Carolyn introduced me to ravelry.com. This website has an advanced search engine for over ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND knit and crochet patters, and two thirds of those are free!
This is dangerous stuff.
Avoiding Meeting Madness
So many lessons from one event, and the first one learned by me about a thousand times so far,, and counting.
1. VERIFY the meeting time! Otherwise, a leisurely trip may turn into a big crisis, needlessly! It’s as easy as counting on the calendar, rather than my memory. Just do it!
2. Comm Ave at Kenmore Square is a great place to catch a cab
3. A cab ride is that saves the day is worth its weight in gold. Well…maybe not quite that much. But possibly the more than the number on the meter, and I can split the difference. Well… maybe not split it in half, but I can certainly afford to show my appreciation for having my day saved.
4. It feels really good, when going to a new place to meet with new people, to arrive early.
Freezer: Lesson 2
I don’t know why it has taken me years to figure this out, but I am always really cold at my beauty salon (or Beauty Saloon, as it is called. No kidding.)
I need to remember this and dress much more warmly.
Freezer: Lesson 1
From Gale:
I learned that when the temp is [very] cold, my garage fridge turns itself off and the food in the freezer defrosts.
Hover and Reveal
Doodle is awesome – and free! It lets you propose and find common times to meet. Michelle introduced me to Doodle years ago when she used it for scheduling meetings across multiple companies. Since then we’ve used it for picking social dates, looking for common times. Now our family is using Doodle for elder care scheduling, looking to book unique times.
I learned a way to get around a missing feature: For “doodles” that span long periods of time, you lose the participant name on the side. It lacks what Excel calls “freeze panes”, so the names scroll away.
Steve showed me this: although you can’t always see the original list of names, each name will be displayed if you hover the mouse over a booked block.
FICO for Free
I learned that my bank, Digital Credit Union (DCU), is providing free FICO scores every month, hidden in the Message Center that I never check.
Sally has taught me some things about FICO scores, including that Suze Orman heavily endorses these scores, often without disclosing that she works for the company that creates them.
But here they are for free.
Baked Oatmeal
I learned that you can bake oatmeal and it is delicious!
Lorna made this for us:
- 1 cup rolled oats
- 1 3/4 cups milk
- teaspoon vanilla
- raisins
Mix it up and pour into an oiled (or not) baking dish. Or maybe even mix it in that dish!
Bake at 350 for 20-30 minutes.
While it’s baking, toast some slivered or chopped almonds to use later.
After baking, top the oatmeal with sliced bananas and brown sugar and broil for a few minutes.
Serve with the almonds and other fruit.
YUM!
Adobe to PowerPoint in very few clicks
Hey! I learned how to pull an Adobe document into a Powerpoint slide! It’s so easy!
1. Open the .pdf file.
[on my version of Adobe reader, which is 9]
2. Tools > Select & Zoom > Snapshot Tool
3. Click the corners of the area you want . This automatically copies to the clipboard and says so!
4. Paste into PowerPoint.
SCORE!
Be Open
The lesson for this day is “Be Open”. Kat and I started the week with this intention and this day (3/10) taught the lesson: Be open to whatever comes your way. That’s the short version.
Here is the long version:
After a two days of sitting in San Francisco hotel conference center chaird and listening to technical presentations via PowerPoint, I knew I had to find a yoga class. The hotel concierge found and printed a listing of a studio nearby, with a class schedule. “Mellow Flow” sounded exactly right! I walked over and was waiting for the elevator with another yoga-looking person. Sure enough, she said she was going to yoga, so I followed her. I asked her if it was indeed “mellow” and she was non-committal, as was the woman who checked me in. They both asked me if I had done Kundalini yoga before – I had sampled it as part of another class, just once.
I seemed to have the times wrong so I had to make some quick arrangements for meeting a friend after class.
The space was beautiful – a high-ceilinged loft with low lights and LED tealights, which made me think of Sally. There was a green book in a basket – World’s Healthiest Foods – Gale’s bible. The teacher, with whom I had arrived, it turned out, looked like Lava’s friend Liz, and was named Michelle. I felt surrounded by connections.
The class was awesome! Kundalini yoga is all about breathwork and meditation. The postures were few, but just right. The music was great.
After class, the teacher served tea and date balls! Who ever heard of snacks at yoga class?
I told her that I enjoyed the class but that I was surprised that it was called “Mellow Flow”.
That’s when I found out that I had gone to the wrong place! Mellow Flow was on the floor below this class, in a complete separate yoga studio!
Who ever heard of two yoga studios in one building?
The wrong place at the wrong time turned out to be absolutely and exactly the right time and place for me.
Get on with it!
From Cindy:
“Yesterday is gone.
Tomorrow has not yet come.
We have only today
Let us begin.”
~Mother Teresa
Jane's Lessons Learned 