Tuesday's Tip for April 7th

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Remember that nail file I talked about? Well, just as I opened up this editing session, Lucy dropped and gifted another one at my feet; the dark grey finishing file. Yes. She targeted both of them.
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It's official. The crazy weather has just set in. In less than four days, SW OH went from couldn't-have-been-more-perfect 60 degree-ish Spring weather, to tornado warnings [late Sunday afternoon and into the night], and then back down [literally overnight] to freeze warnings and snow. It is currently snowing. Big flakes. Enough to create a light dusting on the ground. And all this extreme up and down is wrecking havoc on my inner ear. This is the time of year I need the air pressure to go one way or the other. And I usually don't much care which!
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An email exchange, which began over the weekend, will hopefully and finally [long story there] result in being able to meet with a friend in order to get her communication website up and running. How soon depends entirely on how I manage health-wise. I did accomplish a good hour's worth of research this morning, looking at and bookmarking sites similar in nature, in order to better suggest her wants and needs.
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I keep adding more items to my Focus for April list, so-- it is likely more fair to consider this as my overall 2009 To Do list. Oh. I have a Word.doc which shows a much greater focus; most of which I've yet to publish here. Or anywhere else for that matter.
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Since I don't have a major following, it's not like today's post would even have been missed, but-- I almost forgot what day it was. And one of those Focus items is maintaining my Tuesday’s Tips and Friday Five Favorites. With that said, here is this week’s health-related tip.
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Clean your keyboards on a regular basis.
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Especially when working in an environment where others have access to public computers, i.e. shared workspaces [1st or 2nd shifts, etc.], training rooms, public libraries, etc. That’s a lot of cross contamination going on. Any given individual knows where his or her own hands have or have not been. But we simply cannot know and/or trust what someone else does.
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Think on the number of times you may have witnessed someone walking back out of a public restroom without having washed their hands. I’ve been there and seen that happen. And was TOTALLY amazed by one executive who did so.
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Swab tests show keyboards are the perfect host of bacteria that is hazardous to our overall health. A recent televised episode indicated women's keyboards were the worst, because women tend to keep food and eat at their desks.
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Certain of our writing tools are too easily taken for granted. A keyboard is one of those things no one truly gives much thought to when they get too busy with or are mired in Life. One merely pulls out the lap drawer, flips up the top, or unburies their keyboard and gets to work.
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So! Pull out a few cotton swaps and the bottle of rubbing alcohol and carefully clean those keyboards and keys.
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Blessings

NaNo Day Eighteen Word Count:

NaNo Stats: 17,027 words [@ approx. 8:35 p .m.]

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With the exception of a few cumulus clouds, Southern Ohio finally has a relatively clear blue sky this morning. We haven't seen the Sun shine in a few days. And, though it was only 30 some degrees outside, I had the window open for a little while. I like to have fresh air circulating in through the windows, so when I can the windows are open. Through that opened window, a Chickadee sang. And rather loudly I must say. Had it been closed I might otherwise have missed its voice, and I truly love to hear their song.

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We had a barely-discernable flurry of snow Sunday morning. But, we had a lake-effect dusting pretty much all day yesterday. There is something quite beautiful about the first snow of the season; a little like comfort food and the best of childhood memories. As an adult though, my favorite walks were when it snowed.

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I did a little online research last week for a new chair, here at my desk, and am going to risk my already shaken budget and order it. It has a padded headrest [something I was looking for!], it swivels [that means I won't have to totally rearrange my workspace], and a 'detached' foot rest [that's what bugged me about the recliner idea]. Just not sure if I can handle next month or will wait until after the holidays. Not that I have any money for Christmas!

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Okay, back to business. Yes, I’ve been somewhat MIA of late. The first week of NaNoWriMo took every bit of effort I had to stay in this seat, stay focused and concentrate. And, though I finished out the week ahead of my word count goal, I accomplished next to absolutely nothing else. It was writing, and then recovery mode. Fight fatigue, back to writing, stuck in recovery mode. A vicious circle to say the very least.

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So, I took last week to get done what I could around the house—which was much less than I would like, because EVERYTHING requires recovery! Enough about that. I will take it all as a lesson learned and will concentrate next month on how best to set and achieve my future writing goals.

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That said, I had a very good NaNo day, yesterday. Also my new Moist Heat Heating Pad came in last week and I put it to work. Though I didn't meet my 15K goal, neither did I to beat myself up over the matter. Reaching 50K now, at this late date, does indeed seem daunting. But, I hope to have another good day of writing and that means I need to get started.