Wednesday, October 25, 2006

If you're a Mac OS X 10.4 user …

and if you work out with music, Tangerine is a nifty free program that analyzes your music collection and spits out each song's beats per minute. This will, of course, allow you to create a playlist that starts with a reasonable tempo, builds to a last-gasp intensity and then slows back down so you can catch your breath in the last five minutes.

Cool!

Now if I could just use my feet again, I'd be all set for the kind of workout I've been wishing for, lo these many months.

Actually, I'm very happy with dj steveboy, but his mixes start and stay at one level. The only Tangerine drawback is that it does not recognize songs purchased through iTunes. As I recall, iTunes music is delivered in some kind of propriety format; there might be a program out there that will convert an iTunes purchase [Audio Hijack, maybe?]. I'll have to try it one of these days.

The days this week have been busy, busy, just like I like them. My list of to-dos is getting shorter.

In order to hem all those pairs of pants, I had to clean off the surface in the guest room where I park the sewing machine. On that surface was a box of white candles that we burned at our party last month. My intention has been to replace the old, burned, dusty candles in our non-working fireplace with these newer ones – a yukky job that I kept postponing. But since we put the trash out on Tuesday, Tuesday was the day to ditch all the old candles.

Kind of like rebuilding the rock wall, cleaning out the fireplace wasn't as awful and didn't take as long as I thought it would. When will I learn?

At any rate, the sewing machine is set up. Five pairs of pants and/or jeans and a skirt are waiting for attention. What do you want to bet that that job won't take all afternoon, either? Heh.

The best thing about all this busy-ness is I'm not indulging in boredom snacking, which is probably my biggest downfall when it comes to food. When I'm in the midst of A Project, I can sail right through mealtime without a single hunger pang – not that it takes a hunger pang to get me to eat, you understand.

I don't even need to create a list of projects. I have yarn, patterns and needles. I have scrapbooking supplies and photos. I have fabric and a sewing machine. I have walls that need to be painted, baseboards that need to be washed, windows that … well, I always have at least one sliding glass door that could use a spritz of Windex.

Each of these options has one thing in common: They need to be started. I've long ago identified that the first step is the one I trip over. When I take a minute to talk myself into starting something, I can just as easily talk myself out of it.

Maybe I need to just shut up and do it.

4 comments:

KarenS said...

I feel like I just had a pep talk :) I am in the same boat with you--so much to do and so many projects that could be crossed off my list if I'd just get moving!! Good luck to us both.

ADasa said...

Just found your Blog & have enjoyed reading it. Congrats on the weight loss. I have a weight loss Blog too if you're interested in checking it out! D

Jennette Fulda said...

Whenever I buy iTunes music I burn it to a CD and then rip MP3s from the CD. Hypothetically there is a bit of data loss, but I haven't noticed it when listening to the songs. iTunes only lets you burn a song to CD 7 or so times though.

Jack Sprat said...

I was at a conference this summer where a speaker made a comment who's inference was, basically, that only losers would actually BUY music from iTunes. If that's true, I'm an incredible loser, because I've purchased several hundred songs from that site. I'm digging around for decryption software (that I can understand) so that I can do more with the songs, as you have.

You should feel good that out there "In the Middle of Nowhere" you are ten times more tech savvy than someone living in the outskirts of Silicon Valley!

-J