and out for dinner and drinks this past weekend to celebrate a friend’s birthday. Already have plans for this coming weekend with a work colleague!
- declutter: have bagged up some kitchen things, did some decluttering work in my bedroom today and was inspired by reading Laura’s strategies: only working for fifteen minutes at a time, and starting at the front of the house and working towards the back. My next step is to make a list of clutter flashpoints in my house and then tackle them one by one.
I think I’ll check in again in early February and only focus on the resolutions I’m currently working on, not the summer-dedicated ones. Wish me luck!
Related articles
- Goals and Resolutions (jackieregales.com)
- New Years Resolution (marcys.wordpress.com)
Vocabulary Videos
Image by martymadrid via Flickr
As part of our midterm review, I’m revamping what I’ve done before; I’ve had students do review presentations before, but this year, I stepped up the requirements to make it more creative and interactive and truly substantial. I gave them a few examples and two class periods to work and then set them loose!
So far, I’ve got one group working on “Edge of Glory: Vocab Remix,” one group pounding oranges with a mallet, another group taking a camera out to the field, and another covering my whiteboard with a millefleur pattern. As fun as this all looks, there’s also sound pedagogical reasoning behind it, aligned with the idea of scaffolding and the gradual release model of shifting from teacher to student responsibility for learning. I also feel like this is appropriate 21st century, Teach Paperless learning, as they use their laptops, cell phones and flip cameras to produce their work, and I’m planning to make the materials from all three sections available on my website, which will provide the bulk of their grammar/vocab review for the midterm exam.
I often feel impatient when I read a good teaching article, and want to implement that idea right now! This gets overwhelming quickly and can be really discouraging as well, thinking of all the amazing things other (better) teachers are doing while you’re struggling through lessons that seem unimaginative at best. Too many ideas end up lingering in my files, never to be implemented. However, I’m finding that more often, I have to let an idea incubate over a period of time, until I can integrate it into my classes in the most effective way.
Related articles
- Vocabulary Building (annmic.wordpress.com)
- Vocabulary Worksheets and Printables (education.com)
- Spelling Worksheets and Printables (education.com)
The Secret Garden
One of our Christmas family traditions is that everyone gets books, and this year, one of the books for our girls was The Secret Garden
Image by openuser via Flickrson
We took some time off from family bedtime reading last year, and I’m so glad we have gotten back into the rhythm, even though my girls are old enough to not only put themselves to bed, but stay up late reading themselves. I don’t know how long it will last, my girls and I snuggled on the couch under soft blankets, laughing and gasping and asking questions. But I’ve got Little Women
Related articles
- Free Kindle eBooks: Jane Eyre and The Secret Garden (faithfulprovisions.com)
Twitter, One Year Later
Image via CrunchBase
A year ago, I succumbed to my curiosity and joined Twitter, despite deciding six months previously that it wasn’t for me. Since then, I’ve tweeted over 800 times and follow more than 110 people, and have over 50 followers myself, which are tiny numbers in the grand scheme of things, but also show, I think, that I must have gotten some value out of it in that year.
I thought I would end up sending a bunch of links and things there, but ultimately, I still send most of that to FB, where I get more responses and communal dialogue. I publicize my blog entries there, but I think FB is a bigger referrer still.
As part of making my overall screen time more purposeful, as well as eliminating my biggest online time-sucks, I am looking closely at areas where I can cut down.
My questions about Twitter:
What do I like about it?
keeping in touch with friends who use it a lot, informal one-to-one conversations, live-tweeting events like the Republican debates, useful links, keeping up with West Wing characters!
What is not enjoyable about it?
It’s fairly addictive in the same way that Facebook is for me, because it’s almost a guarantee that every time I check it, there will be something new to look at, making it a very easy distraction. Luckily, like FB, it’s blocked while I am at school, but unluckily, that means it’s one of my biggest time-sucks while here at home, which I’m trying to eliminate.
Am I ready to make it public? How would that benefit me?
Not being public means I’m not part of bigger conversations, which sometimes I think I’d like to be, and also not being public means it’s the only corner of the Internet where I don’t have that accountability that I prize everywhere else. Before I made it public, I’d have to go through and carefully edit my previous Tweets, which would be tedious, as there are over 800 of them (also, are Tweets ever really deleted? Is anything?).
I think it’s useful enough to stay invested, but I think making myself more accountable for how I use it would be healthier too.
Related articles
- Longer Tweets Generate More Clicks on Twitter [New Data] (hubspot.com)
- Getting to know Twitter language (tfollowers.com)
Embarrassing Internet Time-Sucks
You have these, right? Websites you check regularly that are totally pointless, and that you would be embarrassed to tell other people you spend so much time on?
Yeah, me too.
I heard recently there was some kind of website or app that would track how many minutes a week you spend on all the websites you checked during that week. What a horrifying idea, I thought, and then almost instantly, that’s a list I would never want to show anyone. Which probably means I should change it, right? Do you know what website or app I’m talking about?
What do you think is harder: starting a new healthy habit, or breaking a terrible unhealthy one? My vote is in the second column, for sure. But still, something’s got to give.
Want to tell me your most embarrassing time-sucks? I’ll start: Oh No They Didn’t. I KNOW. Embarrassing. And this is just one of my Top Five Embarrassing Time-Sucks.
Your turn!
Related articles
- Productivity is not found online (sixofclubs.net)
2011 in review
The WordPress.com stats helper monkeys prepared a 2011 annual report for this blog.
Here’s an excerpt:
A New York City subway train holds 1,200 people. This blog was viewed about 7,700 times in 2011. If it were a NYC subway train, it would take about 6 trips to carry that many people.
2011: Year In Review
As 2011 draws to a close, I look over the year and see where I’ve been and how it affected me; getting to review my year this way is one of the reasons I keep blogging. The opportunity to reflect is so important to me, and blogging is one of my major tools to keep this focus in my life. Not to mention, my memory seems to get worse and worse every year!
In January, I became active on Twitter, fell in love with The King’s Speech, and finished up my first senior elective with a windows and mirrors project. I thought a lot about high pressure parenting and sustainable marriages, two concerns that are always close to my heart. February brought cautionary tales for teachers and the very beginning of a big project for me in March, my March Madness poetry tournament. I also set myself a poetic challenge and met it, with great success. I also felt ambivalent about spring break balance, which haunts me every year, I think.
It’s become a tradition of mine to spend April doing as many poetry-related activities as possible, so it was fitting that I wrapped up my tournament and challenged myself again (though with less success this time). April is also a big month for me as a GSA advisor, and I was proud to see my club members create our most successful Day of Silence yet. In May, my girls turned nine and my grandmother died, so it was a month spent with family, and thinking about gratitude. I got a little discouraged about teaching ambition and resorted to bribery.
And then it was summer! For whatever reason, I spent a fair amount of June posting about teaching. I considered keeping a teaching journal and even bought one by the end of the summer, though I have since lost it (must check my desk at school). I reviewed my evaluations, watched my students graduate and received the perfect end-of-year gift. In July, I got a little clutter crazy and fell in love with Spotify, an affair that is still raging today. I also continued my teacher-blogging streak, posting reviews of helpful books and thinking about professional development.
In August, I finished my thirty-second year and turned 33, and spent my birthday exactly how I would have liked. I also made two resolutions, regarding organizing my wardrobe and focusing on fitness. Unfortunately, my fitness resolution has progressed more in fits and starts, but on the brighter side, my closet focus has really made my life easier. In September, I kept up my healthy momentum, reflected on priorities and had a tough disappointment in my own balancing act. But I also embraced my inner dictionary nerd and reviewed a book that continues to influence my teaching.
In October, I was thinking and writing about social justice issues, about being a GLTBQ ally at school and in in families, and pondering my relationship with feminism. I reconnected with Hemingway and was pleasantly surprised at what I found, and in related news, reflected on my Kindle. In that same reflective mood, I thought about who I am, who I was, and what decisions led me here.
In November, I set myself a fun cooking challenge, made my first pizza crust, and spent some time in grading jail. I read a childhood favorite with my girls and got some great poetic news. December saw us struggling with a very itchy foe, as I struggled with work overload and my girls learned some homework lessons. In gearing up for Christmas, I thought a lot about screen time and usage, and how I friend or don’t friend my students on Facebook.
Wrapping up the year in reflection, I have been so pleased with two ongoing projects of mine: my outfit journal and my gratitude journal, both of which have made my life easier and more peaceful. I also made some goals and resolutions for the upcoming year.
Thank you for coming along on this journey with me, and I hope you have a wonderful New Year.
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