Day 12

Today is Susan's wedding.  I'm so happy for her, but I'm also wise enough to not create a scene on someone else's day.  

It just so happened that the "reverend" joined us for a drink in the lounge after the festivities, which presented itself an opportunity.

On Day 12 I had my Lemon Drop blessed by a holy man.  It must have worked, because I'm certain that it brought me closer to God.

Day 11

Today I tempted fate and jaywalked out in front of a cop car because I had a homeless man tell me that I should never jaywalk as I'll be busted with a $170 dollar ticket while we were standing together at a crosswalk.  I told him I've never seen anyone get busted for jaywalking and he said it was because I wasn't homeless because he and his friends get popped all of the time.

I did not get a ticket.  Thank goodness.  It's clearly because I appeared to be an upstanding citizen.

Day 10

So, I've mentioned how unoriginal my idea is right?  The guy that specifically inspired me to do this challenge is self-employed, working from home as a writer and he has no kids.  Which leads me to explain what my biggest difficulty with the ONTAD Project has been, just plain finding the time.  I have a 9-5, I have a second job, I have two kids, and I have a ridiculous commute.

I started this project in part to revitalize my day to day.  I was starting to feel like I did the same thing every day and just wasn't fitting new things in.  I think I'm starting to realize that I'm just at a point in my life when the day to day is what it's all about.  It's about working for a promotion and reading to my kids at night.  Maybe I shouldn't feel as bad as I do that my days all seem mostly the same, because my days are pretty awesome, so it seems like a silly thing to complain about; that my awesome days happen over and over.

Having said that, I've realized that I need to find more new things that can happen in the workplace.  I just run out of time to fit new things in.  Let's face it, there's only so much you can do on public transportation that won't result in getting kicked off, which leaves me my work day and my time at home with the kids (one of which is young enough that it's incredibly exhausting to take him places every night just to do something new).

On Day 10, I serenaded Heidi at the copy machine.  I think she felt the love, though I'm fairly certain she also wished she had earplugs.

Day 9

I have a few lunch time favorites.  I used to eat Thai every day, but I've been branching out.  On Day 9, I stopped by the cafe to grab a greek wrap but they had just one lonely sandwich in the case.

On Day 9 I ate a corned beef sandwich on rye.

I feel like I should have had one of these before at some point, but I've never had corned beef and I avoid rye bread at all costs.  I'm not sure why, exactly.  I mean, I don't remember EVER having rye bread, but it just doesn't smell right to me.  And part of this project is to step outside of my comfort zone.

All I will say is that it was everything I expected it to be.  I will not be having that ever again.

Day 8

What I've loves so far about The One New Thing Project is that sometimes people recommend things for me to do, and sometimes it happens on accident.

On Day 8, I got on the wrong bus accidentally and almost ended up in Estacada.  

Here's how it happened:  I've had a long couple of weeks.  I have a real estate transaction that's in constant limbo and had just gotten off the phone with my client.  My brain was friend.  I had an exhausting day at the office, then had a difficult conversation at the bus stop.  The 35 was coming to the stop, and the 99 Express, my bus, was right behind.  I put my phone in the bag and dug around for my bus pass, then got in line with the masses.

The truly extraordinary thing about getting on the wrong bus is that I didn't even notice for almost 30 minutes.  But the conversation about why and how people distract themselves on the bus is too long to have here.

The most humiliating part was knowing that I needed to interrupt someone and try to figure out exactly where the hell I was headed.

Me:  Excuse me sir, I'm embarrassed that I have to ask this, but what bus are we on?

Him: The 35.

Me: Oh, hrm.  And this bus goes to Estacada?

Him: Yes.

Me:  Oh my.  I'm supposed to be on the 99.

Him: Well, you better get off at the Town Center, or you'll be headed directly into Deliverance.

Me:  Indeed!  Thanks for the heads up.

And then everyone around me broke into conversation about Tri-Met adventures, and how they've all ended up on the wrong bus at some point.  I like to think that my mistake brought people together.

When Ty arrived at the Town Center to pick me up, he asked me if I subconsciously needed something at the mall.  I told him no, but then realized yes.  Yes, I DID need something.  Plus, we ran into Shawn, which is always nice. 

Day 7

On Day 1, I got all of my news from conservative news sources.  People have been very curious about that particular task because everyone wants to know what the other side says without actually subjecting themselves to their rhetoric.  I'm still often surprised at how hard it was for me to not snuggle into some Huffington Post, Blue Oregon or to start my morning with Thom Hartman.  I wondered if conservative news was better than no news at all.

On Day 7, I avoided news altogether.  On purpose.

I'm sure there have been days when I've not seen news, but generally I catch some a few times a day.  I found it astonishingly hard to avoid all news.  Some things just become habit, and usually when Ty and I finally both make it home at night we'll chat a bit about the day's happenings, and that was the hardest part.  Ty would start with "Did you hear.." and I'd have to stop him from saying whatever it was he was going to say.

At the end of the night, he just couldn't take it anymore and said "I hope this doesn't ruin your task for the day, but 10,000 more jobs were cut today."

I guess he's as much of a news junkie as I am.

Day 6

I often wonder what the greatest joy of parenting is.  For today I've decided that the greatest joy is all of the laughing.  It's not that my daughter is a mini-Seinfeld, it's just that she laughs whenever she feels like it.  How refreshing.

On Day 6, Brynn and I played HyperDash and laughed for a good hour straight.

HyperDash is an electronic contraption, which I'm always skeptical of.  Electronic toys make a lot of noise, and while I don't expect my home to be silent, I also don't want to be slowly driven to madness by the dings and whooshes of some overpriced, battery operated doohickey.

Did I just say doohickey?

Right.  So Hyperdash is a game where you hold onto one part and then you spread out 5 bases, each with a different number and color.  When you push the start button on the part you hold, it tells you which color to tag and you run around the house seeing who can do the sequence the fastest.  If you go onto the more advanced levels it has special commands (Tag the color before last - then you have to remember what you've done previously), or it has you do basic math (Tag 5 minus 3).

As our daughter gets older, one of our biggest challenges is that we don't really have a place for her to run.  We live in a small condo with no yard, and while she can run around the parking lot, it's just not the same for a kid, but little games like this make our house feel not so limiting.

We've played every day since and we still laugh.  I give HyperDash two thumbs up.