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In the next two weeks I will know for sure if I’m accepted.  I’m getting so excited.  I practically jump every time I get an e-mail notification.  Having a final decision, one way or the other, will get me out of the holding pattern for planning and budgeting.

I’m applying for as many scholarships as I can find and waiting on the property tax information from the city so we can complete our taxes and I can finish my FAFSA.  It will be nice to finally know for certain what kind of financial resources we’ll need to scrape together to make this work.

I’m waiting on pins and needles and I’ll be sure to post as soon as I know more.

I found a wonderful website all about comfortable shoes for those of us with various foot problems, Barking Dog Shoes.  Now I can’t stop browsing.  I thought the Sanita’s were expensive until I found the Wolky (they bring the funk), Earthies (you want how much for sandals?!), and Fluevog (so retro, so yum).  But oh, how lovely they are!

The more I learn about these shoes the more I want to save my pennies.  Then I realize my clothes are not up to the awesomeness of the shoes, woe is me!  So last night I told my husband, when I finish with school and we have some money available I need a wardrobe budget to start building a personal style.  Meanwhile I’ll keep checking E-bay for steals.

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• Functional and Decorative Shoe Storage (apartmenttherapy.com)
• Simply Fab: Sanita Black Patent Leather Clog (fabsugar.com)

Don’t get me wrong, there are some amazing voice actors out there.  I particularly like the actress that voices Patricia Cornwell‘s Kay Scarpetta books.  I recently listened to This Book is Overdue!  and loved HIllary Huber’s narration.  Granted bad voice acting can turn me off in a heartbeat, especially mispronunciations.  I didn’t even make it through one chapter of a recent audio book when the narrator pronounced the word frequently as “fruh’-kwantly.”  I had to listen to it twice just to figure out what the heck she said.

While narration can be engaging or distracting, the real problem I have with audio books is finding the right circumstance in which to listen to them.  I don’t have a long commute now, but when I did, I found that I either got wrapped up in the story and distracted from the drive, or got distracted by traffic and missed portions of the story.  As a passenger, it’s not a bad way to spend time.  Another time that I listen to, well anything really, is when I’m cooking.  This is my prime podcast listening time however, so I hate to get behind on those to listen to a book.  I have also noticed the same problem with cooking as driving.  I get distracted by either the book or the task and find myself lost in either a very good or a very bad way.

Recently I got it in my head that it would be pure genius to try and listen to an audio book while playing World of Warcraft.  “Of course,” I thought to myself, “I can do this while I do all the boring stuff like archaeology, auction house scans, and crafting.  This is one of my best ideas evar!”  Oh how wrong I was.  Although I listened quite intently while on an automated flight path, as soon as I started to concentrate on guild chat, flying my own mount, or trying to figure out why that damn survey equipment is sending me in circles, I completely lost the flow of the story.

I’ve tried listening before sleeping and setting a timer so it would automagically pause just as I was falling asleep.  That totally didn’t work either.  I fell asleep long before that 20 minutes was up.  If I try to sit and listen to an audio book the way I would sit and read my e-reader or a hard copy of the book, I find myself fidgeting and looking for something to do with myself, which normally leads to another distracting task (surfing the web, cooking, cleaning, doing laundry).  I’m I just weird or does anyone else have this problem?  Has anyone found a solution for it, or do I just need to find a reason for my husband to drive me around more often?

If you have heard about the Slow Food or Slow Money movements, then the concepts I’m about to try and flesh out may sound familiar.  I was reading this blog post recently  A proposal for author rankings | TeleRead: News and views on e-books, libraries, publishing and related topics.  I don’t think Richard Herley’s solution is the best one, because it could be easily gamed by savvy authors.  However, I have found that since I got a Kindle, a little over a year ago, that it is nearly impossible to try and parse self-published authors.  I try one and really like it and the next recommendation based on that read is absolutely terrible.  The sheer volume of works available makes it difficult to find the pearls.

Lately I’ve been also been seeing a lot of press given to the inclusion of maker/hacker space at public libraries.  Libraries have always been the keepers of community history and are attempting to propel themselves back to prominence as leaders of the community and spearheading new technologies.  There has also been a lot of animosity recently between libraries, publishers and retail distributors.

In reading all of this, I haven’t seen any recommendations, or theorizing about Slow Libraries, which I think could provide solutions to at least some of these issues.  The idea would be for libraries to create self-publishing stations, classes, and guidance for their communities.  This would allow them to deal directly with authors to determine lending, purchasing and DRM guidelines.  They could then create partnerships with local independent booksellers to promote and sell the works of authors in their communities.  The community’s book clubs could also participate by taking advantage of group decision-making to review and rate the books with some validity and reliability.

This type of community interaction and investment would bring libraries to the forefront of their communities in ways that would stall some of the current arguments about the use of public funding to support them.  I could see this system growing into a reliable, vetted, grassroots campaign to connect communities in an increasingly global market.  The next question is, where do we start?  Do libraries have the resources to be able to take on this kind of project and make it a reality?  Does it need to start with the more experienced self-published authors, or is that too much to ask?  I don’t have the answers to those questions and I’m struggling to even figure out how to promote this idea within my own community.  So pass the word, Slow Libraries are the future.

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I often wish my job didn’t stick me behind my desk so much as it does.  I also find that my favorite hobbies also mostly keep me sitting either with a book in hand (or Kindle as the case may be) or in front of a computer. One of the things I miss about working in a warehouse or at the hospital is the constant motion.

As recent research announces a greater correlation between sitting and poor health/early death, I am seeing more and more options lately for products that help those of us stuck at our desk become more active.  The FitDesk was recently featured in my Twitter feed.

I’ve often been tempted to get one of the exercise ball chairs for work as my back complains about poor ergonomics and posture.  There are also treadmill desks, which may or may not work so well depending mostly on how you are using the computer.  If you are like me and touch type, I can’t imagine trying to walk and type at the same time.  I can barely chew gum and walk at the same time.

Have you seen any unique ways to work a desk while working out?

Related articles

• Reasons to Give Up Your Desk Chair For an Exercise Ball (fitsugar.com)

transitive verb

1: to give little attention or respect to

2: to leave undone or unattended to especially through carelessness

There really is no excuse.  I’ve been moderately busy but it has been work, gaming and reading.  I feel like I’m cheating if I don’t create a 1000+ word blog post so I don’t publish nearly often enough.  Then I read my favorite blogs and realize there doesn’t have to be a word count to be successful.  So I will aim to post more often, even if they aren’t the longest posts ever.

The companion mechanic is interesting, but annoying.  I don’t find it compelling to try and outfit them.  The only relationship that I want to build to romance status isn’t allowed because it would be a lesbian relationship. I find the crafting skills clunky and big credit sinks.  I expect blue or purple recipes to give me more than one point of skill up since it takes much longer and many more materials to craft them.  Because it doesn’t, I just make one for me, and ignore the rest and use greens to skill up.

The grouping system is awkward to say the least.  They desperately need an LFG style system, or some way to easily find people for quests.  The multitude of descriptors are also ridiculous.  There’s Heroic 2, Heroic 4, Heroic 2+ and several others.  The only reason to complete them are the rewards because you don’t need them to level high enough for the next zone, especially if you are doing the space mission quests which give a very nice chunk of xp and credits.

I also sincerely dislike the advanced class/skill point system.  The trees are bloated and poorly built and there is no way to try different advanced classes without leveling a whole new character.  Some of the story lines are great, but they are hard to enjoy if you want to level with any kind of speed.  So I’m a little disillusioned right now and don’t feel any compulsion to continue playing.

I’ve been reading a mix of fantasy and mystery novels.  Some that were purchases from holiday gift cards, while others are loaned from the library.  I’ve been enjoying The Sword and Laser podcast to build my to-read/ must-read lists on Goodreads.

I’ve also been continuing the job search.  Recently my supervisor has announced she will resign at the end of the semester, and I really do not want to go through the mess of another change in leadership.  I’m applying to anything for which I could remotely be qualified within 50 miles of home.  I’m going to be attending some of the big job fairs and reaching out to contacts I have made in the community to find something new that doesn’t occupy so much of my time.

I saw this comic this morning and laughed because although I may at times get nostalgic, but I had never considered how the nostalgia of a generation could influence consumerism.