“Just give me the coffee and no one gets hurt!”

Alternative title: Time Management and the Working Parent

Time is such an elusive little critter… It stands still, speeds up and is the master of all. So when it comes to having a family and a job – how can you make time work for you?

Here are some things I have found that help out – any other suggestions?

1 – Be Santa.
Make a list, check it twice. Don’t worry so much about the “naughty and nice” part. But checking off an item is just so… accomplishment!

2 – Parse it out.
Get some help from your family. Dad and junior can clean just as good as mom can (although you might have to continually explain to your 3 year old that the swiffer is for floors, not beds or windows…).

3 – “No one has ever died from dust bunnies.”
Many years ago I read a book called “Twenty Minutes a Day to a Greener Planet” (I think – can’t find it any more…). In it the author clearly stated that no one has ever died from dust bunnies. She provided wisdom such as:
“Do you housework on a work day – it will take 20 minutes on a Thursday or 2 hours on a Saturday.”
“At a restaurant, dishes really do clean themselves!”

4 – Ever considered delivery?
Shopping for food is time consuming. There are all sorts of services that deliver right to your door! Currently I am trying out spud.ca (Small Potatoes Urban Delivery). They provide organic produce and deliver a box to your door. You can take “seasonal” selections or check specific items off.
Heck – they even offer free delivery on most orders!

5 – Shop before hand – online.
Target your shopping experience! Shop before hand, online. Get an idea of the items you want to try out/on. Then go to the store or get it delivered.

My two recent online purchases were:
Text books for school. Shopped chapters.ca (notice I stuck with a Canadian distributor – saves border hassle!). Free delivery for orders above a certain $. Ships in 24 hours. Received in 3 days.
Total time spent book shopping: 16.5 minutes.

I needed a winter jacket. Tried shopping online at several stores – some had truly horrible navigation and item information (note to merchants – online shopping also serves a time-management purpose but we still come to the store!). I ended up at mec.ca. Was fast and efficient (thanks largely to the great and specific descriptions of the items – even told me how long the jacket was!). Narrowed my choices to three coats. Checked the store inventory online – they were all in-stock. Went to the store 30 minutes before they closed. Went straight to my items of choice and tried all three on. Got the blue one.
Total time spent jacket shopping: 29 minutes.

I am still analyzing the financials figures on all this – but so far it looks like a benefit – both in time and money. And sanity – never discount sanity!
… like Mastercard says – extra time to build a great choo-choo track is simply priceless…

“You can’t turn back the clock. But you can wind it up again.”
Bonnie Prudden

The Latte Theory

I was listening to a news report on the radio the other day… got me to wondering…

The report questioned why child care is such a challenge. There is money to be made in it – so why isn’t there enough of it? Why aren’t entrepreneurs and big business in the business of child care? One person they interviewed suggested that government interference contributed to the crisis by inserting too much “red tape” in the child care business. The counter-argument was that the government should be responsible but “tries to do it on the cheap” and doesn’t invest enough resources in child care.

You decide:

Here in the mighty Oh Canada we, apparently, have a “dismal” child care strategy. Out of 14 countries ranked by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) we are last.

“Canada spends 0.25 per cent of its gross domestic product on early education child care, which means for children under age 6. Denmark tops the list, spending two per cent of its GDP on early education child care.”

In Quebec – child care is guaranteed and costs $7 a day (note: it is so used there is now loooong wait lists for the service) … Even if you have to pay for all thirty days of the month (which you don’t) it would cost you $210/month. In west coast terms – $7 is about two tall lattes a day…

So (I can hear you wondering – honest I can!) – how much does child care cost in British Columbia?
On average – birth to 3 years of age – $1,000/month
On average – 3 to 5 years of age – $675/month (although this can remain at $1,000/month depending on where your child is). MATH TIME: That means that, if you are paying for 30 days a month at $1,000 – your child care costs you $33.33 a day… In Quebec terms – in 6.3 days you have paid what they pay a month…

– See CBC for the full report.

I have reviewed a great deal of the discussions (including the figures) and come to this conclusion:

Child care is something you merely survive. It has been crappy for a very long time. You are stuck in the “child care survival strategy” mode for about 9 to 10 years. As it is so consuming, you start experience battle-fatigue and wander away to survive the best you can. When you finally break free – you never want to look at it again — so you don’t continue the fight for the next generation.

This will not change until “both parents work so they need child care” families form a significant part of the PTB system and can – and will – do something.

“Just the FAQs ma’am”

Alright – so this weeks writing assignment was “the FAQs”. And that got me to wondering… what is a “FAQ”?

The loverly Wikipedia (fountain of knowledge that it is!) offered this up:
“The FAQ is an Internet textual tradition originating from a combination of mailing list-laziness plus speculation and a separate technical and political need within NASA in the early 1980s. The first FAQ developed over several pre-Web years starting from 1982 when storage was expensive. On the SPACE mailing list, the presumption was that new users would ftp archived past messages. In practice, this never happened. Instead, the dynamic on mailing lists was for users to speculate rather than use very basic original sources … Repeating the “right” answers becomes tedious. … The acronym FAQ was developed in 1983 by Eugene Miya of NASA for the SPACE mailing list. The format was then picked up on other mailing lists. Posting frequency changed to monthly, and finally weekly and daily across a variety of mailing lists and newsgroups.

Usability experts Jakob Nielsen and Steve Krug (in Don’t Make Me Think) have mentioned …  that too often these FAQs are written from an internal vantage point in place of putting true thought into the user’s perspective and what information typical users may want and need.”

—–

Ah ha! I thought so! Anytime I have ever tried to use a “FAQ” it was always “gobble-de-gook”. Or a quick out for a really bad web site…

And has anyone else noticed that the acronym is the word? FAQs vs facts??

… OMG! …
What if Eugene is actually the inventor of “txt speak”??? The godfather of SMS?? Should we revere or loathe him?

4col this tng is evrywhr! I jst want to esc! Maybe it’s a gnr8n tng…
u cn ask “hru?” and say “gb”. U cn even lol !
wtf?? … i gtg … tlk-2-u-l8r

The Mom Song – a video

It’s true! You Tube is the source of goodness!

Enjoy!

WHAT THE BLOG!?!?!

Confession: it appears I am not a natural blogger…
Sure – it started out all fun and glory. But when it comes to staying on topic – alas I am adrift…
Follow along if you will.
First up – what’s with all the menu choices?

My Account – My Dashboard – New Post – Press This – Blog Info

I am pretty technically suave and intuitive. So it came as a mild surprise to realize I have  noooo clue about a very large number of ‘blog things’ available to me. And I am not exploring them…
Even with ‘Dashboard’ – there is much ‘otherness’ to discover! Yet I don’t… I remain on the outside of this blogging world.

“WHAT THE BLOG IS GOING ON?”

I decided I needed to research this a bit – went back to the definition of a blog.

Well – it all starts right there – it’s a noun AND a verb!!  ‘Blog’ is the website and the act of maintaining or adding content.
… so finding the definition didn’t really help me …
I found some online articles re: “Introduction to Blogging”.
I learned this:
- content is the reason for a blog
- content must be regularly updated (or no one will visit it)
- a blog consists of “posts” (or entries)
- it is “the way” to promote an interactive website
“Wouldn’t it be nice if the readers of a website could leave comments, tips or impressions about the site or a specific article? With blogs, they can! Posting comments is one of the most exciting features of blogs.”
          (*note: I had no idea that blogs were so damn altruistic!*)

There are even “Things Bloggers Need To Know” which include things like ‘blogroll’, ‘trackbacks’ and ‘pingbacks’, ‘Post Slugs’ and ‘Excerpt’.

Blogging Tips:
1 – Post regularly
2 – Stick to a few specific genres
3 – Don’t add ‘subscribe’ and ‘vote’ everywhere
4 – Use a clean and simple theme (if possible)
5 – Enjoy. Blog for fun and comment on other peoples’ blog.

** many thanks to Wikipedia and WordPress for being the top google choices on the topic of blogging! **

And the moral of this particular tale? Well – it ain’t no Aesop’s fable… Could be that this cold has really beat me down… Could be because midterms are here… Could be I lack the ‘explore the blog world’ genetic coding… But I think I might just be old…

At this precise moment in time – I just want to express blatant indifference and blog off…

The PTB and me

O k a y …

So my blog a bit back – the one about copyright and all? Turns out the PTB (Powers That Be) obviously have REALLY good metadata searches! Who knew that my class project would attract mega-corporation attention! If feel so SPECIAL!

The video clip I made (an animated comment on childcare) fromthe movie “Ice Age II – The Meltdown” has been pulled and I got this notification from YouTube.

… I have been pulled from YouTube …

… oh the shame of it all …

 

YouTube | Broadcast Yourself:

Dear Member:
This is to notify you that we have removed or disabled access to the following material as a result of a third-party notification by Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation claiming that this material is infringing:

Ice Age II – Kiddie camp: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nN40GaasLAU

Please Note: Repeat incidents of copyright infringement will result in the deletion of your account and all videos uploaded to that account. In order to avoid future strikes against your account, please delete any videos to which you do not own the rights, and refrain from uploading additional videos that infringe on the copyrights of others. For more information about YouTube’s copyright policy, please read the Copyright Tips guide.

If you elect to send us a counter notice, please go to our Help Center to access the instructions.

Be aware that there may be adverse legal consequences in your country if you make a false or bad faith allegation of copyright infringement by using this process.Sincerely,
YouTube, Inc.