Moving Back into the RV, update

I have found homes for my books and my camping gear in the RV. Books are now in upper cabinets (where they should NOT be b/c of the weight, but that is really most convenient for me). Gear is under the bed. Painting/art supplies are under the couch. Dog things now have a bathroom drawer all their own, plus more dog things live inside the doggie staircase near the bed.

Office supplies was tough. I have two upper cabinets near my desk, and then the hole where the passenger’s legs go in the RV, all full of office stuff. Dan made my desk cubby to hold my printer.

DVDs are in my favorite antique pie chest by the door. We still need to make some kind of support for it to make sure it won’t fall over when we drive.

We added tons of hooks for clothes and jewelry. My Cookie Lee stuff is problematic. Lots of weight and space, plus I had to randomly stick things in various places.

We hung a cable wire with curtain hooks to create a privacy screen in the cab area, and put up some nice chocolate brown canvas curtains I had.

Food in current use is in the pantry inside and I have a deep storage for the rest in one of the basements.

Dan still needs to make a recycling center on the rear platform.

We are looking to order a new side mirror from an RV salvage place. The people are searching for us and that will take a few days. I hope it’s not hugely expensive.

The yoga/workout gear is still kicking around and in the way. I want these things easily accessible so I use them. But tripping over them isn’t going to make my life serene, either.

Caring for myself with a Healthy Habits List

I have this deal worked out that if I do everything on my Healthy List, I get a treat. If I do a few things on the list a get a smaller treat.

I created this idea of the last four days because I realized I work best on a rewards-based system. My first thought was that I would get one dollar for accomplishing at least one thing from my list, a dollar a day. Or that I would get $5 if I did EVERYTHING on my list that day.

That way I would earn either $30 or $150 in a month, give or take, if I stay with this.

The problem was, where would the money come from? I couldn’t pay myself - i have no money. So then i asked hubby if he would pay me. He said he would if he had any money, but he didn’t either. I thought of my mom but didn’t want to bother her with this.

We decided I needed a sponsor.

I didn’t feel like asking people to give me money so I could give myself incentive to do good things for myself, so I had to wrack my brains for some other reward.

I settled on massages. Dan agreed that he would do one minute of massage on the body part of my choice if I tackled some of the things on my list, and five full minutes (timed) if I get everything checked off.

So far I earned (and received) a one minute jaw massage for yesterday and a five minute foot massage for the day before. Today I am working on getting my entire list accomplished and will be able to earn my five minutes - maybe for a neck rub.

Here is my Healthy List: (daily tasks)

• Pushups
• Hanging on the chinup bar
• Crunches
• a Yoga sequence or stretching
• 5 minutes Meditation
• at least 15 minutes of something that lifts my Heart Rate
• Hydrate
• Take my Vitamins
• Take my Medications
• have Veggies in at least one meal
• have Protein in at least one meal
• have a serving of Fruit, or the equivalent of antioxidants
• Put powdered Fiber in at least one beverage
• Floss teeth
• Exfoliate and Moisturize face and neck
• Do one thing to Pamper myself or provide Me Time

So far this has been a very good list for me. I make sure to set my timer to go off every half hour when I am working at my desk, so I can remember to get a few of these things done.

The One Thing For Me item is variable. One day I read a book in bed during the day. Today I took a nice long bath with scented salts. It could also be getting a pedicure, buying myself something nice, going to a thrift store or walking around down town, being artsy or crafty, working on my Vision Board, enjoying a sunset or looking at stars…whatever little item that isn’t otherwise on any to-do list that will help decrease my stress levels.

What do people think of my idea? I am really hopeful this will encourage attention and accountability to healthy habits for me.

Addicted to Stress - weaning yourself from adrenaline

I’ve been reading about how people these days are addicted to stress. Our society encourages it. I always considered myself an ‘involvaholic’ - too many things going on all the time, until I read somewhere about how this exhausts our adrenals and burns us out. Our bodies are not meant to run off adrenaline and cortisol except in true emergency situations.

I decided to stop living on adrenaline. One of the things I did was get away from caffeine. I drink decaf coffee, for one thing. Caffeine stimulates the adrenal glands. I know decaf is not totally devoid of caffeine, but it doesn’t get me jittery at all, and I don’t get a headache if I miss a day. And there are tons of yummy brands of decaf these days.

Weaning oneself off full-caff coffee and caffeinated sodas is one of the first steps to getting away from needing adrenaline to get through the day. And it’s a much easier one than getting into the nitty gritty of examining one’s life.

The next step is to take a look at what you do each day that gives you a ‘kick.’ Waiting for deadlines to approach is definitely one of these things! As a ex-journalist, I lived for deadlines. There was an exhilaration to it all.

Then eventually I burned out. Now I resist anything that requires me to write by a certain date. It bugs me to even have a deadline; just having one gives me anxiety. I don’t think I ever would have developed a clinical anxiety problem if I didn’t live on adrenaline for so long.

So everyone should take a look at the things you do, on a daily basis, that bring you stress.  Make a list of the things you can eliminate from your life, and don’t be afraid to make a big change to protect your health and sanity. Learn to ask for help if you need it, and learn to say no to more tasks. Decide to spend more time in relaxing activities - make a daily prescription of it!

I am trying to find peaceful contentment and creatively joyful activities to pursue these days. I want to live on proper fuels, like glucose and amino acids, and reserve adrenaline for its intended emergency use. You never know when you will need to have that adrenaline reserve ready to go, instead of having burned out adrenal glands.  :)

Living on Adrenaline, Decreasing Stress

All evidence these days points to stress as a major contributor to ill-health, in both body and mind. Apparently stress stimulates the body to respond with creating the hormone cortisol (in the adrenals).

Cortisol is the flight and fight hormone. High and prolonged levels of cortisol decrease bone density and muscle mass and increase sugar imbalances. Cortisol leads to increased abdominal fat. Also, cortisol inhibits collage formation (hello, wrinkles!).

About.com writes, “Studies have also shown that people who secrete higher levels of cortisol in response to stress also tend to eat more food, and food that is higher in carbohydrates than people who secrete less cortisol.” http://stress.about.com/od/stresshealth/a/cortisol.htm

The wikipedia explains that cortisol addiction also contributes to clinical depression. The Mayo Clinic lays things out clearly about the negative effects of allowing stress to continue eating away at your body: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/stress/SR00001

In our modern world, we’ve created a high-stress culture using adrenaline as a fuel source. The adrenals were never meant to be stimulated like this - it’s a very unhealthy fuel.

I’ve been seriously working to decrease stress in my life. I don’t think we take stress seriously enough; we just live with it. Trying to actually eliminate stress is a worthwhile goal! And one I do not think is too far out of line. The adrenals are intended to help us work through temporary stressful situations - ones that we cannot control. Using cortisol as a daily fuel; that was never intended. That is what I am going to work on eliminating from my life.

Do You Use Coupons?

Do you collect coupons, scour ads, print out online coupons, send in rebates, or avidly read your ValPack/Pennysaver circulars for ads? Do you buy and use entertainment books full of local coupons?

Do you find you actually use coupons, or forget about them until they expire? Is the time spend collecting and organizing worthwhile?

For me:

Each time I get an entertainment book I realize it’s been a waste of money for me. I never use anything in them, for some reason.

Coupon that show up in the mail I am pretty good at using. Right now I have one in front of me for getting a $5 item free at my thrift store for bringing in an unwanted Elephant Gift.

I also hand the fast food coupons to Dan, so he can grab food when he spends the day at cinemas getting PeeTimes for RunPee.com. He really appreciates those.

I have a stack of coupons for $2 pints of locally brewed beer at the Oak Creek Brewing Company in Sedona. I use those with my friend Chris regularly. I pulled them from the coupon pages in my phone book.

I have a $5 off pet food coupon from a Val-Pack, and a 10% additional payout for can recycling coupon, several car repair/oil change coupons and a pedicure coupon on my fridge.

I don’t really do grocery coupons (I always forget them), but these larger savings ones I do use.

I tape these things up where I can see them on my way through the house/by the door. I figure if I don’t actually use my coupons, they become a form of mind clutter. If I see them, there is a better chance I’ll use them. I try to only hold onto coupons I think will actually come in handy.

For you:

What are your favorite coupons to use? Do they save you actual money, or is coupon collecting a waste of time?

You do what you can to not stay insane

People have been suggesting I try to get my life and mind in order by scheduling out my days. I am happy to report that after a few months of this system, it seems to be working.

Here is my weekly schedule, living in an RV:

• Monday - sleeping
• Tuesday - hike
• Wed - sit in the sun and read
• Thurs - napping
• Friday - organize the RV
• Sat - more sleeping
• Sun - watch birds do bird things and wander around

It’s been pretty good. I highly recommend this routine to people who feel like they are broken inside and need lots of internal, unbothered, quiet time.

It’s been so successful that I ACTUALLY feel like writing again. And working on my inbox, answering emails and thinking about possible ways to make money. The best part is no one is pushing me…it’s just coming out organically. I feel like doing things again.

I hope I have really found a turning point for myself, but I don’t want to put out too much hope into it. I will just roll with what is given.

Get People to Click your Shit

You want people on Twitter, Stumble, Digg or wherever to click through to your articles, images, YouTube videos and blog posts?

Here is one avenue people appreciate:

• Be funny.

Have a funny title or caption if you can spare one. Keep in mind the funny might not be as useful for SEO purposes.

Take, for example, my title here:

• Get People to Click your Shit

I think it’s funny. Does it have excellent keywords?…well, no. An SEO friendly title would read more like: How to Attract Click Throughs. How to Attract Readers to your Articles. How to Get Readers to Click Through to your Articles. Boring stuff like that.

If I was writing an article for a website I would have done just that. I would go with the keywords and get the SEO goodness from search engines. But this is my damn personal blog and I will do what I like with it.

If you really want to be smart, you can have an SEO friendly title AND still get the funny across. You can have a subtitle that’s funny. Or make a funny description. Or have funny tags.

In this case, I could have written:

• How To Convert More Readers: Click My Shit.

Convert, Readers and Click are all decent search terms. How To is a good search phrase. And the most important thing: Shit is still in the title.  We’re really all just monkeys laughing about feces.

Or, I could make a Twitter post about eating brains, which always sounds funny. For example, Dan just sent me a zombie video. Zombies are funny on their own, but you can phrase things to sound even more enticing. Here is my recent Tweet on Common Craft’s video about surviving zombie attacks:

• Save Your Brains. How to identify, escape and eliminate zombies: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVnfyradCPY&feature=user

I could have just said, “How to identify, escape and eliminate zombies” - which is certainly funny on its own, yet so earnestly serious.  My playful brain eating touch is sure to get Common Craft a few more readers, which they deserve, as their video is cute, funny, and provides useful advice about surviving zombie attacks.  The best of all worlds! Just like this blog post!

So what have we learned today? That zombies, brains and shit are funny. That we’re monkeys. And that, yes, there ARE benefits to possessing an irreverent mind, despite what my teachers said about me.

We Have to Fly, But Now We Hates It

I unfortunately have to fly next month. We officially now hate flying, so we tried hard to come up with an alternate plan:

• Driving from CA to FL was out - too much time, too much hassle, too much gas.
• We figured we’d try a sleeper car on the train. Well, there we inexplicably would have to go from FL via CHICAGO to CA, adding a lot of time to the trip. Plus the sleeper compartments cost about the same as a vacation on a cruise ship. So, no go.
• Then we saw the first class flight tickets also cost more than a cruise.
• We even considered renting an RV to drive back so we would only have to fly one way…then got wrapped back up in the ungodly expensive gas situation. One can’t win.

So, yeah, we gave up and bought plane tickets on Expedia, which sneakily tacks on booking fees and massive taxes. We’re forced to change planes in Atlanta and can’t even sit together on the last leg to FL. We have a three hour stop-over in Atlanta too. I hope it’s got WIFI, or decent shops.

I am afraid to check and see which airlines we are stuck with. Some are stingier than others: I wonder if we will be charged now for water and coffee. If so, all the more reason to just get drunk on tiny bottles of wine in-flight. I am by now trained to bring my own darned pillow, so they can’t nickel and dime me there.

Am NOT looking forward to this. I always catch a flu bug when I fly. I’m going to try really hard not to this time, even if it means wearing gloves and a mask. Sheesh. Flying. Bah.

Next Blogs on Tap, updated

bettasandmore.com

businesstravelerlife.com

budgethomestaging.com

cosmeticreviewjournal.com

dentalmedicalspas.com

Next Blogs on Tap

Actually Dentalmedicalspas.com, budgethomestaging.com and bettafishandmore.com are coming along next.

Dan wants to move my fish work and monitize it. He also wants me to take a look at my entire body of article work, over the last decade. I just wanted them all rounded up somewhere, cleaned up and ready to show in an online resume, rather like what Lisa has done with LisaShea.com.

My main areas of existing content: houseplants, dog grooming, cleaning, science fiction, betta fish and other fish, living simply, hiking and other outdoors activities, traveling, beauty, reviews, moving tips, organizing…and misc newspaper articles from features to hard news.