Resolutions

     I know that it's easy to break resolutions. I also know there's lots of research about how to build sustainable habits, and habits are are essentially operational resolutions. My friend C is very good at developing habits. Every month she makes 4 or 5 new ones, and it seems like she achieves most of them. She taught me that goals need to be SMART: Specific, Measurable, Action-oriented, Realistic, and Time-Bound. From my own reading, I have especially noticed how important the "measurable" and "realistic" parts are. For example, I wanted to move around a bit more at work, so one sustainable habit I developed last year was to spend time doing toe-touches when I was waiting for my tea water to heat up at work. (I give myself a pass if other people are in the kitchen, because there's no reason to look totally bizarre.) I drink a few cups of tea a day, and the machine needs a minute or two to heat up the water. Now my toe touches are pretty much triggered by the sound of the water heating up. The goal was measurable (did I do the stretches or not?) and realistic (it only takes a few minutes, and they are minutes I couldn't be productive in anyway).
     Yearly resolutions seem too big, but a monthly resolution seemed realistic. My neck has been hurting me lately. This is an ongoing problem that I've mitigated previously with acupuncture and swimming. I don't have access to either of these, so I've decided to do some weight-bearing exercises. I made the goal specific - four minutes of exercises while my coffee brews each morning, and I've already found some research-based exercises for those particular muscles and posted the list on the fridge. By the end of the month, I expect this to be automatic. To be fair, I don't really expect that four minutes a day will be enough. But once this small, easily achievable habit is a regular part of my day, then I'll work on increasing the duration, because I know that starting with 20 minutes a day would intimidate me and I'd never get it done.
     There are a few other ways that I've established habits and achieved goals. Buddies help a lot - I've had exercise buddies and job-searching buddies. (In fact, I have another goal for the next few months, and I've got a buddy for that. I'll post on that goal when it's complete.) Rewards are also quite motivating for me. I remember helping a friend structure her thesis-writing efforts; she chose small rewards for working a half an hour, followed by larger rewards for accumulations of work. It took me time to find useful rewards- dessert doesn't work because I'll eat it even if I haven't done the work. Currently,  the New York Times Sunday paper is most useful. I love reading the paper, but the NYT costs $7 on Sundays, so I've quit buying it. If I work a certain number of hours on an assigned project, though, it's my go-to reward.

Elektro the Robot

     All vacation long I'd be waiting for a special museum trip, which took place Monday. And I have to say, the Mansfield Memorial Museum lived up to all my expectations.

     Several friends were going to be in Ohio at the same time, so we did the math and chose to meet in a small town that was roughly equidistant from everyone, in the town of Mansfield. I've never heard of the town, but I figure we could kill an afternoon there, even if it just meant eating a long lunch. However, a little research revealed that the town of 45,000 had several museums. We quickly ruled out the Creationism Museum, but the Mansfield Memorial Museum, a Victorian-era museum with a few updated exhibits, sounded intriguing. The museum is closed in the winter, but when I called, the director was happy to arrange a tour just for me and my four friends. In fact, he personally regaled us with history of the building and the exhibit for an hour and a half.

   The highlight is, without a doubt, the Westinghouse robot Elektro. This robot, featured at the 1939 World's Fair, could walk, talk, smoke, and respond to voice commands. It was extremely sophisticated for the era. I was especially excited, because I had watched the movie "The Middleton Family at the New York World's Fair", in which Elektro had a short cameo*. (He also appeared in "Sex Kittens Go to College". The title says it all.) He had a hole cut in his midriff to demonstrate that there was no one hiding inside, and his back is opened up to show the vacuum tubes and old wiring that made him go.
     The museum is one of those old Victorian museums which was originally animal and plant specimens in fine old wood cases. More recent acquisitions included things like pre-World War I uniforms and 600 model planes. Mansfield was an appliance-manufacturing town, so they also had gems like an early 1950's microwave oven - it cost over $12,000 in today's dollars and was so powerful that later models were water cooled.
     After Elektro, my favorite exhibits were from the Victorian era. In particular, I had not encountered anthropomorphic taxidermy before and I am now a fan. I had to include two photos of this because it is so awesome.

 Dr. Jones, the umbrella-carrying raccoon.

A woodland creature band. The badger leads, and a frog sings a solo.

*If you want to get a glimpse into the mindset of the 1930's and 40's of America, I can't recommend this movie enough. It's got automatic dishwashers and robots - and people looking toward the bright future that today's technology is bringing. The hero is a fresh-faced Westinghouse employee, and the villain is an artist who disdains industrial progress. Need I say more?

Christmas

     As they say, the family that paints together, stays together. In the end, it took five adults just under four days to paint downstairs plus two-story foyer in my parents' house. Because half the house was on West Coast time, and because my father is a night owl, we never started before noon. But we didn't stop until at least midnight, so there were some long painting days. We finished on Christmas Eve night, which was just enough time to re-install curtains and outlet covers.
     But then we had Christmas:

 Cute creatures. 

Winner of the Best Wrapped Present of 2015. I watched my brother wrap this and it took about 30 minutes of diligent work. My mother certainly couldn't guess what was in it - an electric toothbrush and mittens.
     We had Mexican for dinner: homemade tortillas, pulled chicken and refried beans, and tres leches cake. And many margaritas, of course. I'll definitely make homemade tortillas again. They're no more work than donuts or bagels, and they really made the meal exceptional.

Painting

     I'm back in Ohio for the holidays. The trip here was unpleasant - it lasted hours longer than usual, and involved a sick dog and cat. My car now smells of dog poo, and that's more than you want to know already. I was extremely glad to arrive.
     I am a product of my family: we are a project-doers. My sister-in-law, the architect of many great home painting enterprises in the past, convinced my parents to repaint their living and dining room. They've been meaning to do this since they moved in eight years ago, but never got around to it. Now that we've started, I can see why they have been putting it off. The two-story foyer feeds into the living room, which feeds into the dining room and kitchen, which connects to the hallway. Essentially, we need to paint several thousand square feet of walls in one go.
     My father built a tremendous scaffold and has been repairing walls. My brother is taping, while my sister-in-law and mother are buying paint. I've been steaming off wallpaper. We put the kids to work removing electrical outlet covers. What a productive holiday this will be!

Traditions

     I love dressing up, so for the past decade or so I've been throwing fancy dress parties during the holiday season and inviting as many people as I can. I didn't have the heart for it last year, but this year I managed a pretty good shindig.

     When planning parties, my background in cooking and event planning serves me well. In November, I drafted a twenty item to-do list and began my preparations. This included menu planning, making tags to denote gluten free choices, and decorating. I was even lucky enough to score a silk party dress at the thrift store. 

 My friend C came over on the morning of the party. I had already made four batches of cookies, but we needed to make 5 dozen pretzels, soup, 3 dozen mini quiches, soup, and homemade flatbreads. I have vowed that next year I will scale back the menu a bit.

     I can't decide whether I like the picture of the snazzily attired guests or the tired dog more. Ada desperately wanted to go to sleep, but she also couldn't bear to miss the party, which was full of people petting her and dropping tasty morsels. Every quarter hour she would tour the house, wearily nose her bed hopefully, then head back out to hang out with the guests. 

Another project

     My friends N and S often ask me how I have enough time to do so many projects, and I always answer the same way - I don't have a television and I don't have kids. (They have two little ones, so they have to be more careful with their time.) So, here's yet another project I've managed to complete before my big Christmas party: refinishing my end table.
     We didn't have room in our previous 350-square-foot apartment for frivolous furniture like coffee tables. So when I moved into my current, large apartment I was looking forward to having a place to set my glass of wine in the evenings. I had trouble finding a nice end table, so I eventually just picked one that looked like it would take a coat of paint and brought it home from the thrift store. Behold it in its former state, dusty and scratched:

     While I was giving it a rough sanding (so that the paint would stick better), I realized that the table was real wood and I started to get bigger ideas of refinishing the piece. Then I sanded some more and realized that parts were particleboard with veneer, and when you sand through that you get a big mess. Eventually, I settled on a mix of refinishing and painting.

     I'm quite pleased with this, especially considering the total outlay was $7: $5 for a busted table and $2 for a new drawer knob, because I had all the other materials and tools from other projects. And for such a small price I had hours of fun sanding and varnishing. I'm not even being snarky - I was pretty happy when I got to spend four hours of a Sunday afternoon sanding. Paying only $5 for the table meant I was willing to see it as an opportunity to learn; at most, I was only wasting my time. 

     The rest of you can just skip this part, but I'm recording the what I learned so I'm ready for the next time. (1) Particle board will take stain, but the clear polyurethane coat just pools on it. (2) Stain smells really bad; if you stain furniture in your bedroom you will have a headache the next morning. (3)The books tell you to sand polyurethane between coats, but they don't mean for you to do that on paint! I had to repaint. (4) The key to a good clear coat is to have a bunch of lamps aimed at your project, so you can see all the little mistakes you made in time to fix them.

Prettying things up

Earlier this year, my friends R&B stopped by for a quick visit. They were on their way to France, and they had arranged a 10-hour layover in DC. Because of they had taken an early flight to DC, B was pretty tired and I offered my bedroom for a nap. At that point I looked around my bedroom and saw it through someone else's eyes. I wasn't too impressed. I use my bedroom for storage, and it looked a little bit like a warehouse. Evidence: 

The bed is lofted a bit for extra storage. The "accent wall" was painted yellow by a previous tenant. The cat's food cabinet is stacked on top of the dog's crate.

The corner shelf, more fitting for a garage, stores all the power tools. The curtains are beige and ripped: I bought them to wrap around furniture when moving to DC, and then temporarily-for-a-year hung them in my bedroom.
     With all my other projects, it took me a few months to get to this, but my bedroom is finally presentable. Evidence:

 I bought pillows, a duvet cover, and fabric from the thrift store, made a bed skirt, and painted the bed frame gold. (Ignore the crazy blue lights - those are Christmas lights.) The landlord had the yellow wall repainted the same white as the rest of the house.

 The cat is more or less permanently installed on the bed. Now that it looks like a bit of a princess bed, I think she finally feels she has found surroundings befitting her.

The tool shelf is clad in curtains. Building the frame for the curtains was the first wood-working project I've done all by myself. I'm quite pleased with it, even if I can't shake the vague feeling that it will all come tumbling down due to poor construction techniques.