Good morning! Short on time today, but here’s a quick Friday 5 of misc. stuff in my life:
1- I stayed up too late watching the Packer game last night, but it was WORTH IT, with a crazy ending and a win over the Cardinals of 24-21. Being the good empath that I am, my heart strings were pulled a little bit for the poor receiver A.J. Green (on the other team) who clearly biffed the play that should have been a game winning touchdown on their side. OOPSY DAISY. It worked out very, very well for the Packers, however. 😃
2- My new 2022 planner has arrived!! Definitely more on this to come, but, yay! It’s always fun to set these up and play around with them.
3- Halloween costumes are finally complete. Asher’s turned into a pretty complex, and ultimately fairly $$, home-made option (the Scarecrow from Batman)…but he is VERY excited about it.
Ethan, on the other hand, had almost zero interest in even dressing up…but knew he needed to in order to get the candy, and he really wants to go with his friends. (No way would we let him just go out in plain clothes with his hand out for candy!)
He couldn’t even really think of what he wanted to be, and had a long list of personal “restrictions” that limited the options even further…🙄 (no full mask. no makeup. etc.) He ended up digging out an old Batman mask from a box in the basement (only covers part of his face and he can still see well through it, so I guess it was okay.) We picked up a cheap kid’s Batman cape, he is going to wear all black and call it a costume. Seems fairly “phoned in” to me, but whatever. It cost less than $8, so I’m good with it. Ha. He is nearing the end of trick or treating, I assume, anyway. 😦
4- Beware the “OK Plateau”. Read this little snippet in my book this a.m., and found it interesting!
A good reminder that intentional progress and mastery of a skill don’t just “happen”. Watch out for the apparent “ceiling” that we tend to hit…maybe it’s not as solid as we think.
5- Today is Flooring Day- Part 2 at our house. Next up, the garage floor concrete coating. The guys should be here within the next hour, and we are very excited to have this done. (If you saw the current state of our garage floor, you would understand why.) Yippee!!
Daily Gratitude:
I am grateful for the invite to sub in a volleyball game last night! I played at 6 pm at the gym and it was FUN! And we won.
GRATEFUL KAE 
That OK plateau concept is interesting! And reminds me of my nerdy middle school left. I found out we were getting new materials for our typing/computer class and asked if I could have one of the old books. I then took it home and did nearly all of the pages in the book. So I became a VERY FAST typer! So I did focus on developing that skill. But it’s a good reminder that you have to do something like that to develop a skill. Doing something every day, like typing all the emails we type isn’t going to naturally make you a great typer!
So fun that you subbed in a VB game! And that you won! Fun!
Looking forward to seeing pics of your boys’ costumes – especially Asher’s! Paul is wearing the same costume as last year – a dinosaur. Will is a hedgehog. Both are warm costumes so perfect as it will be a chilly night on Sunday!
I’m looking forward to more W222 posts since I’m in that system as of Monday! Curious how/if you use the quarterly pages, and the pages at the front with the days listed vertically under each month? I think Sarah said she would use that as an illness tracker. I think I would be too depressed if I did that!! Ha!
LikeLike
Lisa, I will email you some pics! I used those spots in slightly weird ways, haha! But I’m happy to share what I did. I’m not sure I’ll do the same this upcoming year, so I need to think on that too.
LikeLike
What’s your overall take on The ONE Thing?
One of the things I’ve been “failing” at lately is reading. For the last month or so (as I onboard to a new job), I’ve basically not read anything. I’m itching to read, but know I just can’t juggle everything right now. I am on the hunt for a good non-fiction/self-help read that’s not too inspirational (read: more pressure), but that feels productive and relevant to my busy season of life. Thoughts?
LikeLike
Hmmm. I’m enjoying it, but I’m not sure I would 100% recommend either as a must read. I like it, and it’s intriguing….and I like the concept of backing up and really focusing in what “one thing” can make the biggest difference in x/y/z area of your life. But it also feels a little idealistic maybe? Also, maybe I’m just not really someone who is looking to DOMINATE my career or any area of my life right now…so some of it seems sort of irrelevant. But I still have been having fun reading it! So, if you ever can grab a copy from the library, maybe check it out.
Have you ever read “Solve for Happy”? I read that last year after Coco read it, and I LOVED that book. That was one of my favorite ever books on happiness/ personal development. I also read Cal Newport’s books Deep Work and Digital Minimalism this year, in the productivity genre, and liked both of those. Neither felt too intense for me. Another favorite of mine from a few years ago was The Willpower Instinct.
LikeLike
I’ve read both those Cal Newport books (I enjoyed Digital Minimalism, but found Deep Work frustratingly short on female examples), but haven’t ever heard of the other two you mention! Going to look them up on my library system now!
November is shaping up to be especially intense, so jumping back on the reading train might be wishful thinking, but I’m willing to try…
Thanks for the suggestions 🙂
LikeLike
Very true about the plateau. As we feel comfortable doing something we tend to stop learning and progressing. That’s why changing job from time to time is a good way to force ourselves to keep challenging us.
LikeLike