finite speck

Do ever think if I just do this thing every day for a certain amount of time the result would be something? I have. In fact, I know I've written past posts about it. I've said this about exercising. I've also said it about writing. The truth is it's hard to show up every day to work on a task that doesn't have a result that's noticeable right away, but those are the ones worth working on every day. The easier thing to do is work on a task that has a noticeable result right away. Like mowing the yard or cooking a meal or scrolling social media or watching a show. I was just thinking about this blog that I've been more lax in writing on over the last few months. If I wrote every day (which I used to do for the last couple of years) for the rest of this year I will almost be at 1,000 posts! That's a big milestone. But it's a daily slog. It's a daily deciding ok I'll write some thoughts down this morning.

My kids are at the age where I wish I would write down all the things that happen because it's funny. That's why I'm thankful I try to write something here most days still. Yesterday I had my older two kids help me clean our van and they did an awesome job. In fact, they worked so hard that I told my wife we needed to reward them. So we went and let them pick out popsicles at the grocery store last night. They couldn't believe how many options there were and it took them a while to figure out for sure what they wanted. My daughter kept saying, "I can't believe how many options there are." When you think about it, it is crazy that there were probably 4 or more freezers full of different kinds of popsicle and ice cream box treats! That's a lot for a couple little kids to look at and decide on.

Yesterday I got a call from a co-worker. At first, I thought she probably just needed help with a dealer that had a request since she was off yesterday. But quickly found out that she had run out of gas and needed a ride back to her car. So what do you do when someone needs help? Drop everything and go! It was only a few minutes from our place (which is why she called me), but I grabbed our kids, hopped in the car, picked her up with her gas can and we got her back to her car.  It was great to be able to help someone out in a small way like that yesterday. I kept thinking what if I was in that situation? I know I would appreciate any help I could get.  Help someone out today. Be ready to go.

What do you do when you're challenged and the challenge is truly subjective? I'm in the creative field and I feel like anything on the art side is a little bit that way. I know there are parts of it that are proven. Some ways of laying out a design are just better, more aesthetically pleasing to the eye. More professional looking. But, there are other parts that are truly subjective and that's where I struggle. How hard do you fight for design choices and why choose to engage in defending the work? I guess it is even really being challenged or defending or is it more just getting the work to a better place? I've been working solo for quite a while as a designer that it's been tough as my team has grown to now have others that have opinions pushing me in my work. I know the works ends up better in the end, but it also feels like I'm getting ganged up on, and then the work is less my own and more collaborative, but I guess why is that bad too? Why does it have to

I've been working from home for over a year now. I would have never thought that would be a reality. Maybe if I was a freelancer, but not working for a large company. Covid changed all of that. It forced almost everyone to work from home at least for a short time... or just not work. I'm still unsure as to if our department will ever totally get back to a full-time schedule in the office or not. I'm guessing it may be a while if it ever happens, but I could be wrong. Finally, after about a year I've put together a decent workspace. There's the occasional interruption at home, but there's always those at the office as well. The interruptions are just different.  I think in general our team may actually be more productive and enjoying work more in the way we're working today than all working a regular schedule at the office.

Have you ever made a video for work and needed a teleprompter type of setup? I've made a few and every time I've done something different. I used to record them using a product called Soapbox which works well for recording from your desktop. Then I tried Loom which I like a lot and I'll probably continue to use it some. But I think my favorite is actually a phone app called Video Teleprompter. It's everything right on your phone. You load your script into the app, choose the speed of the text, and hit record. While you're being recorded your script comes up on the side of the screen where the camera is and it scrolls making it not obvious that you're reading from a teleprompter. In my opinion, it works really well and I'll probably continue to use it for my video needs.

Do you get to be a helper? Do you want to be a helper? When someone asks you for help are you annoyed because you have more important things to do or are you happy to help? Do you tend to wish people were smarter and could just figure it out? This is the time of year when we have our big marketing summer program and typically there are frustrated calls from dealers around using our system for one reason or another. Things like not being able to find their logo or not knowing how to upload a customer list or just not knowing how to get into our system. And I believe it's gotten less, but it's always an opportunity to help them. I can wish that it wasn't the case and I do, but I have to remember it's my time to interact with our dealers and make sure they have a good experience or the best I can provide them. Same with my kids. When they say anything around needing help am I annoyed or do serve gladly? Many times I just want to fix the problem quickly and sometimes I say

I just need to start and keep going. That's the hardest part of any creative exercise for me. To just get that ball rolling. I'm wanting to build a new website and the hard work has really been done now as far as getting the website address, the software, and now it's just bringing it to life. I have plenty of video and photography and I'm able to create the words that need to be there, so now it's just sitting down deciding on a look and feel, and rolling it out. If I pace myself I feel like it would be very feasible to have this website launched by the beginning of July. What are some of my biggest hesitancies? Taking the website from one vacation to two properties. How do we show two properties on the home page or more someday? What are the right pages to have on the website? Do we have a separate reviews page? Do we need a photo gallery? I'm leaning towards putting everything for each property on its own page. I want to have a contact page, a blog, and a boo

The masks seem to be coming off. Not everywhere, but a lot of places. The latest I've heard is that if you've had the vaccine you don't have to wear a mask and if you haven't you're encouraged to wear a mask. People are shaking hands and smiling at each other. Only time will tell what things look like in this next year. We were just in a small town parade this past weekend and it was great to see so many people together. It really does feel like we're getting closer to the way things were pre-covid.

We just had my grandparents and parents over for dinner last night. I'm thankful for my wife who is such a good host. From thinking about others to invite them over to not making a huge deal about how picked up the house needs to be in order to have others visit. She makes it easy to have others over. I want this to be something that is always part of what our family does. Whether it's planned ahead or it's last minute.  I know my grandma especially loves the opportunity to get together with us for a meal. I believe she's 91 and I think some days are a real struggle for her as she becomes more and more dependent on others. My grandpa has dementia and I know that's tough for my grandma as he says a lot of the same things over and over again and he can't remember anything that happened recently at all.

One of my cousin's kids started a running club for the neighborhood kids years ago and he's still doing it even though he's in high school now. So our oldest who is six started running with the group yesterday. The younger kids go for a run around the block while the older kids do a longer run. They get shirts for being in the club too. I didn't go out and watch, but it sounds like there's a lot of parents there too. Just a neat way to be involved in the community and get to know people. I'm thankful that they started this years ago and that my kids can be a part of it.

Over this past weekend, our house turned from blue to totally white. I still have one small area to finish up, but it's another project in the books on our house. I probably have spent at least 30 hours painting it so far. And this morning I can tell that I wasn't sitting around this past weekend because my body is sore! It looks so good though. A fresh coat of paint really changes things up. I don't want to do it again anytime soon, but it sure feels good to look back at the project once it's done and say we did it. I think the toughest job was probably my wife keeping our kids busy over the weekend while I did a majority of the painting. My wife also did a ton of weed pulling with the kids over the weekend and our yard is looking good too! And the weather was really perfect all weekend for working outside.