People say that time management is a life skill. This is inaccurate, because managing time requires a sense of how time progresses in order to manage it in the first place. If someone has no awareness of time moving and unfolding, then framing time management as a skill to be mastered makes no sense. For most of my life, I was inept at managing my time regardless of my attempts. To improve, I pored over self-help books and “productivity” systems from Dayrunner to Stephen Covey’s four-quadrant system.  None helped.  The theories and philosophies were inspiring, but failed in practice. I simply lacked a basic awareness ofRead More →

Students stumped me this week over my information literacy quest about how to peel a hard-boiled egg, which is now a homework activity for public speaking. First, a bit about the activity: The homework requires the students to follow a list of the sources and determine the best way to peel an egg. The point of the assignment is to evaluate the credibility of internet cites and learn that (1) the first Google hits aren’t necessarily valid, and (2) credibility isn’t necessarily obvious at first blush. A colleague who is a librarian mentioned once that people rarely look past the first page of search engineRead More →

No one knows the right way to peel a hard-boild egg. Ages ago I had a dispute with a friend over this issue. She swore by her mother’s wisdom that the freshest eggs were the easiest to peel. I swore by my grandmother’s wisdom that cold water does the trick. The debate was heated and emotional, probably due to our investment in our maternal relatives’ kitchen knowledge. Food and family, as we know, is a potent combination. So, this morning my hard boiled eggs came out sort of eh, reminding me of the disagreement with my friend. Time to turn to the eggsperts (lame pun).Read More →

Confused about the difference between news feed and live feed on Facebook? Me too. The whole new, new Facebook annoyed and confused me until I finally Googled it to see wtf was going on. Once I did, it was worse than I thought The biggest change on Facebook are the Live and News Feeds. Everyone figured out how to drag the status feed to the top of the links menu on the left. That was supposed to restore the old Facebook, but it didn’t because the feeds are now split into the various status, links, pages, etc., plus the new Live and News Feeds. Confusing?!Read More →

To revamp this site, I read a lot about blogging, and learned there are now rules about how to do it. Apparently, I violate many blogging conventions. These rules are funny considering I didn’t even know what a blog was when I started. It just seemed like something enjoyable to do. Of course, as a rhetorician, I know the most important rule is audience-centeredness, but I just defined my audience as myself, the occasional friend or student, and perhaps whoever else stumbled onto my site. The internet was generally empty at the time, and I decided early on that my blog would avoid a heavyRead More →

Cleaning I’m making good progress on my 40 days/40 steps program for cleaning up my office. For a while, I was on a roll, and so I extended the program to include my bedroom and the rest of the house. In actuality, then, it is more than 40 days and 40 steps. But that’s what I’m calling it and I’m sticking to it! Today, I cleaned out several drawers (which allows me to cross off several steps on the list). I found five pairs of Christmas socks, which I couldn’t wear over Christmas since they disappeared. I was excited. This might sound mundane, but itRead More →

My new computer is up and running. It took a bit of effort to prepare for the migration and then to get the new computer set up the way I want it. I’m not very good with change, apparently. I seem to want everything like it was on my old computer, only faster and better. I learned some new things, so I thought I’d share my travails. I got some great tips from Angelo PC. There are several ways you can migrate. You can use a program like PC Mover, or do what’s called an image and copy everything from one hard drive to another.Read More →

On June 28, my husband and I bought our first home. Yes, we are a little late in the game, but we don’t want to grow up. Buying a first house was a stressful and time-consuming experience, just as everyone warned. I didn’t believe them. Then we were in the thick of it. Then we learned. Folks told us we would collect a number of stories about house-buying. They were right about that as well.

For instance, the alarm company ripped us off while