In Sink

I haven't been very good about keeping up to date with my exploits. Part of it has been because I haven't had much interesting to say and part of it has been because I have been in a bit of a slump with respect to doing one thing a day.

Yesterday was a good day. I did something that I had been continuously putting off for probably the better part of a year. It wasn't anything earth shattering, but somewhere in the back of my mind it has been giving me grief. I suppose that really was the point of finally doing it, to get that thing, however trivial, off my mind.

One of the faucets in the bathroom has been broken, probably since I first moved into this house. It still worked, but the handle would always fall. Part of why it was never replaced was because any replacement I liked was expensive and since there are two sinks, you can't really just replace one. The other part was that despite the inconvenience and irritation of a handle always falling off, it was still basically functional.

About a year ago, we bought new faucets. I kept putting it off because I am not a particularly adept handyman and home improvement projects leave me easily frustrated. Well, yesterday I finally got the faucets replaced with the help of my Dad. His help was much appreciated, not only because it saved me a lot of frustration, but also because I am no longer carrying that one thing around in my head.

Just Do It

My one thing today may not sound particularly exciting or even particularly noteworthy to some people. All I did is send an e-mail.

I finally sent an e-mail to Habitat for Humanity to inquire about volunteering. For whatever reason, this is outside of my comfort zone. I have been very resistant to even inquiring about it. Some sort of fear has been blocking me from doing it.

Anyway, I sucked it up and did it. They have a meeting on Friday at 9 a.m. for more information. I actually feel positive about it and hopefully won't bail on Friday because of some fear or anxiety.

The time to do it just feels right.

O, Christmas Tree

Okay, today's one thing is rather embarrassing given that it is January 22nd. Today, I finally took down the Christmas tree. I know, I know. It should have been down two weeks ago. I could say that it was complete laziness, but that would not be entirely true.

Part of why I didn't take it down was because nobody was really offering to help me. In fact, I got a couple of "When are YOU going to take the tree down." I admit that it bugged me. Back in college it bugged me that my roommate never took out the trash. At some point it time, I stopped taking the trash out to make a point. It meant that the trash was overflowing for quite some time, but my roommate eventually took it out. That was good enough for me and I went back to taking it out again.

This didn't quite work that way, but I eventually got sick and tired of looking at the stupid tree and was tired of it taking up half the living room. So, I took it down for myself.

Stressing and Slowing Down

Part of the reason that I haven't been posting daily is that I have developed a bit of a stress reaction that has made it difficult to type. While I have had eyelid twitches before when under stress, this time has been difficult. I seem to have developed some involuntary muscle jerks in my left arm and hand. It has made typing difficult as my hand will suddenly skitter across the keyboard creating a bizarre spelling of words or it just won't cooperate in staying still.

I have been under a lot of stress, but this latest development has given me ample opportunities to try to do one thing. I have found that when I am calmer, quiet, and more at ease the twitches and jerks diminish greatly. If I am just sitting and watching television or doing something else and I start to feel the twitches, I have to stop and try to calm myself down and get back to a point of relaxation. When I have been at the keyboard or texting on the phone, I have to slow way down to get a clear message written. Even as I type this, I am going slower than I am normally able to type, but I have gotten through this whole thing without having one twitch or jerk.

At first, the twitching was causing me worry. The worst case scenario was running through my mind like Multiple Sclerosis, a stroke, or a tumor. The last one also provided me with a laugh during this stressful time. Arnold Schwartzenegger's voice from Kindergarten Cop was saying "It's not a too-muh." That moment provided me a laugh and the realization that I was overreacting. So, this involuntary muscle jerking, which has been supremely irritating and stressful in and of itself has allowed me to practice slowing down, breathing more, and allowing myself to relax.

Touching Base

This post really just serves as a quick update. I have been feeling a little under the weather and out of sorts lately, so that has been affecting my mood lately. I really haven't had any earth shattering one things over the last couple of days.

I just wanted to touch base and let everyone know that I am still committed to doing my one thing a day. I didn't really see the point of posting about trivial stuff just for the point of posting.

Taking Care of Number One

Sometimes, taking care of yourself is the one thing that you can do that most improves your life.av After all, if you don't look out for number one, who will?

I woke up this morning feeling off and out of sorts. I actually woke up earlier than normal this morning. I felt twitchy and like I was going to jump out of my skin. I have felt this way the entire day.

Normally, I try to push through things. I regularly have days where I have pain or fatigue, but often you have to suck it up and still do things. Today, I decided not to suck it up.

I was very gentle with myself, tried to stay relaxed and calm, and even took a long and satisfying nap. I still feel a bit off, but I am definitely better than I was. I think that if I hadn't taken care of myself, I may have been headed for feeling worse.

Let It Snow, Let It Snow, Let It Snow

Today was the first real snow of the season. It has been snowing steadily since about 10 a.m. I am not a big fan of snow, especially when out driving in it. It is pretty to look at when you are comfortably ensconced in your nice, warm house, but going out in it is a completely different story. This is of course not the case where children are involved.

At the time, I didn't even realize that I was doing my one thing for the day when I did it. My 12-year-old son came home from school and immediately wanted to go outside and be in the snow. I told him that he could do just that after he took the dogs outside, which he did, and then he went out in the snow. At first it was a little irritating when he threw a couple of snowballs at the window, because my one dog is hyper-vigilant and will bark at a leaf rolling down the street if he thinks that it is a danger to his family. The snowballs were just to much.

A few minutes after I told him to knock it off, he came into the house and asked if he could use the snowblower, which he has never used before, to clear the driveway. At first, I didn't want to let him because that meant that I would have had to go down to the garage, show him how to operate it, and tell him a few other do's and don'ts. But, I stopped myself from being my impatient self and went down to the garage. He really didn't need much instruction on how to operate it. He had difficulty using the ripcord to start it, so we used the electric starter and off he went.

Periodically, I checked on him to see how he was doing. First time I checked, he was doing a great job on the driveway. The second time I checked on him, he was clearing the sidewalks up and down our side of the street. The third time I checked, he was clearing the neighbor's driveway.

After he came inside, I told him how proud I was of him for taking the initiative to clear the driveway and for doing such a good job. He told me that he did the neighbor's driveway just to be nice and the neighbor gave him $6 for it. He was proud of what he called his first paying job.

So, my one thing today was ignoring my impatience and letting my son take some initiative and responsibility. I definitely bettered my life, now that I potentially do not ever have to clear the driveway again and allowed my son to have a sense of pride and accomplishment.

Yesterday's Post

Well, I completely forgot to post yesterday. I even knew what it was that I was going to mention yesterday. I just got distracted and forgot to post. Stupidly, what bugs me the most is that this post, which is intended to be yesterday's post is going to have today's date on it.

Anyway, I tend to have a problem with impatience. I get particularly impatient in lines. Nobody really likes lines, but I go from zero to impatient in o seconds flat. The person who doesn't know what they want when they are at the counter of McDonald's makes me want to throttle them. The person who asks the clerk six million questions makes me want to strangle them.

Yesterday's person was in line at Target. She was one of those older people who don't quite get things like debit cards and gift cards. They keep goofing up the transaction even after the cashier has explained things several times. Inevitably, I am in a hurry when behind this person and have only a few items to purchase. I really want my transaction to be of the wham bam thank you ma'am. I get to the point where I want to shove the person out of the way and say "Oh, will you just let me do it!" I probably would get irritated with my 99-year-old Great Aunt Gen if she was in front of me.

Well, fortunately I realized that this particular slow person was a chance for me to do my one thing for the day. It would definitely be an improvement for myself and advance my life forward if I were to lick this pesky impatience problem. So, I practiced be patient waiting in line. And it worked. This is probably going to have to be a daily one thing for me, because it is a big issue.

No Such Thing as a Free Lunch

Today was an uneventful day, which was a good thing. My big excitement for the day was having lunch with my parents. Pleasant conversation and tasty ham and cheese panini, who could ask for more?

Unfortunately, I blew an opportunity to do one thing after lunch. When my parents dropped me off at home after lunch, they came into the house. My dogs always get excited when grandpa comes to visit because he usually takes them for a walk. So far, so good. The downside of such a thing is that my parents have a tendency to linger just a bit too long. While I had a good free lunch, I was ready for the outing to be over and get something accomplished in the remainder of the afternoon. However, with them being there I began to feel that they were overstaying their welcome. It is a bit of a conflict wanting to tell someone to leave when they had just done something nice for you. I suppose I could have been a gracious host and talked with them for a while, but instead I got a little passive-aggressive, hoping that they would get the hint. I could have handled things better.

On the upside, I had better results with my son. He was on the computer on some frivolous website. Every few minutes he kept calling me over to take a look at something that he felt was funny or interesting. To my adult eyes, it wasn't particularly funny or interesting and because of the frequent interruption, I was getting irritated. Fortunately, unlike my parents, I handled it better. I stifled my irritation because I knew that he was trying to share a part of himself with me and it was important for him to feel that connection. I feel pretty good that I didn't react poorly there.

Garbage Day

Today was a much better day than yesterday. I woke up with a much better mood and in the right frame of mind to do one thing today. Actually, I should say that I woke up determined that today was going to be a better day and that I was going to do one thing. That in and of itself is a success because I purposely put myself in the right frame of mind.

So, now it is Sunday night and in a few minutes I have to drag the garbage and recycling to the curb for pick up tomorrow morning. With that, I think that I am going to discard the garbage from the weekend and with the start of the school and work week, I am going to try and accomplish on big thing tomorrow.

Live Long and Prosper

Well, today was not that successful of a day in general. I really think that I blew it because I had many chances to do one thing and I let my emotions get the best of me. I know that this is going to reveal me as a huge sci-fi geek, but sometimes I wish that I was Vulcan. Oh how I envy Spock and his ability to keep those pesky emotions from blinding him to the logic of the situation, but alas I am not a pointy eared alien and the world of Star Trek is not real.

I wish that I was better at not getting so frustrated with things or when I do, go about handling that frustration in a better way. I suppose that in part, that is why I started trying to do this one thing a day thing. By just doing one thing, I was trying to circumvent some of that frustration.

Anyway, as I said today was not a great day. All those thing that are not working well for me just seemed to come crashing down on my head. I was snippy with people, angry in general, and when I was driving in the car I was not the most courteous of drivers and had the mouth of a longshoreman behind the wheel. Yikes! It really didn't do me much good physically. I had an intense headache, tense shoulders, and my blood pressure was sky high.

I suppose that if there is any success in this day it is that I have at least taken some time out to evaluate my behavior today and really think about how it affects me. It also really illustrates how much I need to actually do this one thing.

It's Friday! Hopefully, You Now Have That Horrible Rebecca Black Song Stuck in Your Head

Today's post is going to be a shorter than the last couple of posts. I knew what my one thing was going to be when I woke up this morning.

Tonight, I am going offline at 7 p.m. That is when my wife is going to get home from work, an hour earlier than the rest of the week. At 7 p.m., I am going to get off the computer and it will become a night of pizza and episodes of The Big Bang Theory with the family.

I Got Gas

Today seemed like a giant time suck for me and I don't really know where the day went. I got a few things accomplished, but I really don't feel like I have much to show for my efforts. Oh well.

I don't know how much what I did counts towards making my life better, but it is the closest thing that I have for my one thing for the day. I doubt I will make a major global impact with my actions, but what the heck.

While out running errands today, I had to stop and put some gas in the car. I was driving on fumes. I was kind of stunned that the price of gas was $3.67/gallon at my regular gas station. If I am not mistaken, the price jumped up close to $0.30/gallon overnight. Chicago has some of the highest gas prices in the country. I know that a lot of the price is bound up in taxes, but I always thought that it would be offset that there are refineries nearby. I would imagine that any Europeans who might be reading this would think that Americans must be pretty whiny about gas prices, but in the absence of reliable and convenient public transportation and cities that are designed around the automobile, we are reliant on our cars and don't have much of a choice. With the economy the way it is, every penny hurts. Anyway, as I am especially low on funds right now, the best I could do is $20 for a quarter tank of gas.

My first one thing today came when I had to go pick my step-daughter up from school. The school is only two blocks away and sometimes out of shear laziness, I have driven to pick her up. Bad Doug. Anyway, after the painful experience of putting gas in the car, I slapped the leashes on the dogs and walked to pick her up from school.

The second one thing I did is somewhat related. Yesterday, I got an e-mail from one of my state senators, Mark Kirk. He is a proponent of the Keystone XL pipeline, which really doesn't surprise me because he is a Republican. I don't support the Keystone XL pipeline for many reasons, mostly environmental. The source of this oil would be the Athabasca Oil Sands in Alberta. Everything I read about that points to environmental damage. Strike one. The second impact would be on the Ogallala Aquifer through which the pipeline would pass. This aquifer provides drinking water for millions of people. They say that the pipeline would have the highest standards of safety, but seriously who believes safety and oil go together. Can we say Gulf oil spill, BP?

I could go on more about my objects, but that really isn't the point. Okay, one more. The pipeline would supposedly reduce dependence on foreign oil. Last time I checked, Canada was a foreign country. But, I digress. So, I put all of my objections in a clearly and intelligently written e-mail, if I do say so myself, and fired it off to Senator Kirk.

I doubt that what I say is going to make any difference in his thought process, but I feel better for voicing my thoughts and concerns. Nothing is every going to change if we all stay quiet and don't object to things that we think are wrong.

The Battle of Portillo's

It looks like I am getting this post in just under the wire for the day. There is no real reason why I didn't post it sooner, but there is also no real reason as to why I couldn't post it later. Today, was another one of those days were I was a little out of sorts. I really didn't sleep well last night. I don't think that I really fell asleep until about 3 a.m. and then I had weird dreams. Generally speaking, all my dreams are weird, but last night the Earth was attacked by Romulans and I took refuge in a basement with a bunch of other people. There was an explosion and everyone was killed except me and my dogs. I hid in the rubble as there was no way out of the basement and there were Romulans afoot. Hmmm...maybe I should start another blog about my dreams. What do you think?

Anyway, I have a bit of a coke problem. Not the white powdery stuff that you stick up your nose (why on Earth people do that to themselves I do not know. I am generally more concerned about what is coming out of my nose.) I am talking about the brown, fizzy stuff that you drink. I know that there are a million reasons not to drink soda. I understand this all intellectually and I realize that my life and health would probably be a lot better without the stuff, but I love the taste and sensation of that sweet, icy liquid going down your throat.

So, my wife and I went to lunch with my mom at Portillo's. For those of you who don't know that Chicago area, Portillo's is a local chain that serves burgers, hot dogs, but is particularly known for their Italian Beef. Once again, if you are not familiar with Chicago, you may not know what Italian Beef. It is a local specialty of thinly sliced beef that has been soaked in a spicy broth and then served on a bun. Peppers can also be put on the sandwich. I would suggest that you look it up on Wikipedia although that really doesn't do it justice.

Now, I have to admit that my diet lately has been pretty much crap and improving it is one of those one things that I could do on a daily basis. I suppose I could have gotten a salad or something, but who am I really kidding? But the one thing I did with the sandwich is order the smaller version rather than the larger version and I avoided overstuffing myself.

But, I digress as I started off talking about Coke. Of course, I had Coke to drink with my meal and I tend to get multiple refills of the stuff when I eat out. I can tell you that I really wanted to get another refill of the stuff today, but I stopped myself when I realized that could have been my one thing for the day. So in short, I actually did two one things today with respect to food. Well, three if you count making dinner and avoiding the temptation of being lazy and ordering a pizza.

A Day of Struggles

Yesterday was a challenge for me, but that wasn't necessarily a bad thing. Sometimes, challenges can give you an opportunity to grow. Today was a struggle for me and I am not really sure how successful it has been.

This morning, just before I woke up I had a dream. I have actually had this dream before if a couple of different forms, but always the same general theme. This dreams version was the version where I am back in high school and I don't know where I need to go for my next class. Usually in the dream, I wander around for a while until I spot familiar people in a classroom or I find my schedule and make it to class. This time, nothing about the school or the people was familiar. I felt completely lost and terrified. I went to the office to get my schedule and it was complete and utter gibberish. Rather than feeling confused, I felt terrified in the dream and actually woke up a little sweaty and shaken. The dream has stuck with me for most of the day and has had ripple effects on my mood.

So, feeling shaken today it has been difficult to look for the one thing to do. Besides feeling off, I didn't feel particularly motivated to do anything. I have done a few little things today that I guess that I could count as being my one thing to do, but in all honesty none of them really seemed to be something that would advance my life forward in someway. Finally, I had a bit of an epiphany about my efforts.

No, none of the little things that I did were particularly spectacular and probably wouldn't have a great impact on my life. However, the one thing that I did do is that I pushed through all that moodiness, doubt, and negativity of the day to still look for things to do to make my life better. It would have been so easy to say "Screw it!" and crawl back under the covers, but I didn't. So, I give myself an "A" for effort and congratulate myself for carrying on with my plan to do one thing despite the mental obstacles of the day. I am developing the practice of doing one thing a day and that is good enough for me.

Failure or Success?

Today was a bit of a challenge for me with respect to doing just one thing that would improve my life. Part of the challenge is that I watched two nine-year-old girls, my step-daughter Ellee and her best friend Emily, as the bickered and fought their way through the day. There would have been a ton of opportunities to do one thing with them after all they were giving me huge challenges to keep my cool or react in a way that I wouldn't normally do when frustrated. All of us survived the day without any lasting hurt feelings or loss of blood, the cat remains unshaved, and the house is still intact (mostly, although I am applying for federal disaster relief for Ellee's room), but I had been thinking that I could have done better. However, as I reflect on the day I realize that I did do better. While, I may not have have been June Cleaver in crinolines and pearls (how long is it going to take to get that image scrubbed out of your brain?), I did actually maintain my calm and composure quite a bit. I also recognized the fact that by the end of the day, I was feeling a little wound up and rather than letting it progress into negative thinking, I did something to nip it in the bud. While the day is starting to wind down, there are still a few more hours for me to do one thing.

ONE Thing

New Year's Day usually brings about a host of resolutions that we make in order to try to better ourselves. Whether it is to start going back to church, exercise more, eat less fast food, start practicing meditation, get organized, find a better job, go to yoga class, or win the Nobel Peace Prize, we put extreme pressure on ourselves to create an idealized life.

My life has not really been working the way that I want it to for a very long time. The last couple of years have been really rough as I have had personal, health, and financial problems a plenty. As New Year's Eve approached, I thought that I would set aside for quiet contemplation and make a list of resolutions in an attempt to improve my life. Then I decided that the effort would most likely fail. I have a tendency to get overwhelmed by things and a daunting laundry list of the things that I believe that I was doing wrong would result in self-sabotage. Instead of doing this, I decided to embrace the concept of ONE.


Rather than trying to live up to that perfected list, I decided that I was going to limit myself to doing one thing each day to advance my life in some way shape or form. It could be as simple as organizing one drawer, cleaning one room, breathing for one minute, watching one less hour of television, have one less helping of food at dinner, drinking one less soda, and most importantly taking one thing and day at a time.


So, today I did just this. When I woke up, I started looking for that one thing to do today. It turns out that there were lots of moments to do one thing. I did succeed in doing one thing (actually I did more than one thing), but I would say that the one thing that I did that was the most important is that I took time at the end of the day to reflect upon what I had done and where I missed opportunities to do one thing. I look forward to doing the same tomorrow.