July 11th
There’s a very useful article in today’s New York Times about how to put dinner on the table every night of the week without going out of your mind. The secret: not pasta, but planning ahead. (”Don’t wince,” pleads the author.) Figure out what’s on the menu, buy all the ingredients, and prepare them just enough so that all you have to do at night is toss everything together and throw it into the oven.
Takes more strategizing than I’m used to, but I just might give it a try…
July 11th
I found this quote while surfing the web looking for customer comments:
“Anyways, the bookstore is pushing all sorts of planners. I picked up the moleskine weekly planner and then was intrigued by the Quo Vadis. It is just perfect for me in terms of organization, though I am not too crazy about the size - its a bit bigger than the moleskine, but it has the week in vertical by hour, places for notes and just like the moleskine, a pull out address book. Interesting colors for covers too. I may let it sit on my desk for awhile and then decide. I may also just look when I’m in Paris in a few weeks.
Getting organized takes work and planning and learning what works for you is key. Pick up your planner and look at it, does it feel right? Will it fit in your bag? Do you need it to block out projects? Do you just need it to do simple tasks? Can you live with a soft covered planner or would you take it more seriously if it was hardback? Can you doodle in it?
So many questions, so many options!”
July 9th
I went to a friend’s wedding this past weekend—held outdoors on a beautiful lawn overlooking the Westport harbor—and instead of lugging around the big purse I usually carry in New York (which invariably has to contain a book for subway reading, a notebook for jotting down random thoughts, wallet, keys, cell phone, etc.), I brought along a little leather Mignon photo envelope that Karen so thoughtfully got me recently. It was simple, stylish, and just big enough to hold all the essentials… a perfect fit!
Mignon leather, incidentally, is handmade by an old Italian tannery and then stitched together and finished in France. It’s got fine, jagged creases throughout—just part of the natural tanning process—that give it a gently worn suppleness, and it also (at least in my opinion) smells great, smoky and warm and delicious.
July 5th
There was a funny little piece in the New York Times a couple days ago about how email has come full circle: when the new technology came out, we were surprised and excited by it; we then quickly integrated it into our lives; we began to grow disillusioned by the preponderance of spam and other nuisances; and finally, in desperation, we began to wonder whether or not the telephone might not have been easier after all.
It reminded me of another article I read a couple months ago about email addiction. The constant interruption of checking your email every minute can, of course, impede your productivity, and according to time management experts, very few of us actually need to check email as often as we do. “It’s commonly believed and understood that it takes about 4 minutes to recover from any interruption. If the computer dings at you and you look 30 times, that’s 120 minutes of recovery time,” explains life coach Marsha Egan.
Which is all well and good and logical. But it’s one thing to recognize the facts; quite another to commit to checking your email every hour and a half—and emptying your inbox every time…
July 5th
Count-up and countdown clocks are dramatic, but according to a recent article in the Wall Street Journal offer only estimates, not precise numbers.
The first count-up clock I ever encountered is the electronic National Debt Clock, located high on the side of a building in mid-town Manhattan. Launched by real estate developer Seymour Durst in 1989, its numbers began rolling backward with the Clinton administration in 2000. Two years later the debt turned upward and the clock restarted. It is now at $8.89 trillion.
The forerunner of them all–Doomsday Clock–first appeared on the cover of the Bulletin of Atomic Scientists in 1947. Designed by Martyl Langsdorf, an artist and wife of atomic scientist Alex Langsdorf, the Doomsday Clock symbolized the urgency and fears of scientists. The publisher of the Bulletin, Kennette Benedict, said the clock had no pretense of precision. He said Martyl Langsdorf “put it at seven minutes to midnight because that’s where it would look best in the design sense.”
Atomic tests by the U.S. and Russia in 1953 pushed them to move the clock to two minutes to midnight. Since then, the minute hand has yo-yoed. It’s now at 11:55 PM.
Other famous countdown clocks include the U.S. Census Bureau’s Population Clock and the UN’s AIDS Clock.
If you are curious about how much time you have left, go visit The Death Clock, “the Internet’s friendly reminder that life is slipping away…”
July 2nd
I’ll be spending the week in Westport, Massachusetts, a lovely old fishing village at the Western edge of Buzzard’s Bay. This year, the town is welcoming back a former community fixture to their annual Fourth of July parade: an old, historic rescue boat that once patrolled the waters around Cuttyhunk Island, several miles to the south. Before the U.S. Coast Guard assumed responsibility for protecting American waters, many coastal townships (especially those who depended on the sea for their livelihoods) had designated lifeboats which were staffed by volunteers and which cruised around the sea in search of any boats that fell into distress.
Up until now, the boat was at a museum in Mystic Seaport, Massachusetts. I don’t have a picture of it yet, but I look forward to seeing it on Wednesday!
