Week 5 in Review

Every once in a while I need to devote time to leisure, to recharge my passion, to connect with my partner, to remind me why I am putting in such long hours right now. Last week was one of those times, while I am behind in every class, I now have the perspective and energy I was missing. We touch on this in CRL as a way to increase creativity, but also for productivity and longevity. While it was not as re-creating as a vacation it was the mid-mark of the term.

Before I get into my new computer pattern, let me share a little I learned about apples this weekend. First, 60#'s make 3 1/2 gallons of juice. At $0.39 per pound it is about equal to buying store bought at $8 a gallon, not counting your time or renting a press. Jarring apple sauce takes 2 hours peeling to top popping of jars. At $0.79 a pound plus cinnamon, nutmeg, sugar, gas, and water I have no idea of the cost, but fun. Peeling, slicing, boiling, and freezing apples for pies this winter will more than pay for itself when I get an apple pie a month all winter long.

This past week I helped a friend and co-worker set up their new MacBook Pro and installed Snow Leopard on my own computer. This motivated a large fall cleaning and organization of files, the old Firefox bookmarks, unused add-on's, new suggested ad-on's, deleting of unused applications, the shift from Microsoft Office to iWork, and thanks to Snow Leopard a new battery (covered by the battery warranty).  Online I added Google tasks and voice into the mix, linked twitter to blogger, discovered Google Reader to blogger (which helps add extra depth to the BEAT, a concern I have had), and organized my Reader so I can click files for multiple reading labels.

All this background work makes me feel like I have both a new computer but also a fresh cup of coffee when I sit down in front of it. Hot and ready to go.