Not Resolutions. Goals.

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I don’t like New Year’s resolutions, because I never keep them. Does anyone?

And then I read this post on A Cup Of Lee and it resonated.

To be completely honest, as I like to be here on my blog, Leanne isn’t just a blogger I follow. She’s a friend and Adam’s best mate’s mum.

She’s also the one who walked up to me at the pre-school line up and said ‘Are you Tee?’ My first stalker. 😀

Anyway, I love her blog, both because she writes well and because I don’t know a lot about PR so I find what she does really fascinating. It’s a job I probably would have like to do myself, but my career took me other directions.

Oh, she’s also a client!

Anyway, I like the idea of making business goals, rather than personal resolutions and I really like the idea of posting them here on the ‘net. Accountability is a good thing!

So I opened my Wunderlist (which I highly recommend if you need a list/goal/note app) and added a new section called ‘Goals’.

And I started a list called DTAT Goals 2015:

  1. Blog at least once a week
  2. Redesign the DTAT web site
  3. Launch the Etsy shop
  4. Work on my novel

All four of those have a completion date of 31 December 2015. Lots of room to get them done.

Unlike Leanne, I do have one personal goal:

  1. Earn driving license

That has a completion date of 1 June 2015, because I really want to have my license before we go to California next summer. And I have my second lesson tomorrow. 😀

So hopefully you’ll see more from me here at Tee’s Blog.

And more from Designed To A Tee.

And you may want to pull over if you see an Abba Driving instructor in and around South Belfast.

That could be me behind the wheel. 😀

Giving them Roots and Wings

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Last night I was talking to my sister in law and 2 nieces on Skype and we were trying to remember how old my oldest niece, now 14, was when she was first allowed to walk to their downtown on her own. We all concurred that she was probably 10, the same age she was allowed to walk to school on her own.

It got me thinking about the things we are working on with our son. He’s 5 and most definitely Not Neurotypical (NNT) in some, as yet undiagnosed, way. But his father and I are doing our best to make him as independant as possible. He has no sense about cars or other danger, so I’m not sending him to the corner shop, but we certainly expect certain things, i.e. clearing his plate, throwing out his own garbage, tidying his toys.

And I was reminded of a story a friend of mine told me. She was visiting a friend with a child the same age as my son. This child handed my friend a piece of paper or something to throw away, even though they were both standing right next to the kitchen bin. When my friend pointed this out, the child looked at her like he didn’t understand what she was saying. He had obviously never thrown anything away before. At least not at home.

So, by logical conclusion, my NNT son is more independent than her NT child.

So now I’m wondering, in general, how much you let your child do themselves. How old are they?

Are you giving them roots and wings? Or just roots?

Lessons From The Not Quite 5 Year Old…

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“What did you do today mummy?”

“Well, I walked you to school and then I went to the GP’s office for prescriptions and then to the chemist to get them filled and then to the supermarket for bread and pancakes and cereal bars. And then I came home and had a coffee and did some knitting and then had some lunch and then came to meet your bus. So, really, I did nothing today because I’m not feeling well. Again.”

“But you took me to school and then went to the chemist and the supermarket!”

“True, but I meant I didn’t do any housework today, like I had wanted to.”

“But you knitted! That’s housework!”

“Is it?”

“Yes.” With nearly 5 year old conviction. “You did lots today.”

I Am Wondering if Facebook Staff Actually Use The Site

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So today I was reading my news feed and there were several times friends of mine posted on various groups they belong to. These groups hold no interest for me, so I selected to hide the group’s notifications.

And Facebook wanted to know why. So I clicked on the link to be asked if I wanted to stop seeing my friends feed altogether, you know, if I didn’t want to see every group they belong to.

No. I don’t.

You see I have lots of friends. And, guess what? Some of them don’t have all of the same interests as me! Shocking, I know. Completely.

Or, you know, only to Facebook.

I mean, you probably know lots of people, right? And you know them from different places. Some are from your child’s school or your work or maybe another web site you belong to. So you have that one point of connection.

That doesn’t mean you don’t want to see them talk about themselves, or their child or what have you. But it might mean you have no interest in their underwater basket weaving group. I’m sure it’s something that is totally thrilling to them. But that doesn’t mean it’s thrilling to me.

And I can’t believe it’s thrilling to Facebook staff, either. Surely, if they use Facebook, they’ll know how incredibly frustrating it is to have someone say ‘Hey, I was hoping you’d comment on my question about X Y Z on Facebook, since it’s your area.’ and you have to respond ‘I never saw it. Probably because Facebook thought it was more important that I saw B’s comment on her underwater basket weaving group.’

Yes yes, I don’t pay for Facebook. They get money through advertising, they don’t have to keep anyone happy but their advertisers.

But how happy will those advertisers be when more and more people go to Twitter or G+ because they get to see what they actually want to see?

Who Am I If I’m Not In Pain?

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So due to an incredible set of circumstances, I am remarkably pain free.

First I took up knitting to help my arthritic hands. And it worked. My hands are much looser and practically pain free. I still get twinges and opening jars is beyond me, but day to day activity is so much improved I am actually thinking about trying to draw by hand again.

Then the chemist couldn’t get me any Xanax. It’s not a drug that is prescribed in the UK, since the NHS doesn’t cover it (I’ve been paying private ‘script charges on it for years), so the European distributors haven’t been keeping it in the country. So I am in the process of switching to Zoloft. Guess what else Zoloft is good for, along with anxiety? Fibro pain.

So despite the fact that the med switch has given me some insomnia, I’m not really in fibro pain at the moment. I have nearly a full range of movement in my arms and the new pains that had started in my upper legs has totally gone. I’m still getting the fatigue and fibro brain, but I can deal with all of that, if there’s no pain.

Finally, I have been working with a podiatrist to pinpoint why my left leg hurts so badly, even with having had cortisone and exercise and losing weight and all those things. And for the first time someone looked at me and said ‘Your left leg is shorter than your right.’ Around 30 years my left leg has hurt in one way or another and this is the first time someone has noticed that. And that is skews the way I walk and the way I stand.

So I have a temporary thing for my left shoe that I am to try different thicknesses on, using, belive it or not, beer mats to raise or lower it as feels comfortable. And in four weeks I go back to report and have casts made of my feet and custom shoe inserts created. Just one day of having this temp thing in my left shoe and my leg feels better.

So how does it feel to not be in constant never ending pain?

Fucking terrifying.

I am trying so hard to not get my hopes up that this is how I will feel all the time now. I am trying to treat each day as a gift of painlessness.

And I’m not sure who to be any more. I’ve been Tee, the woman with three chronic pain conditions for a long time. I can’t even imagine what I might get done if I’m not spending days on the sofa just trying to get from one minute to the next.

But I am going to find out!

The Part of Heart Bleed No One Seems To Be Explaining

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I’m sure, by now, you’ve heard all about Heartbleed and that you should change your passwords as soon as the websites you have accounts on confirm they are patched.

But I keep hearing from non-technical people ‘Why would anyone want into my Facebook/Twitter/other non-financial/credit card link account? For what purpose?’ And no one seems to be explaining!

So why should you worry?

Because hackers think you are dumb. They assume, rightly in a lot of cases, that you use the same username and password for all your logins. This is bad practice, of course, but lots and lots of people do it.

So the hacker harvests hundreds or thousands or millions of usernames and passwords from, say, Facebook, and then puts them into a programme that sends those username and passwords across the web. It automatically tries the username/password combinations it has saved and, if it gets lucky, gets into your bank, or your email (for phishing or replicating) or some other useful thing. And they have you.

So how do you remember unique passwords for all of the things you access?

There are three really easy ways to create secure and memorable passwords:

1. Think of a sentence that you will remember on a specific site, like Facebook Sucks But Everyone Uses It So I Do. Then take the first letter of each word: FSBEUISID and then add some symbols or numbers rather than letters: FSB3U1S!D. Appears totally random to someone else, but you will remember it!

2. Create a code of numbers, letters and symbols: 123&^324. For each website, add 2 or 3 characters to that code: FB123&^324. Now you only have to remember your random code and your website code.

3. Create a pattern on the keyboard. You look at the keyboard and imagine shapes on top of the keys. Trace those shapes with the keys and a totally random string of characters will be chosen, but all you have to remember is the pattern.

So wait until you get the all clear on your sites (there’s lists all over the web) and then get to strong password creation!