today's small successes

Believe it or not, this is my 80th post! That's not one of the successes I originally planned to write about, but I must say that I am proud of myself for posting as much as I have. Granted, many (or even most?) of my updates aren't exactly enthralling, but considering my previous experience with blogging on Xanga, I'm very proud of my improved consistency as a blogger.

Small Success #1: Successful Baking Experience
Double chocolate mint chip cookies -- yum! For me, the mint and chocolate combination ranks up there with peanut butter and chocolate, and I think these are possibly my favorite cookies ever. They were made using a recipe on the back of the Hershey's mint chocolate chips package. I made them for the first time about a year ago, and then was severely disappointed when I could no longer find the chips at City'super. But they suddenly reappeared a few weeks ago, at which time I immediately bought myself a small supply. I don't usually do much baking when it's just my parents and me around, but my sister and two of her kids will be coming down for a short visit tomorrow, so I figured that she could help us shoulder the calorie load.


Small Success #2: Organizational Feat

I've never been the most organized individual, yet good organization is something that I've always aspired too. I probably have a higher tolerance for disorder than a neat freak, but even so, I've realized that being disorganized creates a certain amount of stress for me, not to mention sucks up time whenever I need to find something that's gotten misplaced. I've also realized that not being a naturally organized person doesn't mean that there's no hope for me. There are measures I can take to train and help myself improve my organizational skills. Today I took some steps.
This is rather embarrassing, but I'll share it anyway, in the hopes that it will encourage others who are still fumbling in organizational darkness. Ever since I started taking classes at HKU in September, I've been given a variety of papers for my reference. These papers -- articles and handouts mainly -- gradually accumulated to the point at which they outgrew the folder that had been intended for their storage. And this is when the story starts to get embarrassing... instead of buying a new folder to store my burgeoning paper collection, I allowed the folder to evolve (or devolve? is that a word?) into a large pile on the floor of my bedroom. This pile continued to grow -- being knocked about and pushed out of order -- until recently when I gathered it up to put it into hiding. But though it was out of sight, its formless piling presence still haunted me. So today I decided enough was enough. I went to a stationery store and bought a large binder. Once I was home, I got the hole puncher out and finally removed the infamous pile from its dark hiding place. After about 20 minutes of sorting and hole-punching, I had a nicely organized binder with tabs delineating the different courses. Like most things that I put off doing, I was surprised by how quickly and easily I was able to accomplish this task. Another lesson learned? I hope so!