My mother has been out of the hospital for two weeks now. She’s home and recovering well. The past two Sundays, Kris and I have driven down to see her, and the three of us have spent part of the afternoon sorting through mom’s Stuff. “Do you still want this?” I asked mom again and …
Kris and I drove down to clean Mom’s house last night. Over the past decade, her place has gradually been overtaken by Stuff and clutter. Since Mom is still in the hospital, we figured this was a great time to tackle some of the mess. After three hours of cleaning clutter and sorting Stuff, there’s …
One of my favorite personal finance bloggers is Philip Brewer at Wise Bread. He writes long, thoughtful articles about the philosophy of money, not just on tips and tricks to save at the grocery store. Brewer recently posted a piece called “What I’ve Been Trying to Say” that summarizes his philosophy. Explaining why he believes …
Strange. I haven’t written anything since last Wednesday or Thursday. Now that it’s time to get some stuff ready for the morning, I find that I don’t have it in me. My writing muscles won’t flex. They’ve atrophied. It’s great to take time off, but I find that this is sometimes the result — I …
I’ve had a week now to adjust to the idea that I’m a full-time blogger, that I’m completely in control of my financial success or failure. To be honest, I’m both excited and scared. I had the same job for sixteen years. I’ve never made a career change. I’m sure that many of you have …
From Study Hacks comes The Einstein Principle: Accomplish More by Doing Less. Einstein’s push for general relativity highlights an important reality about accomplishment. We are most productive when we focus on a very small number of projects on which we can devote a large amount of attention. Achievements worth achieving require hard work. There is …
After reading Penelope Trunk’s recent post about eating disorders, I ordered the book Breaking Free from Emotional Eating by Geneen Roth. I figured it was cheaper than paying Lauren for another batch of wellness coaching sessions. I’m willing to give it a shot. The first chapter of the book is fairly straight-forward: “only eat when …
One of the benefits of having a popular weblog (not this one, obviously) is that your readers send you lots of interesting reading material. Here are a couple of blog posts that are actually closely related to each other: First up, at Brazen Careerist, Penelope writes about four weight-loss tips from her month in the …
As I was driving home from work yesterday, I passed a police officer. When his car pulled onto the road behind me, I thought nothing of it: my vehicle is in good repair and I was obeying the traffic laws. In fact, when the police officer activated his flashing lights, I pulled to the side …