I'm still under the weather. I think this will be the fourth week I've been battling this illness. I think it's morphed from a sinus infection to regular allergies. Whatever it is, it's hard to get a good night sleep when I'm hacking and blowing a runny nose. I'm going to try to see the doctor this week to see if there's anything she can do to speed my recovery.
Ali Edwards and Aby Garvey have been taking photos of everyday events each day for a week . I like the concept. This would be a wonderful legacy to leave your descendants. Sometimes I wonder what a typical day was like for my great-grandmother with her 13 children. A week in my life book will be added to my growing list of projects to do one day.
I'm exploring the concept of applying feng shui principles in my home. In my effort to achieve simplicity and an healthy environment, I think that feng shui would help. I checked out this book from the library to learn more about feng shui. It's not a simple concept. It's actually quite complicated in my eyes. However, I'm going to try to incorporate some of the ideas in my living space as I can.
My employer plans to provide laptop computers to each of its 14,000 employees. Then, I believe the plan is to replace the laptops every 3 - 4 years with the latest technology. Having a laptop makes it easier for employees to be mobile workers and continue working if there was a flu pandemic or other national emergency. I think this plan was developed as a result of the September 11 tragedy. I just love having the latest technology at my fingertips.
I'm going through a household item purge. Every so often, I feel the need to downsize and get rid of stuff. One thing that's not good about living in a capitalist economy, there are constant messages thrown at you to buy more, buy better, and buy bigger. So we accumulate all of this stuff and then what happens? It collects dust. It requires maintenance. It robs you of your income. It clutters your home. It's a waste. I don't know how people can accumulate so much stuff that they can be a candidate for Clean House. I get to a point where the clutter is so distracting I can't think and perform.
To support my habit of purging, I get calls from local charities for donations. I donate to the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Lupus Foundation, and the National Children's Center. Not only do I give back to our community, this helps keep perfectly useful items our of our landfills. This is in line with two of my values -- service to the community and environmental stewardship. I try to encourage my family members to donate their stuff as well. But, they aren't as interested in this activity as I am. I keep a large trash bag in my closet specifically to add things as I find them for donation. This way I'm not running around at the last minute trying to gather stuff to donate.
I started a project to identify and focus on my core values and virtues. I'm not sure how these two things are different because there is so much similarity and overlap. When I took The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People course years ago, the instructor stressed how your personal values were key to applying this system. I found that I have a huge list of values and virtues I seek. Many of them are variations pf a theme and as such, are duplicative. I want to narrow down this list and then use it to make time management decisions and to align my life with what's important to me. Benjamin Franklin used his list of virtues as a tool to focus his efforts week by week. I like the idea of focusing on one value/virtue per week and then start the list over again. I'm going to do this. Of course, one of my values is simplicity.
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