Day on a Page

Reality Sets In

A new me, a new us, and a better family unit --- this is going to be tough.  Don't get me wrong, I'm not naive, I didn't expect it to be easy. But after the last few days, I feel like I have committed to climbing Mount Everest before I have mastered ascending the neigbourhood toboggan hill. 

Here are a few of my  aha moments!

First, the financial diet...

I spent a few hours on  New Year's Day reviewing our finances and what an awaking that was. I uploaded our bank accounts to Mint.com and used the Trends feature to see where we spent our money for the last 3 months. After you remove Christmas spending,we still spent in the thousands on nothing (coffee, restaurants, wine) and the stuff we wanted but didn't need (books, iTunes, toys, electronics). Wow! As my husband said,"There are people who wouldn't spend a thousand all year on such unnecessary items."  The good thing of course, is that it identified an easy first place for us to start reining in our finances. As a result, my husband and I committed to no coffee purchased at Starbucks or Tim Hortons, no more alcohol, and the tough one, no more restaurants out. We  have also agreed to not purchase any more books, music, etc. --- anything desired but unnecessary --- until we have zero credit card debt. 

Second, the undisciplined reality...

I spent all of yesterday, and I mean ALL of yesterday, organizing one years worth of digital photos. (I still have many years to go.) It was an in-your-face screaming reminder of how undisciplined my husband and I really are. The files were an absolute mess. Backups of backups,  all with different files names, some with just the default names. I had no idea what the files were of. I spent the entire day (I started before anyone else was up) in my pajamas sorting, renaming, and storing photos. It was a nightmare! 

I have started this many times. I was a scrapbooker before we went digital (about 7 years ago) and I really wanted to spend some focused time this year on scrapbooking and documenting the many photos we have and the stories behind them. Our son is always asking me to tell him stories about when he was a baby, which I do. But I know he would absolutely LOVE to see all the pictures that go with each and every one of those stories. And sadly, I don't have any albums. And some of that goes to my lack of order around these photos.  But in 2011, I didn't just throw my hands in the air. I persevered and did what needed to be done. I went to bed feeling pretty proud of myself.

While I am very pleased with my progress in organizing this one small year of photos. It was a very big realization that we have undertaken a lot this year. There are many baby steps required.

Organizing Digital Photos

Here is what I did to organize my photos:

Step 1

I created a folder for every year.

[2000]
[2001]
[2002]
...
[2010]
[2011]

Step 2

Within each folder I created a folder for every month, and I added a number so it would sort in a monthly order.

[01-Jan]
[02-Feb]
[03-Mar]
...
[11-Nov]
[12-Dec]

Step 3

I renamed all the files so they made sense. Each file name now consists of date_description_photonumber

I used 8 digits for the date yyyymmdd

• Maximum of 50 characters for the description
• 5 numbers for the photo number. Each photo series started with 00001 and ended with the last number 00016 or 00278. I chose to use the 5 number series because I should be able to easily import with this format, and I could easily see the number order with this system. 
• The file name will never be large than 65 characters, which I understand means it can be used easily in all programs. I don't know for sure about that, but I'm sticking with that theory.
• Some examples:
  20081225_ChristmasDay_00001.jpg
  20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000214.jpg
  20080114_CrossCountrySkiing_00035.jpg

My folder structure looks like this:

[2008]
    [01-Jan]
        20080114_CrossCountrySkiing_00035.jpg
    [08-Aug]
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000214.jpg
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000215.jpg
        20080823_NorthRiver-Lighthouse_000216.jpg
    [12-Dec]
        20081225_ChristmasDay_00001.jpg
        20081225_ChristmasDay_00002.jpg

      

The first day

Well, here it is, January 1, 2011. The first day of the rest of my life...

This year my husband and I have made two large resolutions.  We`ve resolved to live a more healthy life style (excercise more, make better food choices, and no more wine) and to pay attention to our finances (save more, spend less, get out of debt, and invest wisely). Both of these large resolutions are really the sum of many little changes --- many of which won`t be new quests for us. We set out on the path to change, in some form, almost every year. (Don`t all of us want to improve ourselves in some way)  But this year, I want those changes to stick!  For those small changes to build a foundation for our future. I can`t control my husband (trust me, I`ve tried), but I hope that if I can find the inner discipline to make fundamental life changes, that it will help propel my husband to make them also, and together we`ll be successful.  One of my tools for success is this blog.

Public accountability is suppose to help you achieve your goals, so is writing them down, learning from others, and sharing your successes. All of which made me think of blogging as a way to keep me focused and on track.  So here I am, writing my first post, on the first day of the rest of my life. ... to firsts.  Cheers!