Someday Syndrome

Madge & Me in Paris

Yesterday Raul's best friend, who is a member of Madonna's fan club, bought tickets for her Hard Candy tour which hits Paris in in late September. I've never seen her in concert and if it weren't for Raul, I wouldn't spend the money (despite secretly longing to go).

On the plus side, the show is in Paris, which means spending a weekend there. And Jordi managed to get tickets in the first section right in front of the stage: the mosh pit.

The only drawback? The new album is definitely not one of my favourites. However, the woman always puts on a wicked spectacle and we'll be surrounded by screaming fans who'll for sure infect me with their enthusiasm even if I'm not into every song myself.

Someday Lessons:

• Some dreams need a catalyst to come true.
• Open yourself to the enthusiasm of others and enjoy life more.

Twenty Years of Alex

Yesterday I felt cranky and crampy, so the arrival in the mail of a disk containing a whole lot of photos from my dramatic youth perked me right up.

My oldest (she's only 40!) longest (she's kinda short actually) – the friend that I've had the longest (since I was six) scanned in all her photos from our wild rebellious youth and sent them to me. Since I'm still not totally up to snuff yet (but feeling much better thanks), I'll entertain you with a collage of photos from 15-20 and 24, 32 and 35.

Enjoy – feel free to point fingers and laugh!

Someday Lessons:

• Never take yourself too seriously.
• Don't look back at your past and say "I'm so embarrassed!" Instead say "What an experience!"

Click on the image to view it in a larger size.

A Cat in the Sun

I know I'm supposed to only use the bed for sleeping (and of course... no I won't say more - this is a family-friendly blog). Unfortunately, with my weird heartburn symptoms, I've pretty much lived in the bed for the past two weeks, which has played total havoc with my sleeping patterns.

I go to sleep not tired. I wake up in the middle of the night. I sometimes go sleep on our tiny sofa just for a change of scenery. And I always wake up stiff and exhausted.

Normally I refuse to nap during the day (to try to be more tired when I go to bed) but today I couldn't resist. The sun was shining for the first time in a while and there was some real heat in the air, so I took a towel and my MP3 player out to the terrace and napped in the sun for an hour.

I then went into work feeling rested plus I got a great start on my summer tan.

Someday Lessons:

• No cure is ever without its side effects.
• Sunshine makes me happy.

More About Alex

Every once in a while I get an email from someone with a list of questions with a request to answer them, then send the list out to everyone you know and copy the sender.

Most of the time I ignore them, but this last one (from my fourth-cousin once-removed) I'm posting here so that everyone can get to know me a little better.

Enjoy!

Someday Lessons:

• No one ever knows everything about someone.
• If you want to be truly happy, share your life and thoughts with others.

Day off

I didn't feel like writing anything today, so I won't.

See you all tomorrow!

It's Sharing Time

Since I'm already in the sharing mood (having shared with you my script writing), I thought I'd share some of my fiction writing.

My current WIP (that's Work In Progress) is a young adult novel where the main character chooses (for various reasons) to live alone on a tropical island. I've decided to actually trap him there. I used the following scene as a way to develop my descriptive skills.

Someday Lessons:

• Don't keep your creativity bottled up - share it with the world.
• When something is a work in progress, don't worry about the little mistakes. You'll have time to polish it later.

*****
By the time Mercaj got down to the beach, his little sailboat was deep in the water, tugging furiously to be free from its tether. Like all the trees on the island, the palm to which it was attached thrashed in the wind.

The winds were much stronger on the beach, however. Mercaj had more than just the deep soft sand under his feet to hinder his rescue of the boat. The wind picked up the sand and threw it at Mercaj with such force he was sure it was scrubbing off skin. Plus the wall of water the rain had turned into certainly didn't help.

As he approached the palm, he noticed that the tieline was sliding up and down the truck of the palm as the tree whipped around. Unripe coconuts littered the beach, unable to hold on under the onslaught.

Mercaj reached the rope after what felt like an eternity. He dug his heels into the sand, grasped the rope and ...

Too Much of a Good thing

What's up with multiple blog posts in a single day? Two of my favourite organizing sites: Unclutterer and the Apartment Therapy group of blogs have decided that as many as three, four or five posts in a single day is a good thing.

I know that they have lots of information and that the site is designed to create income for the blog owners. Therefore lots of visitors who can see lots of different topics would seem like a good thing. However, I'm on the edge of no longer visiting the sites. I feel that I just don't have the time to scroll through the very visually busy site to read the various pieces for the day.

When Unclutterer started, I loved the simple, snappy posts. Now the articles are quite long, which means more work finding the latest entries. The Apartment Therapy group of sites have become visually cluttered as well as informationally cluttered, making me wonder if I should offer them my own organizing services.

It's all too bad really. I had been enjoying them so...

Someday Lessons:

• More of a good thing often creates a bad thing.
• Improvements without thought aren't improvements.

Forced Organizing

There's nothing like having guests over to get one's space organized.

Today we have two friends from Madrid arriving. They are going to sleep in our bedroom and we're going to sleep at Raul's mother's house. This meant that we had to have the bedroom usable for others. Raul finally squeezed the rest of his clothes in our wardrobe (he went from a whole wall of storage space to sharing a four-door wardrobe and eight drawers).

The windows sparkle, the dresser and bedside table are clear of the usual bits of paper and other things that spontaneously appear in our pants pockets.

Now the challenge will be to keep it up!

Someday Lessons:

• Fixed deadlines are great motivators.
• It's not enough to organize – you have to maintain it.

Information Fraud

So, last week my cousin in France sent me a message saying that I had a registered letter from the Spanish government. I assumed it was a confirmation of my destruction of Fleur, so told her to open it and if it was anything important to let me know. She had someone locally translate it (because of course it was in Spanish) and told me it was a fine for speeding.

I got her husband to scan and email the documents and it turned out not to be my car. I asked Raul to look it over and not only wasn't it my car, but someone had declared that I was the driver of their car when the photo radar snapped the picture. Me driving a Citroen at 4:45 in the morning? The only way you'd catch me driving at that hour would be if I wanted to fall asleep at the wheel. That's way too late (or early) for me to be functioning.

This morning Raul and I went to the local traffic office where they told us that we had to write a letter to Province of Bizkaia because that's where the fine originated. We had to ask for a copy of the original fine to figure out who the hijo de puta who named me was and we had to declare that I had no idea who the owner of this Citroen was.

One of the office workers suggested that I pay the fine anyway and then wait for a refund, but fortunately her coworker told us not to, which was good because there was no frickin' way that I would have paid that fine.

So now I'm at a loss for how this unknown person got ahold of my French driver's license information. Here in Spain, the only people who have that information are the police (from my accident at the beginning of February) and the free WIFI service at the local mall (I had to show ID and they used my info on my DL for the account information).

I guess it's now up to the owner of the car to prove that he or she knows me and that I was driving that night.

The whole fine thing doesn't bother, but the whole invasion of privacy does bother me. How the frick did this person get my info?

Someday Lessons:

• Even when you are careful with your private information, it can be used by others.
• It pisses me off that the actions of others can so easily disrupt my life.

Blatant Self-Promotion Day

Since the beginning of February, I've been working on a writing project for fellow organizers Elaine Shannon and Kim Eagles. They are in the process of building a social networking website designed around organizing. It's for those who don't have time or the resources to hire a Professional Organizer but want to get more out of life.

The site will include videos, worksheets, teleclasses, product and book recommendations, and discussion forums. Elaine and Kim hired me to co-write the scripts for the videos as well as develop the worksheets and website content.

This is the first time in my life that I'm getting paid to write and I couldn't be happier. Every day when I wake up, I'm eager to get writing. This eagerness spills over into my fiction writing and I've become a total writing machine.

The site, called The Organizing Connection, goes live April 2nd, but in the meantime, take a look at the teaser video, and tell me – is this you?

Someday Lessons:

• If you aren't your biggest fan, how can you expect others to be?
• When you do what you love, life becomes incredibly sweet.

Breeding Familiarity

Yesterday I remembered that I live in a different country, speak a different language now, and have every intention of staying here a long time. I remembered that I'm living the life I want.

It made me quite giddy.

In the daily grind, it's easy to forget this joy. When I moved to San Sebastian, I worried about this blog. How was I going to keep it up when my life settled into normalcy, when life became routine?

But that's what most people live every day. Life isn't huge adventures, living out of a car or plunking yourself down in another country, another culture, without having to earn money. It's day to day details that dull joy and happiness.

So today, I want you to do something. I want you to appreciate your life. Even if you're not in a good place right now, find one thing that makes you happy and celebrate it. You don't need to shout it from the rooftops, but tell someone. Vocalize your happiness and make it real. Make it concrete.

Someday Lessons:

• Familiarity breeds not contempt but inattention. Stay aware of yourself.
• Familiarity also breeds comfort, often unhappy comfort. Don't let that be you.

Surround Yourself With Happy People

We are defined by our friends. If our friends complain all the time, or judge people, or are just generally negative people, chances are you are too. You might want to be more positive, to be less judgmental, but if that's all you hear from others, it's difficult to do anything else yourself.

It could be as simple as moving your desk at work away from the coworker who never has anything nice to say. Or you might have to divorce yourself from a friend or two.

Before you do, talk to them. Explain what you feel when you are together. Ask them if they understand and if they would like help being more positive. Unfortunately, many negative people will see this type of conversation as an attack, so the divorce may be inevitable.

It's difficult to do this with family members. A literal divorce might be necessary, or a careful distancing from a negative sibling or parent. Don't, however, withdraw from your kids. Children usually need a hug right when they're being their most negative.

Someday Lessons:

• What do your friendships say about you? Are they positive or negative?
• Monkey see, monkey do. What do look at every day?

Organizing a Small Home

In Toronto my house had 1000sq ft and quite often it felt small for one person. Now I live in 250sq ft with someone else and it's perfect. It's our Txikihome and with some creative organizing, it functions perfectly.

When setting up the place, we followed three simple rules:

1. Scale furniture to the space.
2. Make things multi-functional.
3. Use vertical space.

In the bedroom, we mounted shelves above the bed, use decorative boxes about the wardrobe and have under the bed storage as well (see after the jump).

In the living room, instead of buying a standard media centre, we bought two small pieces of an IKEA shelving system and mounted shelves above them. I own a laptop and Raul has a desktop. In the picture the desktop is missing but it will go to the left of the TV and we have a wireless keyboard and mouse so that Raul can use the computer from the sofa.

The most creative idea that Raul had was to buy two IKEA lamps that function as a movable wall, blocking the view of the sink from the sofa. When we need to make the living room larger, the lamps move into the kitchen. And when we have dinner guests, the wall moves into the living room.

Someday Lessons:

• Disorganization happens when you fail to plan.
• Small doesn't need to mean cramped.

Choosing Excellence

Yesterday I told you how an agent is willing to reread my novel once I've edited it. But I learned my lesson from yesterday well. If I can't provide excellence then I'll wait until I can.

You see, I've decided to put the novel aside for now and start on my next project. Once I have a bit of distance from my first novel, I'll go back and tighten everything up.

Yes, this might mean that I lose an opportunity with this agent, but if I rushed the edit now, I'd not achieve excellence and the book would be rejected for a third and final time.

Someday Lessons:

• Maintaining standards sometimes means losing opportunities.
• Perfection isn't the goal – excellence is.

There is no Secret

I'm an existentialist. Nothing happens for a reason. We don't deserve anything that happens to us.

There is only choice: of action, of reaction and of attitude. There is no fast track to success. There is only vision, ambition and work.

Instant success does not exist, and when it seems to, if you look deeper, you'll either see many years of effort and clarity of purpose or a great deal of money supporting the success.

Someday Lessons:

• The only secret to success if consistent effort, long term ambition and clear vision.
• Your attitude towards life determines your likeliness of success.

Long Day

Today is my long day. I left the house at 7am and am back at 11pm. I did have two hours free this morning and another hour now, but overall it's a pretty crazy day.

In other words, my brain isn't functioning beyond: I am, you are, he/she/it is...

And I'm sure you don't want an English lesson.

Someday Lessons:

• I don't like this working-for-a-living thing.

Integrating into the World

Today's post was going to be about work. I was going to talk about my job, the company and the things that Organizer-Alex would change. Then I remembered that people regularly get fired for blogging about their workplace. Having just got the job, I have no interest losing it. So, I canned the idea.

In the year and a bit that I've been blogging, I've never had to think about self-censorship. Of course I have self-censored (there are some things the word just does not need to know about) but an external need to self-censor has never manifested.

I can't, however, let it affect the style of the blog. Please let me know if it does.

Someday Lessons:

• External requirements will sometimes change how you do things. Don't let them change you too much.
• Never say anything electronically (email, web) that you wouldn't want on the evening news.

You Can't Please Everyone

On an agent's recommendation, I sent my novel to an online writers' circle. Based on the first twenty-odd pages of the novel, I received feedback from one person telling me that it was one of the worst pieces of writing he'd ever read and wished he had the skills to help me correct the mess I'd made of the novel.

This type of feedback could crush me. Or I could dismiss it as coming from someone without any communication skills. Or I could argue with the guy, hoping to convince him that what I've written is good.

I chose none of those responses. I thanked him for his comments and asked as a part of my market research for his age.

Obviously not every novel appeals to every person. Many books that I think of as complete and utter crap are bestsellers, are considered works of literary genius, or both.

Still, being the sensitive artist that I am, this guy's words did sting. I want everyone to enjoy my writing!

Someday Lessons:

• You can't please everyone, so don't try.
• A person's negative reaction to something you do often has little to do with you.

P.S. I have received great feedback of the positive variety as well...

I Don't Deserve Anything

Last year I said that nothing happens for a reason. I don't believe that the Universe guides me or throws obstacles and rewards my way. I don't believe that any religious figure is helping me.

Life simply happens.

This belief is difficult to maintain when very bad or very good things happen. Take this week for example. Within five days of finishing my Spanish course, Raul and I have found an apartment, and I've found a job (yes, yesterday's work has been confirmed as a job – part time for now, building in the new year to full time).

If I believed that things happen for a reason, then I'd say that I deserve this, that my coming to Spain for love was the right decision because everything else is falling into place.

But I don't deserve any of it. There is no value judgment in what has happened. It simply is.

Of course, if I hadn't been open to the possibility of love, I wouldn't be in Spain. If I weren't the sort of person who was outgoing and talked to everyone, I wouldn't have found out about the apartment. And if I hadn't worked hard at securing the interview and impressing the boss, I wouldn't have found work.

The Universe didn't do anything. I did it, with the help of a lot of people around me.

Someday Lessons:

• No one deserves anything, good or bad.
• If you aren't open to new opportunities, then you'll never get what you want.

Discovering Patience

A friend asked me what I want. Not tomorrow, not next week, not next year. Today. What do I want at this moment?

I considered telling her that I want an apartment but that's not true. I don't want it right now. I have a place. I want the apartment in January. I then thought of telling her that I want to get published, but that's also a lie. I want to work on getting published, which I am doing right now. So I'm fulfilling that desire.

I want to be loved and to love, which I get with Raul, friends, and family. I want a job, and I will get one, but not today. I want to learn Spanish, to enjoy food, to explore Spain, to strive towards happiness, all of which I'm currently doing.

In other words all my current desires have been fulfilled. I want other things, but they are future wants.

Patience is recognizing the difference between current and future desires and setting aside the future desires until you are able to fulfill them.

Impatience is living in the future, desiring things now that will come later.

No wonder I've never had much patience. I've always lived in the future.

Someday Lessons:

• Separate current and future desires and you'll find you have succeeded in a lot more ways than you think you have.
• Many complicated issues in our lives have simple answers, if we find the right way to ask the question.

What I'll Do For Love...

I´m going to the Spice Girls concert in Madrid!

Those who don´t know me might be thinking “woo-hoo!” while those who do know me are certainly thinking “what the...?”

You see, Raul and I are going to be in Madrid just before Xmas, the weekend the Fab Five are going to be playing one of their few world tour gigs. Now, I'm not a big fan, but Raul adores them. So we bought tickets. The concert will be amusing, but won't be worth the 50 euros I spent.

But I'm going, looking forward to it even.

There is no way I'm going to miss watching Raul enjoy himself, seeing one of his favourite English bands, sharing with him one of the highlights of the year. For that I'd pay 200 euros.

Someday Lessons:

• Happiness is sneaky. You might find it lurking under something quite unappealing.