Author name: Sandra Tayler

Computer Issue Resolved

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Monday, in the middle of frantic shipping, my computer declared that I had no space left on the hard drive. This did not make the day better.

Tuesday, I cleared off enough files to give me space to work. I also kept a log of space usage and watched the space I’d cleared gradually get eaten up. I focused on getting work done, but noticed that internet connectivity had no effect, so my computer was not infected with malware. A friend suggested that I had some stray program creating a log file. He pointed me at a program called WinDirStat (Short for Windows Directory Statistics).

Wednesday, I continued to baby my computer, then finally installed WinDirStat. Within minutes it showed me that Kaspersky was using up over 700 gigs of space. All of that space was text log files. One file alone was 59GB. I deleted them and now I have 748GB of free space on my computer. I could design 250 books in that space. I then opened up Kaspersky to see why on earth it was making massive log files. The only thing I could find was in the settings, under System Watcher, there was a little check box for “save activity log.” I unchecked that box.

Tomorrow, I’ll be keeping an eye out to make sure that Kaspersky doesn’t start filling up space again. I’ll also call their customer support line to see if they have any idea why it happened and how to make sure it doesn’t happen again. Calcifer also has Kaspersky and does not have this problem at all. On the other hand, if it does happen again I know how to fix it, which is very empowering. I no longer have to be afraid that my computer will randomly stop working. I like not being afraid.

In tangential news, the little mini laptop, which I thought had the same problem, has a different problem entirely. It is not losing memory. It just doesn’t have enough. Windows 7 requires 14GB and the hard drive is only 16GB big. Upgrading that machine to Windows 7 was a mistake. Ah hindsight. WinDirStat is an excellent program and helped me solve both issues.

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Building a Family Culture for a Happy Holiday Season

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It is December 5th and we only have two wrapped Christmas gifts under our tree. They were deposited there by my sister who visited last weekend. Usually the tree starts to accumulate presents within a day or two of when it goes up. This year the tree has been lovely for more than a week and we can still see both the tree skirt and the stuffed nativity set. I kind of like letting the tree be a center piece without the distraction of packages. I like even more that none of the kids have commented on this. None of them are hovering hopefully to see if there are presents for them as has been the case in years past. In fact our house has a significant lack of the things-I-want vibe. Howard and I have had a couple of discussions about what to get the kids, but there aren’t any items we must get or be faced with disappointment. Some of this is because our kids are older, but I think some of it is the family culture we have gradually built around Christmas. I thought it might be useful to list out the things we consciously do to focus on the non-commercial aspects of the holiday season. I ended up with twelve list items which seams seasonally appropriate.

1. We keep it small. All of our Christmas decorations fit into four medium size boxes and one big Christmas tree bag. It is enough to make our front room lovely, but not for a dazzling show. If we want to spread the holiday through the house we light a scented candle and play music.

2. We don’t do Santa. This was really hard when the kids were little and everywhere we turned people expected them to believe in Santa. I was always afraid that my kids would talk Santa with other kids and then angry parents would confront me. However, without a belief in Santa, my kids never believed that their wildest dreams would just appear on Christmas morning. They understood that even Christmas has practical limitations because the providers of Christmas were a very human Mom and Dad. Christmas morning surprises supplied by parents were still magical.

3. We avoid exposing ourselves to advertising, particularly television commercials, as much as possible. Advertising creates a false reality which aims to make people believe their lives will be better if they buy something. This is rarely true.

4. If at all possible we avoid shopping in a hurry. Going to stores and looking for gifts can be an enjoyable part of the holiday season, but it is when we’re stressed and in a hurry that we blow our budget or buy items we regret later. We usually try to enter stores with a clear idea of what we’re looking for and why we need it.

5. When gift giving commences we sort the presents by who is giving them not by who gets to open them. We take turns and each gift is handed over by the giver. This practice really helped our young kids focus on the giving aspect of the season.

6. We remember that disappointment happens and it is not the end of the world. Christmas does not have to be perfect. The gifts do not have to bring ecstatic joy to be good gifts. In fact, we try to avoid frenzies of excitement because they are always followed by a let down. Half of our Christmas efforts involve slowing things, calming things, and pacing the season.

7. Many of our traditions and decorations are about lights in darkness. We light our tree, light our house, and burn an advent candle each evening. (Except when we forget and light it extra long the next day.) On Christmas eve we light all the candles of a nativity pyramid. Light in darkness makes us all more happy and peaceful.

8. We don’t travel during the holidays. These days staying home is critical because I’m in the midst of holiday shipping, but even before that we stayed at home. Connecting with extended relatives is lovely and important, and we do get together with the ones nearby, but any trip which requires a suitcase can find a different time of year. That way we can focus on the visit instead of holiday logistics.

9. Optional events are optional. This season is full of concerts, special events, displays, and limited time offers. No one person can take advantage of them all. We sample as the mood strikes and try to not feel obligated to do too much.

10. Traditions which add more stress than joy get culled from our holiday practices. The best traditions are the ones that happen of their own accord because someone loves them enough to spend the effort. We have a tree because we all care about it enough to haul the thing up from the basement and assemble it. This year we have outdoor lights after a long outdoor light hiatus, because this year I wanted them enough to put them up.

11. We know that holiday culture grows and changes. When the kids were younger, I had to spend a lot more effort creating the holiday, planning the gift choices, planning family traditions. We’ve reached a stage where we all create the holiday for each other in small ways. Ten years from now things will be different again.

12. We weave our religious beliefs into the holiday celebrations and preparations, but not every single thing has to be about Christ. We try to make themes of Christ the ever present background music of the holiday rather then always requiring it to be front and center. That way when we do bring it to the front, we’re able to focus and attend.

I’m aware of the irony that I try very hard to de-commercialize and simplify our family traditions, while simultaneously running a retail business for which we offer holiday sales and incentives. I can only hope that our books and merchandise are things which add joy to holidays rather than stress. Because I really do wish for everyone to have a December that is tailored to their ideas of what the holidays should be. That is the key really, finding what brings happiness and paring away the rest.

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Little Things Gone Right

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On the day after many things went wrong, it is nice to have a day when a dozen little things went right. The kids did not fight or cry about their game turns. I was able to clear enough space on my computer that I could print postage and keep an observational eye on how the hard drive space disappears. (Good news: Internet connectivity has no effect. If the computer is completely idle, no memory gets used up. Bad news: space is still disappearing. I’ll begin troubleshooting steps tomorrow.) The rain did not start falling until after the postman picked up my packages. Gleek came home from school and did her homework. Link was late coming home, which at first seemed like a bad thing, but it turned out to be because he went to talk to a couple of teachers. He’s turned in work and has a plan in place to bring up the remaining low grade. All of this he did on his own recognizance. I did not push, prod, remind, or prompt. During my packaging I kept having convenient coincidences: I’d pull out a stack of mailers and it would turn out to be exactly the right amount for the list I was working on.

By 3 pm today I’d completed all the packages I was able to do. The rest require sketches from Howard. By tomorrow morning more orders will come in, but that is fine. It finally feels like I’m on track with the shipping.

As for the rest of my evening, brownies are in the oven.

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The Day My Computer Failed Me

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I could make a long list of ways I could have prevented today from being what it was. There were things I could have done differently a month ago or even a week ago which would have made today a much more pleasant place to be. Such a list would only serve as a tool for self flagellation and would do nothing to make tomorrow better, so I will skip that list. In the large scheme, everything is fine. The house is fine. The kids are fine. Really what I have is a big pile of technical annoyance during my busiest shipping week of the holiday season. Sadly it is not a problem more hands can solve. Putting items in the packages is easy. The annoying part is having to set up Calcifer, who is supposed to be my writing machine, to instead print postage because my desktop machine is manifestly unfit for use until I can spend some hours troubleshooting. (The thought of actually shooting problems on a gun range to turn them into little fragments of former problems is highly appealing right now.) But at least I have Calcifer to use instead of being in a terrified panic about being able to get the shipping done.

The calendars arrived on Wednesday. This meant I could begin mailing the unsketched orders, and I did, focusing on the international orders first because they have the farthest to travel. The first batch went out on Friday just before my sister and her kids arrived. Visitors in the house meant no room for Howard to set up and sketch. I sorted invoices and did some preparatory work on Saturday, but wore out quickly. This means I hit Monday morning feeling behind with no sketches done. Then I discovered that international orders all needed to be in the mail by 5 pm for guaranteed delivery before Christmas. I hit high gear, Howard hit hight gear. He rocked through over one hundred sketches so they could go into packages. I was supposed to rock through the matching postage and pack the boxes, except kids needed things. I had an appointment at the school. There were phone calls. After each interruption I knew it would be okay. I would make up the time. I could still do it.

Then my postage printing provider had their own technical snafu. It took them 45 minutes to process my payment and refill my postage account. I had to do that multiple times, and my nerves frayed each time. I tried to fill the dead time with tasks which were useful, but useful is not the same as truly efficient. I was printing up list of postage when my desktop computer popped up a window claiming that it couldn’t print unless I freed up some space on the hard drive. I have a 900GB drive. I have about 250GB of files on it. Yet the drive had only 45MB left on it. Some invisible log file or auto save has been chewing through my hard drive space. Using it up. I identified this as a problem about a month ago. Unfortunately it is a familiar problem. This same issue is half of why I had to abandon my mini laptop and get Calcifer. (The other half being battery issues) I spent hours downloading hard drive analyzing tools, but made little sense of the results. I could not figure it out. None of my tech savvy friends could make sense of it either. I was so glad to leave the trouble behind, but here it was in front of me again. I knew I couldn’t afford to ignore it on my desktop machine. This is the machine I use for book design, accounting, and order processing. Yet I’d hoped I could make it through the holiday shipping first. I was wrong. Within an hour the drive went from 45MB free to 0.

By scrambling to do work from other machines, I was able to get most of the international packages into the mail. I know I’ll solve this issue even if I have to reformat the hard drive and start fresh. Unfortunately the common element between the two machines is me. I don’t know what I did to create the problem in the first place. I don’t know any way to find out. And I still have packages to mail tomorrow. So I despair while simultaneously feeling like everything is fine and will continue to be fine. I don’t want my computers to be fancy. I just want them to be workhorses who keep working without me having to do major overhauls. Is that too much to ask?

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Rainy Weather

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We were all in the kitchen when we heard the sound of rain pelting on the windows.
“Sounds like weather.” Howard said. I flipped on the porch light to show us the blowing rain.
“But our cat is out there!” Gleek said. She jumped out of her chair and called out the back door. Then she ran to the front door and called from there too.
“The cat is fine.” I assured Gleek. “She’s found a dry place to curl up and probably doesn’t want to come through the rain to the door. I reminded Gleek that our cat took care of herself just fine for several months while she was a stray. That’s how she became ours.

Bedtime continued, but I left the lights on so we could see the cat should she show up. She did only about ten minutes later. She was wet, but only a dash across the yard wet, not soaked by the rain wet. The cat did not much appreciate the quick toweling, but she purred for the petting. Gleek was quite relieved to know that the cat was indoors and safe.

This is far from the only instance when my kids have been worried for our cat. Sometimes she spends all night outdoors and the kids worry about her. But she always shows up, ready to purr and be in the house. In fact a major source of conflict in our house is differing opinions about how we should treat the cat.

So our wayward pet is indoors and I lock the deadbolts. No one else will be exiting before morning. I pause a moment to look out at the puddles out in the street. Raindrops scatter the reflected light from the street lamp. There is a flash of lightning and thunder rolls overhead. Thunder is not the usual music for December, but I feel happy hearing it this evening. I’m not really ready for the world to be snowy yet, but we can use the moisture. I like the sound of the rain. It feels cozy and Christmas-ish. My childhood Decembers in California never featured snow.

Earlier in the day I walked home during a light rain. It was more of a sprinkle, certainly nothing like the windy wetness outside. I like walking in the rain. It feels free. When I am in the rain, I know that I have not let the weather stop me from doing something I want to do. Sometimes a desire to not go in the rain traps me at home, which is why I feel strong and confident when I do venture forth. Out in the rain I’ve abandoned responsibility and opened up that part of myself which likes to splash in puddles and kick through piles of fallen leaves.

I was very responsible this weekend. I made sure that eight children and four adults had three meals a day for two days. I sorted invoices and attended meetings. I went to bed at night with a head so stuffed full of responsibility that it kept me awake. I wish there had been rain to listen to in those dark post-midnight hours instead of only my own breathing. I got up in the morning feeling barely rested and continued to be responsible until about the time the rain began. I don’t think it was the rain which caused me to curl up and watch TV. I was already headed there, the rain just made it feel more cozy.

The wind has calmed now, leaving the sound of raindrops falling to the ground instead of blowing against the house. My house has calmed too. Soon we will all be in bed, hopefully to sleep restfully. The weather report says the rain will be gone tomorrow.

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Songs of Christmas

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This morning I turned on “You’re a Mean One Mr. Grinch” as background while I did the dishes. Except that song never stays as background. Within moments I was singing along. Howard wandered up the stairs and joined the chorus. Then he plugged in his iPad to play an alternate version. We sang to that one too. After the music stopped, Howard pointed out that it really is an odd addition to the canon of Christmas music. It is a song about a truly terrible person sung by a narrator who is trying really hard to be thoroughly insulting. Yet it is unequivocally Christmas music for me. This is because every time I hear the song, I remember the rest of the story. I remember that Christmas came without packages, boxes, or tags. I remember the whos hand in hand singing. Most of all I remember the Grinch’s heart, his triumphant return, and the carving of the roast beast. None of this is in the song, yet all of it is there. This is the power of story.

I started to think about it, and realized that this is true of many of my favorite Christmas songs, though for some it is not the story their writers may have intended. I remember the other times of singing a particular song. Memories return of singing when I was 10, 12, 15, 25, 38. Year after year the songs do not change, but they accumulate more meaning with every memory which is attached to them. Ten years from now this morning’s impromptu concert will be part of the grinch song. It reminds me of an essay I wrote long ago about composite memories. Love in the Cookie Dough.

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Attending a Concert

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It was an excuse to dress in fancy clothes, which concert we picked was an after thought to that original purpose. My friend and I both lamented that our lives did not have enough reasons to be pretty, so we created one. That decided, we selected a Utah Symphony concert. We left early so that we had plenty of time to travel and find parking. We talked of various things on the way there, but our discussion turned to umbrellas when the first fat drops of rain hit the windshield. Neither of us had one, but we agreed that a little rain would not hurt us. We parked the car and still had an hour until concert time, so we walked to Temple Square.

The Christmas lights on temple square are a popular destination in December. The rain had cleared out the crowds some, which meant that we were able to see the lights reflected on wet pavements as well as shining over our heads. We stepped inside the Tabernacle because I love historic buildings. A man was playing songs at the organ, but we did not stay long. Our evening would have music later. We wanted someone to take a picture of us together in our lovely clothes, so we walked over to the visitors center.

I heard the sounds rising from a floor below. It was obviously a choir, but there were multiple tempos and discordant notes involved. Some of the voices sang away making up words as they went. I cringed inside. Who on earth selected such a choir to sing on Temple Square during the holiday season? I stepped down the stairs, and breathed “Oh.” I never knew before how much a sight could change a sound so completely. The faces of the choir were beautiful, happy, Down’s Syndrome, differently abled, did I say beautiful? The music they made brought tears to my eyes because by seeing them I remembered to listen to the joy instead of the notes.

We arrived at the concert hall wet, and a little footsore. Abravanel Hall was designed as a concert space. The whole thing is built like the cone of a speaker and everywhere I looked there was wood. I loved the feel of it. Once I came home I learned trivia like the fact that cello and base players are encouraged to make holes in the stage so that their instruments will resonate through the wood of the stage.

I watched the conductor as he gestured with his entire body. I watched the musicians as they responded in unison. All of them joined together, so practiced that they become one until the music ends. The conductor was emphatic, gentle, vigorous, smooth, sharp, and soft. I watched his hands and back, realizing that every motion was speaking to the orchestra in a language I do not speak. Sometimes I could discern meanings, but mostly I could just tell that communication was taking place.

I know the terms fugue, cantata, symphony, chorale, I can even look up the definitions, but I have not studied the forms. I can not listen to the first few minutes of music and know which themes will come back. I felt the beauty of the music, but I missed so much nuance. Without advance preparation, I did not understand the stories of the pieces. All I was left with is knowing I’d been in the presence of something remarkable, but not being able to explain what or why. I know the violin soloist was virtuoso, particularly for one so young, but I did not have the appreciation of my friend who grew up with music and played the violin as a girl.

We talked about music on the way home. My friend feels music inside and doesn’t need it to have words. I appreciate music most when it exists in support of stories, whether those stories be in dance, song, or acting. I learned songs at an alarming rate during my growing years. I loved the blending of sound and story to create something lovely. Music without story is more difficult for me to comprehend and appreciate. This is not something I knew about myself until tonight.

All the kids were still awake when I arrived home, but they vanished into sleep soon after. I got to sit in the kitchen and tell my visiting sister about the fun time I had with my friend. The concert was scheduled long before I knew my sister would be in town this weekend. Also there were brownies. I always recommend coming home to a plate of brownies after a concert.

The dangerous thing about going to a concert is that now I want to go to many more of them. I want to see live performances, dance, plays. I shall have to pick and choose, the tickets are not cheap. I also want to make another trip to Temple Square. Gleek has been really wanting to see the Christmas lights. I should learn how to ride the Trax train and make a day of going to see Temple Square with her. She would love it. There is a special feel the moment I enter.

It is now long past late and headed toward early, but I did not want to let my concert thoughts escape me. I know they will synthesize and change during sleep. This is good, perhaps tomorrow I’ll have even more things to say about the lovely evening I just had.

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Parent Teacher Conferences and Praise

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In Elementary school, parent teacher conferences are simple: one teacher, one appointment. Junior high is more complicated and the school seeks to solve this issue by a sort of open house conference night. Sometimes they have all the teachers seated at tables in the commons area and the families form lines in front of those tables. The long lines impede on the space for other lines and to get down to the teacher at the end one has to wend through a crowd. Other times the teachers are all in their rooms and the lines form outside the classroom doors. I’m not fond of this free-for-all style of conferences. Often I side step the issue by simply contacting the teacher on a non-conference day. If I do attend the conferences, I want to whittle down the line standing as much as possible. The child and I chose which teachers we most need to see and leave as soon as possible. It seemed like a good strategy, but tonight Link showed me where the strategy fails.

“I want to see all my teachers.” Link said. “I want to hear what they think of me.” So instead of picking the one or two classes where his grades demonstrated that he might need extra attention, we stood in line for every single teacher. They praised him. “I wish all my students were like him.” “He’s attentive, helpful, and raises his hand to make comments.” “Sometimes he’s quiet, but he’s doing great on all the tests.” “He works hard and never tries to slack off.” Link smiled and I swear he walked taller as we left the school. Why did I not realize before the value to be found in letting a kid listen while a teacher and a parent agree about how wonderful he is?

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The State of My House

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I have eight boxes of calendars in my front room waiting for Howard to draw and me to ship. Next to those boxes is a stack of packages that I assembled this morning and are waiting for me to put on clothes so I can take them out to the mailbox. There is also a bag of garbage waiting to go out to the can. The area in front of the coat closet is in its usual jumble of discarded coats, shoes, papers, and toys. The cubbies next to it–which exist to hold all this stuff–are empty. Obviously there needs to either be a system overhaul or extensive re-training. The Christmas tree stands in the corner, lights off during the day, but still a lovely promise of holiday to come. There are no gifts under the tree and likely won’t be for weeks, though Howard and I have begun discussing what we want to do.

The kitchen table is littered with books, papers, and dirty dishes. All of these are freshly accumulated from last night’s homework time and this morning’s breakfast. The table can go from pristine to cluttered in less than five minutes–and it does on a daily basis. Kitchen counters, ditto, with the addition of crumbs, cutting boards, and other food preparation supplies and spills. The walls are dirty because some of them are fourteen feet up and we’ve never climbed up there to wash them. I shall not speak of the floor.

The family room is currently clean, but there is an unassuming file box sitting on the game table which heralds an imminent take over. Soon the couches will be shoved out of the way and shipping tables will be set up. The fireplace is covered in games and toys which don’t currently fit into the cabinets because the cabinets are jumbled rather than organized. The upstairs hallway needs to be vacuumed, but someone needs to put all the books back onto the shelf first. Picture books are prone to leaping off of the shelf and piling themselves onto the floor. The kids have once again taken to storing things on the floors of their bedrooms. They leave walking paths at least. I shall not speak of the bathrooms.

My office is fairly clear because it was used to house guests last week and will be put to similar use this weekend. I do need to do some careful putting away since this batch of guests includes one toddler, one preschooler, and two grade school children. Things will get touched. The laundry is actually contained in baskets rather than spilling forth to fill the entire laundry closet. That is likely to change in the next few days because I’m not going to spend much energy on laundry other than to make sure we don’t run out of clean underwear.

This is my house. It is in a constant state of flux. Sometimes I look around and think I’m doing okay. Other times I’m appalled at my housekeeping. Mostly though I call it good if the fluctuations pass through cleanliness often enough for us all to know what it looks like. I have a definite correlation between clean house and being less stressed, but the causality there can flow both directions. Sometimes I clean to become less stressed. Other times I’m less stressed therefore I have time to clean. It is the cluttery times which show me where to focus my attention when I have organizational energy. Like that front coat closet. I’m seriously considering tearing the front wall off of it and turning it into a nook instead of a closet with a door. In theory this would encourage people to hang their coats, but the reality might be mess visible all the time instead of some of the time. I’m still pondering ways to set it up so that the system still works when we’re not focused on it.

One of the most important organizational lessons I’ve learned is to think of my house as spaces instead of as rooms. The rooms have names, but each room has multiple purposes. The family room has a video game area, a computer area, storage cupboards, and an open space which sometimes is full of the game table. When we want to host a large gathering the game table gets stowed in the corner and the furniture slides around to create an open space in the middle of the room. Or if the event focuses around gaming, then the big table becomes the center of the room. My office serves as a storage space, library, craft space, guest room, work space, and quiet retreat. Things get pulled out and put away as they serve the purpose at hand. By thinking in spaces, I’m able to make the same desk serve three purposes depending upon how I set it up.

We are always tinkering with the way our household is arranged. I don’t know any other way to manage a house that contains six people who are always growing, taking up new hobbies, abandoning old interests, and pressing forward.

And now I should probably go get dressed to take out the garbage and those packages.

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