10 Lessons Learned in 2010

1.  Sleep is necessary…I used to be able to stay up late at night and get up early running on 5 hours of sleep night after night but not any more.  I function better with a good night’s sleep.

2. Stuff is overrated…This past year I have worked on downsizing, thinking about each purchase before I make it and analyzing its importance and necessity.  I have purchased less stuff by asking myself  “What do I really want?”  Definitely less stuff!

3.  Overeating doesn’t make me feel any better..I’m up about 10 lbs in the past two years.  It’s not where I want to be but after working a long day and coming home late, I’m hungry.  I’ve overeaten instead of taking the time to eat healthier.  I definitely don’t feel better for eating the way I have in the past couple of years.  Time for change.

4.  Quiet is Essential…My home is busy with two grown children and a grandson.  The TV is on almost from the time everyone gets up until the last one goes to bed.  The only way I can keep my sanity is to get up early before everyone else for some quiet or retreat to my bedroom for some quiet.

5. Laughing is good…My  job is crazy and can be really stressful some days but if I take time to laugh about things that I find funny I can make my day and others better. I’ve learned to laugh at myself.

6.  Learning something new makes you smarter…I am stating the obvious here but if you to learn something new you are smarter and you may just learn something new about yourself in the process.

7.  I am not a better person for watching TV…We have DirectTV with over a hundred channels.  Most evenings after work I find very little interesting to watch on tv.  Spending my time reading a new book , time spent writing or diving into a DIY project around the house makes me feel better or at least more productive.

8.  Less is definitely more…The less stuff I have the more room I have to be creative.  When my kids were little their favorite place to play was the room I had just finished cleaning and decluttering.  They would play for hours in a clean room.

9.  Hard work makes me feel better…I love the feeling of a completed project or finishing something that just required putting one foot in front of the other and sticking with it to completion.

10.  Life with a toddler is always full of surprises…My grandson lives with me and it is always a daily adventure with him.   There are times when all you can do is laugh like when the toilet was plugged 10 minutes before Thanksgiving dinner and you find what plugged it was his pacifier he flushed.

 

My Load is Lighter…over 400 magazines to be exact

I love magazines.  I love to read them cover to cover.  Some of my favorites are home improvement magazines, cooking magazines, and especially flying magazines.  I love to keep them and go back and look at the pictures for various home improvement projects that I thought some day I would like to do.  The problem was getting out of hand.  I bought those handy storage containers for storing magazines.  I thought if they were kept neatly it was okay to keep them all.  They were taking up space in closets and shelves in just about every room in my house and some in the attic and garage.

One of the websites I frequent often is a home management system called FLYlady.net.  Each month she has a goal to work on in your home to make it a more enjoyable place to live.  This month the goal is to get rid of paper clutter.  She says living in clutter robs you of your peace. 

One reference she made when she made this statement was that we all love to stay in a nice clean motel/hotel.  What is it about it that we like?  It is the fact that it is uncluttered.  That’s what I want in my home.  Uncluttered and peaceful.  I am not a hoarder like the new TV reality shows but I do have areas in my home that have been taken over by my magazines and fabric that I use for sewing. 

Tuesday morning my grandson Jack and I loaded up the truck of my car and drove to the local recycling center and dropped them off.  Oh how I was tempted when I saw the cover of several magazines and wanted to keep just this one copy or maybe two as I was putting them into the recycling bin.

Then I found myself looking at what others had put in for recycling and realized that their magazines were different from the ones I was bringing and started to pick them up and read.  I put them back and thought of my goal of a clean, peaceful, and uncluttered home.  Bringing magazines home with me did not fit into my goal.  It’s a good thing I had Jack to keep me moving. 

The next thing on my list as far as paper clutter is all of my household records.  I love office supplies so I have found ways to keep just about everything paper for our household.  If I go in my attic I could find a box that contains receipts for what I paid for fuel oil for our first home.  We haven’t lived there since 1992.  It would be interesting trivia to read but I don’t think I need them anymore. 

My goal is to work on paring down all this paper for 15 minutes a day.  That I can handle.  I’ve already begun to tackle the mail each day as it comes into the home.  I stand next to the paper shredder, recycling and trash and sort immediately.  With four adults in our home we get a lot of mail. 

I’m feeling better already about my home and the spaces that I have cleared of clutter.  Sorry Tyler that the magazines had to go,  I know your love of magazines,  but the peace is worth it.  I will always read magazines just not keep them as long as I have in the past and pass them along to others to share.

I’ll let you know of my progress at the end of the month.

 My new idea of an uncluttered, calm, and peaceful life!

 

Finished Up…Finally!

Private Pilot April 17, 2010

April 17, 2010 will be remembered by many people for different reasons.  For me it is the date when I finally achieved a life goal of earning my Private Pilot Certificate.  The journey began almost two years ago when I started learning to fly.  It was my original goal to complete my certificate by January 25, 2010 when I turned 50.  It took me a few months longer but I finally finished this morning.   I got to the airport at 8:00am this morning to meet Bill(my examiner).  I told him I had done my weather briefing already and just needed to preflight the airplane and then we would be set to go.  He reviewed what we would be doing in the airplane once I was ready to go.  I went to preflight the plane that I thought we would be in but Bill said he had changed me to a different plane that I already had the weight and balance completed for yesterday’s flight we didn’t take.

I preflighted the plane and had it fueled.  I asked him if he would like a passenger briefing and he said “No, it wasn’t necessary because he was familiar with the plane already.”  I called ground and said that we were ready to taxi and we were cleared to taxi to runway 31 via Echo and Alpha.  We taxied down to the run-up area near runway 31.  I did the run-up and then taxied to the holdshort line for runway 31.  I called the tower to say I was ready for take-off.  He told me to hold short for landing traffic.   After the other traffic had landed and cleared the runway the tower cleared me for takeoff.  Bill told me that my first takeoff would be a softfield takeoff.  I took off and then we proceeded on my crosscountry course.  I did two ground speed checks and then he set the VOR frequency and asked to me to set up to fly the the VOR he put in the radio.  I tuned it in and turned my course to the south to track to the VOR. 

Next he had me put the hood on and we went through turns, descents, changes in heading and airspeeds.  He had me do 180 degree turn to simulate going into the clouds and getting out of them.  After the hood work he had me set up for slow flight in the dirty configuration and make 90 degree turns left and right.  Next he had me do a power off stall.  After the power off stall I had to do a departure stall.  Once the stalls were completed it was on to steep turns.  He told me before I began that I would make a left steep turn and then immediately roll into a right steep turn.  This made me a little nervous because I never done that before with my instructor without some time in between the two steep turns.  After I was done with the steep turns he pulled the power on me for my emergency landing.  I found my field directly below me and circled down to my altitude to recover at while adding flaps for my descent.  

After completing the manuevers he had me track the VOR back to the airport.  He said coming in that I would do a shortfield landing followed by a shortfield takeoff.  When I turned base to final, I over shot final and did a go around.  I came back around and did a short field landing followed by a shortfield takeoff.  When I came back around to land he said it would be a full stop so I radioed the tower and said so.  We taxied off at A3  and into the ramp and parked the plane.  He congratulated me and said I passed and we would talk about a few things about the flight inside.  I did a final check around the plane, got the Hobbs, tach, and tin for the plane and headed inside.  Once inside we went and debriefed the flight.  He said that I forgot to pull the carb heat in my emergency landing and that I needed to trim the plane more effectively and use more right rudder.  He demonstrated how my foot should be placed on the floor of the plane to most effectively use the rudder.  He said overall a good performance in flight.

After the debriefing we went to the computer and did what we needed to do with IACRA and printed my temporary certificate and he endorsed my logbook for the checkride.  One of the CFI’s took me outside to take my picture by the plane with my certificate.  I was absolutely exhausted when everything was done.  Two sleepless nights followed by my the checkride.  My examiner wasted no effort or time on the plan of action he had to get us through the checkride efficiently.  When it was all done I was sure that hours must have passed but was surprised to see 9:30am on my watch.  Only 1 1/2 hours had passed.  A flying friend had told me that he thought I would probably find the checkride enjoyable once it got started.  He was correct but he didn’t prepare me for how fast we would complete everything.  It was hard to have the checkride spread out over two days but the better weather for the flight was well worth the wait.  PRIVATE PILOT …Finally!

 

New Year…Old Goals

Most people begin the New Year with new goals, resolutions, and things they plan on changing or doing differently in their lives this year.  In this New Year I am concentrating on finishing up a goal from the last year and a half.  I began in June of 2008 a journey to pursue a lifelong dream of learning how to fly.   I started flight training in June 2008 with a goal in mind of completing my private pilot certificate before I turn 50 on January 25, 2010.  The date for my goal is fast approaching but the end is in sight as I have completed all of my requirements for my certificate except my checkride which weather permitting should be some time next week.

To anyone who may read this blog my challenge to you would to be to start pursuing your dreams.  It is so worth the feeling you get as you complete something you have always wanted to do.  As you pursue your dreams surround yourself with positive encouraging friends and family who will help keep you on track.