Category: everyday life
The Weather
It’s not only that the temperature jumps up and down, not only that we have snowfalls and thunderstorms within a couple of hours, but it’s also something in the atmosphere that affects people’s minds and moods.
I felt completely dysfunctional both on Monday and today. Well, today I was mostly tired for no good reason (I mean, there was no more reason to be tired today than on any other day of the week), but Monday felt really bad.
There was an accident on the Red line, and the trains were rerouted, and I only realized it after I stayed on the platform at Lake for more than ten minutes. I knew I had to visit my mom as well and be back for a yoga class, so, without any ETA for this transportation crisis, I called Uber during rush hour, which I never do!
My mom was also quite emotionally disturbed for no good reason, which made me think it was something “in the air,” but nevertheless, I did not feel like my usual self, and was tired like a normal person 😀.
Also, I felt like I was getting a cold, which I didn’t get after all (maybe, just “so far”). It was exceptionally cold on Tuesday, and it was supposed to get better today, so then I got out of the house this morning and saw it was snowing again, I was ready to cry. It’s started to warm up by the afternoon, but now I do not trust this weather 🙂
Orchids
I know, I know.. I promised I would never have more than three orchids, and I already have four :). My excuses are that the new one is mini (on the left), and that the oldest one (on the back) is not in great shape. When Lena visited, she helped me nurture this one, cut the burned leaves and unhealthy roots, and I just replanted it in a more comfortable pot. Still, Lena thinks it won’t bloom this season, and if it doesn’t bloom next year, I will probably say goodbye to it.
Until that – let it be three and a half!
Bureaucracy
That’s the mildest term for how things went with registering our NFP with the Office of the Illinois Attorney General. When I started this journey in October 2024, everyone who was ever close to the NFP business would tell me that getting the tax-exempt status with the IRS was the most difficult and time-consuming task.
Indeed, registering an NFP took two days and was all online; setting up our EIN took only days and was all online as well. The trademark business took a couple of weeks, but only because we ran into some inconsistencies on the trademark holder’s website, and it took time to resolve it. Our greatest surprise, the tax-exempt letter arrived only fice weeks after we applied! Nobody could believe it, and I counted our blessings.
The last step was registering with the Illinois AG office, and that was the first thing we had to do on paper. We checked the list of documents we had to submit, both Anna and I signed them, I printed them and sent the package by Priority Mail.
A week later, I saw our registration fee check cashed, and I thought that we will recieve the confirmation letter soon. However, when the letter arrived, it was not the confirmation of the registration, but the list of things we did wrong!
We submitted the corrected package, and after that, somehting weird started to happen. People were not returning our calls, the documents we mailed were never received even though the tracking showed it ws delivered. It took many hours to reach anyone, and at some point, we were told that we abandoned the registration, because we never mailed missing information, and we had to start all over.
At that point of our odyssey, I started walking to the AG office and leaving the papers there, making sure they are all stampted as received. This didn’t stop the stream of the lost items. Also, by that time, the AG office finally introduced the online application submission system, but since we started on paper, we had to continue on paper, and it took even longer. Finally, when we received a new list of missing items, Anna and I got together online and wrote an email to our State Representative Constituent service, who saved us!
It still took several weeks! However, each time “something was missing” we took a note regarding how long it would take if our State Rep office won’t interfere. I believe, they saved us anothe six months!
My biggest regret is that I didn’t know we didn’t have to wait for this registration to apply for the Illinois Tax Exempt status! We could already have it, and now it’s another six months wait! At least, I could apply online!
And the moral of the story – Long live Constituent Service!
Conferences
The weather is miserable, which is good at the time when I am spending yet another weekend on conference-related work.
The first one is my presentation at PG Day Nordic, which I absolutely had to finalize this weekend, and I just did. When I submitted this proposal, I thought that this would be just the second half of the “long queries” part of my Prague tutorial. However, I realized that it won’t fly immediately after I set down for my first “cut and paste” session.
Then I had been nervous and procrastinating for a very long time, because each time I would start to modify this presentation, I felt it was falling apart, and had too many slides, and at the same time looked like “something from the middle of a tutorial”, not a complete presentation. I changed the idea of what and how I want to talk about several times. Finally, two days ago, I realized I wanted to make this presentation completely different from what I originally had in mind, which meant a significant rewrite.
Since I had several other bullet points approaching deadlines, I had a number of good excuses to keep pushing this rewrite to an uncertain future date, except that I couldn’t, and I finally finished it, and really happy with how it looks now! I don’t even want to think about how many hours it took.
And the second one is a never-ending list of things for PG DATA. I am genuinely puzzled because several volunteers are busy doing a lot, for which I am very thankful, but at the same time, I am busy with conference-related projects all the time, and there is no way to ignore them. A never-ending chain of email – check – submit – respond.
I know, nobody forced me! 😂
A New Laundry Basket
Can I post something “ordinary” once in a while? Back in January, when I was in Helsinki, Boris and I went to IKEA. Since the Schamburg IKEA is non-reachable by public transportation, we often check what’s new in Helsinki (yes, sometimes you need this “look and feel”), and then I take a picture of the label and check the availability in Schamburg, and then order online 🙂
What I love about this laundry basket is that it is tall, looks tidy, and occupies very little floor space. Before I got this basket, I had a laundry bag hanging on the closet door and a regular laundry basket on the closet floor. Both of them had less capacity than this basket, and also, I didn’t necessarily want to see my dirty laundry each time I open the closet :). I tried to squish as much as possible in the bag, and when it was time to bring the laundry to the washing machine, I would move everything to the basket and carry it. Lots of unnecessary moves, and lots of space taken. Now I am looking at this perfectly designed basket and thinking: why didn’t I get it five years ago?!
A Busy Monday
Monday ended up being another overloaded day. There was a lot to do at work (no missed workday goes unpunished!), and I also needed to visit our prospective conference site (planned for 2027). I loved it when I visited for the first time, and now that another Organizational committee member was in town, I wanted to show it to him.
He also loved it and shared my excitement, so I think we made up our minds for the next season, although we still need to make sure this year’s conference is a success 🙂
Later on Monday, I went to pick up the first batch of conference t-shirts. I’ve under-estimated how far the place was from the Roosevelt Red Line, so it took me way longer than I planned (and I still needed to see my mom afterwards).
Still, I am so happy that I could feel and touch them!
The best thing happened when I finally got home: a letter from the Illinois AG office informed me that our organization it finally officially registered and can solicit donations in the State of Illinois!
Educational Track at SCaLE: Listening to John “maddog” Hall Talk
The Day Iceland Stood Still
There was a free screening for the Gene Siskel Center members of this incredible movie, The Day Iceland Stood Still. I was in yet another work emergency, and would opt to skip if I didn’t have prior plans to go with a friend.
This documentary is so timely in many ways! It is yet another proof that everyone has to fight for their right, and that a good fight pays off :). Looking at Iceland nowadays, youwould never imagine that it was lagging in women’s rights until fairly recently! And what beautiful people all these women are! It was such a delight to listen to them share the memories of this day fifty years ago!
A documentary about women, made by women, and a message to all of us!
About “Change Anything” Book
I read this book right after I read the “Stolen Focus. ” I would never pick it up on my own because I believe I am capable of making any changes in my life I want, but it was highly recommended by one of my peers, and after reading other people praising this book on his blog, I thought that it might be useful to read as something I could recommend to others. In fact, I know that my abilities of “change anything” is completely non-transferable, and I was hoping to find some working strategies.
On the surface, this book should work, though I didn’t start recommending it. The book starts with describing the “willpower trap.” Citing the famous marshmallow study, the authors say:
Unfortunately, to this day most people draw the wrong conclusion from this study. They fall into what might best be called “the willpower trap.” They assume that the only reason (among many possible reasons) certain kids were better at delaying gratification than others was that nature had endowed them with more willpower.
Patterson, Kerry; Grenny, Joseph; Maxfield, David; McMillan, Ron; Switzler, Al. Change Anything: The New Science of Personal Success (p. 15). (Function). Kindle Edition.
However, their research lab proved that, in reality, these kids had skills, and when they taught other kids these skills, the level of success was significantly higher. Changing your personal behavior and learning specific skills are important, but only a small part. Equally, if not more important, are the changes to your social circle (hanging out with a different crowd) and changes to your physical environment.
I think I will soon have a chance to speak with a person who succeeded using these strategies, and I am very interested in hearing a real-life story.
The authors then detail six sources of influence which are standing on the way of people trying to make changes in their lives, such as breaking away from bad habits. These sources of influence are:
- personal motivation
- personal ability.
- social motivation
- social ability
- structural motivation
- structural ability
Each of them can work against you or with you, helping you achieve your goals. In the rest of the book, the authors detail the changes a person can make in each of these six directions and the specific skills that can be developed. Not only do they describe some success stories, but they also lay out the paths each person had to take and the specific changes people adopted in each case to reach their goals.
