Craigslist

Most of you probably know about Craigslist, which I find better than eBay b/c I hate dealing with shipping.  So far, I’ve unloaded a poker table, an exercise machine, an old patio furniture for about $250.  Now, the question is, should I keep doing this before the garage sale, or do I risk having nothing to sell?  For me, it’s instant and easy money with Craigslist, where I cannot tell if something will sell at the garage sale.

Uncluttering

My wife and I are having a huge garage sale in June, so I decided to move the uncluttering month to May to prepare for our massive sale.

I’d like to point out a website: http://unclutterer.com/, which gives great advice to getting clutter under control.  For example, I read about Powell’s that allows you to  send them your old books for free via the post office and then get credit from them for other used books.

Warnings

It dawned on me the other day, with everything I’m doing for my wife, that i could only do this for my wife, not Kim if she were just my girlfriend or someone I wanted as a girlfriend.

I doubt anyone is reading this for ideas, but just in case, if you are taking notes, doing these things daily to a girlfriend only makes you a stalker.  My wife can handle me, but someone who doesn’t really know you cannot.

Lately: I showed her the website I made for her, only her (where I really started feeling like a stalker) and drew a bath for her when she wasn’t expecting it.

A Different Gift

I see a positive side effect of this month, “sweeping my wife off of her feet.”  My 8 year old is picking up on it and even telling her teacher every day what I did.  I hope this puts thoughts in her head about positive relationships before she starts dating.  She’s only 8, but I think I have to fill her head with this type of thing before she’s at least 12 or 13.  I take her on dates, but as she gets older, I’m going to have to do it more frequently, as well as with my 4 year old.

I also saw on Dateline last night Randy Pausch say about his daughter and dating, “Don’t listen to what he says, notice what he does.”  Interesting thought.

So, lately, after the book, I gave her a funny little Hallmark card, created a Playlist for her iPod with songs of love and the new Jack Johnson “album,” a medicine bottle full of things like “back rubs,” and today a check in her purse for a million hugs and kisses.

Lulu.com

One of my presents to Kim a book of love quotations.  I made it myself and added my own pictures.  If you want to make your own, professional looking book, go to www.lulu.com.

Wife’s Reactions

So, day 3 and my wife is feeling weird.  She knows what I’m doing, but she’s shocked by what I’m doing and feels bad about it since she’s not reciprocating.  Today I gave her a dictionary that had words I felt that described her, and highlighted them all.  That took a while.

So, I’m getting the desired effect.  The next two days are dates, one with our kids, so that will make her happy, too.

Free Tibet

In August, I will be protesting the Olympics in my own way. Whether posting information on this site or joining protests in the states. The Olympics is August 8 to August 24, and I won’t watch 1 second of it. I will hope that our Athletes win as many medals as possible, but I cannot promote China positively in anyway until the mission of FreeTibet.org is fulfilled:

Free Tibet Campaign stands for the Tibetans’ right to determine their own future. It campaigns for an end to China’s occupation of Tibet and for the Tibetans’ fundamental human rights to be respected. Founded in 1987, Free Tibet Campaign generates active support by educating people about the situation in Tibet. It is independent of all governments and is funded by its members and supporters.

It’s long, but here:

Wife Month

OK . . . I didn’t quite succeed with reading. I read 2 books instead of 4, and I’m about 50 pages from being done with the 3rd, but it’s April.

This month is, “Sweep My Wife Off Her Feet Month.” I have every day already planned. Some involves cute little things, other things cost money. This month is also her birthday month.

Yesterday, I gave her this picture in a frame:

I found the quotation as a picture and then in Power Point, I pasted the Einstein picture. Then I printed it on photo paper and framed it. Pretty cool.

Today, it was the paper from Hershey Kisses that said things like, “Kiss Someone”, “You Rock.”

Freedom

I’m still in Jacob’s book, The Year of Living Biblically.  A few things he’s written has struck me.  I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to be “free.”  Does free mean being about to choose to do whatever you want, or is the freedom you have after a decision more important?  For example, some thing freedom means being promiscuous or doing drugs.  But then, many times, you live with guilt, an unwanted pregnancy, or an addiction.  After you freely chose, you no longer are free.

Jacobs talks about an experiment where two tables of jelly where made for free samples.  One table had 6 jars of different flavors, the other had 24 jars of different flavors.  Most people who bought jelly bought from the table with 6 jars.  The thought was that 24 jars was overwhelming.

Jacob’s point is that many people don’t like religion because they think it restricts their choices, their freedom.  But in the end, it might be that people aren’t wired for too much freedom, that they become self-destructive by too many choices.

A second thing Jacob’s pointed out, something I realized a few months ago:

“I’d always found the praising-God parts of the Bible and my prayer books awkward.  The sentences about the all-powerful, almighty, all-knowing, the host of hosts, He who has greatness beyond our comprehension.  I’m not used to talking like that.  It’s so over the top. I’m used to understatement and hedging and irony.  And why would God need tobe praised in the first place? God shouldn’t be insecure. He’s the ultimate being.

Now I can sort of see why.  It’s not for him.  It’s for us.  It takes you out of yourself and your prideful little brain.” p. 220.

Is being superficial bad?

Google “superficial” and you get: “being or affecting or concerned with a surface; not deep or penetrating emotionally or intellectually; “superficial similarities”

But I wonder if that’s all a bad thing.  While reading, “The Year of Living Biblically,” Jacobs mentions after he begins wearing all white, “It’s further proof of a major theme of this year: the outer affects the inner.”

I remember how differently I treated other people and how others treated me after I forced myself to say ma’am and sir to people.  Just that little habit made me feel different about myself.

Jacobs says his wearing white made him happier, “the clothes make the man.”

I wonder if anyone else has felt this way.  If you’re reading this, please respond with a time where you’ve changed your outer self, only to find later that  your inner self changed.