Ayn's Multiple World

Saturday morning ... gliding along.

Good morning. This is me. It is late in the morning. As you can tell by the last few previous posts, we have been busy this morning. We completed the school reference project though … so am feeling pretty good about that although a little tired with it. We had completed yesterday the sections from psychology, and then today we went through education, human services, writing, and business. It was a long composition of work. Including the books that we had on hold previously, we are up to a required book list of 208. Of course, no one is forcing us to buy these books, but these are the ones the school recommends for the courses it teaches that I am interested in. I believe as it stands it is probably about $12—15,000 worth of materials … so even if I could do a lot of fast reading, it probably isn’t going to happen right away. And, we found ourselves a little frustrated in the number of books Amazon had back revisions too, rather than the most current copy … I think they use their customers lack of knowledge in this area to take advantage of selling old materials for a higher cost. It teaches me to always check for the updated version before ordering anything. There were also some books that weren’t available although the majority are.

So, if you know of a way for me to earn $15,000 then let me know please. All in all … I could have the complete set in five years if I put into the project $200 a month. Hmm, that doesn’t seem so bad, hmm? That would mean that by the time I’m 53 … I would have all the knowledge I could ever need at my fingertips. Might though want to put in an extra $50 thinking that there would be an additional $3000 for books yet to be written that I might find along the way as interesting. I don’t think that our interest is going to change significantly over the next 5 years. The next problem of course would be in reading that many books. I would like to think that I had an excellent set of books to pass down, but by the time my kids or grandkids get to the point of reading the books, they will be outdated. To complete the books reading wise over the next ten years, I would have to finish 1 ¾ books a month. That would be a lot of reading. In consideration most books aren’t expected to be completed any sooner than 3 months at the schools pace, but some of the books are doubled up. I think I would have to keep a pace of reading 45-50% a book a week. That be hefty, in consideration some weeks I could barely even pick up a book or chapter so that it would be impractical to think I could finish a book every couple of weeks. So, I better revise my schedule again.

To complete 208 books, by the time I was 62 – or 14 years, I would be reading 14.9 books per month … that would mean 1.25 books a month, or about 1/3 a book a week.

That be fine if the book was 250-400 pages, but what happens to the books that are 1000 pages … hehehe that would be a problem, but then I would figure those books to be references that don’t need to be read cover to cover. That would mean to read an average of 200 pages per week in 14 years, I would have read 145,600 pages … that’s a lot of writing for someone who doesn’t remember so well. That would have to be worked out or negotiated in the writing and summarizing of thoughts. And, the importance of finishing the project? I would want to be if not writing professionally by then … hope to get a start on that after this next 9 years, but the big thing is to be able to retire and read the great books series. If I am used to reading that much a year, then I think I could do the other too. I think there are about 64 authors and the reference material says that it is going to take ten years to get through it. Hehehe I would be one smart cookie by the time I died.

SOOOO … got to think what is all that worth?

Basically, why am I so interested in reading all this material … what is it that I want to do with the information. The first thought here is that I’m still interested in writing programs for people with developmental disabilities. After reading through my list of books, I also have an interest in managing people. I think I get that from all the business books we are interested in. I think that as time wore on though and I would be self-employed, that I would have much more interest in educational psychology than anything else. Hmm, I was just thinking what happened I could shoot for a goal of reading 300 pages a week. That would be like 50 pages a day with a day off for good behavior. How would I be able to manage that? I think I would have to plan on reading during a time I was unlikely to be falling asleep … not sure what time that is anymore. I think I could if anything plan to read during the evening. Maybe after dinner. I would think that Sweetie Pie is going to be gone a majority of the evenings, but even if that we could both retire to our reading by 8:30-9:00 pm. Without him there, I should be reading by no later than 7 pm and think through reading up until about 10 pm. Then I would still have to be up by 5 or 5:30 am to be doing a smidge of writing before Sweetie Pie wakes up … hmm that would mean about 7-7 ½ hours of sleep. Well … they say you need less sleep as you grow older. I guess we could give that a try. Might want to be drinking a little coffee with dinner though so I don’t get so tired immediately after.

Oh by the way … we started the dishwasher last round. I saw my first fly of the summer come in through the open door and we figured we better get the garbage tied up and dirty dishes in the machine and to get that started. I was just thinking maybe what we should be doing over the summer is have a white bag out, but to bag all the wet garbage daily in a grocery bag … that way we don’t worry so much about baby flies. It would stand to reason that gets tied up through the day too. Ok, good girl … Rich would appreciate that we were getting something done. More done would mean getting to our walk by 3 pm. That would be in 4 hours, because it is already 11 am. Think we’re doing ok. Although we’re only on the 2nd page for the day … we’re zipping along.

Speaking of Sweetie Pie … he called last night after dinner … he was going to go to bed early. I was all for that, especially because he was going to wake up for fishing by about 4-4:30. I don’t know if he brought his book to read. He had said the day before he’d caught a couple big fish, but yesterday his partner caught the big fish. He said tonight they are going to have a fish fry and he’s going to get a couple of pies. At first he said 1 pie, but then when he said divided between 10 people we went nooooooooo not possible TWO PIES! Hehehe he’s such a goose. I kinda feel guilty when he calls when he’s gone. Because I don’t know if the other guys are checking in with their women too. If they are all doing it … I’m all for it, but I don’t want to be called if its going to take down his guy pride in having a man’s weekend. I’d like to think they are all a little bit smoochy though. That be a good idea.

I don’t know if he’s having a real good time on this trip … he kept saying adequate for everything. ADEQUATE!!! Your fishing! *Sigh* but there were a few things like his partner wasn’t a real big talker, they were concentrating hard on the fishing, the food was only so-so as were the cabins, and there were A LOT of mosquitoes.

YEEKS! And, they would pay to get bitten up? ACK! What kind of trip is that!??

Ok, ok … don’t want to detract or be negative of guy things. BUT, give me a nice Jacuzzi and I’d be just as set with that!

Hmm, ok, so what do we need to get done next … I sort of want to try that theory out about reading 300 a week … I’d like to focus on how much time it takes to read 40-50 pages. Maybe we could do it every day? I know some books are harder than others. Maybe if we got a good idea on how long it takes we could estimate that amount of time into the reading everyday. I’d like to see us turn into the bookworm we were when we were a kid. We used to read every spare moment we had. I’d like to think it helped educate ourselves and kept our mind sharper than not. Well, at least some of the parts. Ok. Then let’s do that for a while. I think it’s a real nice temp outside so we’re going to take the book out there … we’re still reading the curriculum I’m hoping it’s not only 10 pages an hour, but we have to be prepared for that. Ok, you … let’s get going … official time is 11:15 am. We’re starting on page 32 and we’d like to get to either the end of chapter 4 or 5, meaning pages 68 or 94. So hopefully 36-62 pages written by 3 pm. Shoot, AND maybe a shower and get dressed? Maybe that at 3 pm and out the door by 3:30-4:00? I think we have until 6 pm to get in and out of the zoo. We’ll have to see how our concentration goes. Ok you … let’s go.

Ok … time to check in … it’s now 2:50 pm Good good 3 ½ hours, but we took a half hour for breaks and lunch. We’re figuring 3 hours … 12 pages per hour … and 36 pages total. So, that might just be our baseline. I know before when we’d last timed ourselves that it was like 11 pages per hour so 12 pages is great! ALTHOUGH, I don’t think all those pages as dense as others. Anyway it all averages out. You still need to progress through the book with page numbers. So we’ll use what is given.

Now, my dears … it is about 3 pm and time to take that shower. Sweetie Pie will be so happy to know that we went to the zoo. I hate to disappoint him. BRB … will spend the time drying our hair here before leaving. WOOHOO!! Man 3 pages on the day!?? YEEKS!

Hmm, that means we should be dedicating 4 hours a day to reading. Wow. We’re going to need rearranging some bodies schedule!

Ahh … 3:15 pm … we’re right on schedule. I wore myself out a little just getting showered and dressed though … we’re going to now take a bit of a break by doing the writing. Maybe we’ll set ourselves to be leaving in a half-hour … hair should be dry enough then to put in a pony tail. And, we need to remember to take the water bottles out of the freezer. We had forgotten to chill any, which may be our mistake. I hope its ok. So. Now we have to gear ourselves to driving and being at the zoo.

Yeeks. Shhhhh … we’re not going to go there. We are going to the zoo not to please Sweetie, but because we know the walking will be good for us. Well, ok, and maybe to please sweetie too. We’re not going to get past that are we? We should be fine. Just need to remember to take it slow at our pace. As to the question whether or not we should bring our book? I guess we could bring it … it wouldn’t hurt anything, but my initial reaction is that we should be appreciating the zoo as a nice place to look around and gain perspective. Maybe take a break from the book so that we are ready to get back into it after dinner. Zoo, dinner, read, k? AND, no slurpies today … we don’t want any more money to come off the checking account and the slurpees should be Sweeties extra gift if any. That’s why we take two bottles of water, remember. Let’s think of ourselves being out there and healthy at the same time.

Too bad we didn’t get the pedometer on right away. It’s going to have an affect on total steps taken, but I’m thinking not more than 2-300. We should set the minimum goal as 1200, and aim over 2,000. 2,500 might be insane. Ok, good … we got a goal. Let’s see phone, book, hair ribbon, water, camera bag, keys. Anything else?

The back pack is downstairs. Think we have a little battery on the camera now, but a whole charged set of batteries in waiting. Hmm, better check the zoo pass in the purse. I think Rich liked getting his pass. He teased that he never belonged to a society thing before. I was glad he took charge of his pass so that he could go any time he wanted and also he could take Chris if he wanted to do something different.

You know meet up? Well it’s an idea at least. The last time he visited his daughter … she took him to the zoo. Maybe it runs in the family.

Hmm, the more I think of it the more I don’t want the book with us. I know … just in case we’re delayed for a while while sitting down, BUT there is the other book, which we’re hoping to get into soon with the tracking of numbers. If anything let’s go with the original plan. We could set another reading goal tonight. Lets say 3:45 pm leave. Get to zoo 4:00 pm. Leave zoo 5:30-5:45, get home about 6 pm. Eat … play on the computer. 7 – 10 pm, read. Do you think we can practice staying up that late without falling asleep on the couch? That might give us another 30 pages or 76 for the day. If we maintain that goal of 300, it will be really important to put in some hours during the weekend. Then we should get stars for going over 300 pages. I don’t know how many Sweetie Pie reads, but it could get to be sort of a literate contest. Though for the record reading fiction or sci-fi isn’t the same as reading text! Hehehe … If I could get 160 done over the weekend, then I would only have to do about 30 a page during the week, and that might mean giving some time toward writing papers too. I’ll have to hassle ourselves over 1 paper or 2. We’re going to read chapters too fast in this book to go per chapter. Hmm, that would mean getting through chapter 10 by the end of tomorrow. Maybe we could make Monday a paper writing day and because the book is 17 chapters or 300 pages … we could be finished with this book on Friday. Wow … we haven’t been reading for a while so the thought of finishing a book is something pretty big to us. Maybe 3-4 hours writing a paper and 6 hours of reading Saturday. If I could do more than 3-4 hours writing a paper and 6 hours of reading on Monday, then I would give myself just two hours on the other 4 days. Hmm, I like that We could try to have a regular reading period the last two hours of the day … Then we could read with Sweetie or without him.

Just have to make sure to stay up. I think that makes sense then to make Saturdays and Mondays reading days. Both writing periods need to come before the reading, right? Yes, that is write … then I would be writing on Monday about 144 pages and Saturday about 168 pages … hmm. Sounds good then about 312 pages a week … on average still need to figure out where the books fall … AND, we gotta remember to pick up one book directly after writing the paper from the last. AND, papers no longer than 3-4 hours. In general that would mean 7-10, 3-6, 10:30-2:30, 6-10

6:00 am to 10 am blog

10:30-2:30 pm write paper

3:00-6:00 read

7:00-10:00 read

Ok, good then it would as a default mean that if Rich were here for any of those periods, we could do as scheduled or accommodate his schedule. DAMM forgot about Ame’s last soccer game. Oh man … where’s my head? HEY YOU!!! Time for the ZOO!

Hehehe did you know that was a rhymer? Ok, get your hair done and out the door with you! Hmm, forgot zoo in the schedule … damn. 3-6 should be zoo, but then how do I get the writing done? Hmm, maybe because we don’t write on Sunday??? That would almost equal out, right? Shoot. Well, we’ll figure it out … let’s not make it an excuse not to get out the door, k? Skadoodle!

posted by Ann Marie @ 6/09/2007 03:52:00 PM Comments: 0