Lookest upon my face. Am'st I bovver'Ed?

The answer to that would be yes. Because a week or so ago, Yahoo lost thousands of contact details, of which I was one, and I've been spending far too much time resetting passwords, coming up with ever newer and longer ones, and then forgetting what I changed them to at every turn and having to change them again. AND THEN! Today I get an email saying my eBay account has been hacked, and when I go to change the password there (which I'm pretty sure I already changed, but whatevs, maybe I missed it), I can't even check in because my presets have all been changed and I don't know the answers to the security questions anymore. I try calling, but the weather is bad and it won't connect. eBay has no accessible email anymore. So I started a new account on a different email address, and I'm going to have to just trust for now that my account will stay locked. I'm not pleased. This is not what I need. I'm not happy.

Moving Countdown: T-minus ten days

One of the weirdest things about packing all of my things up in a huge storage crate is trying to decide what I'll need and what I won't. It gets pretty existential, sometimes--who will I be in six months, when I get all my stuff out of storage? Who will I be in the meantime, and what will I need that shouldn't be locked away? It's sort of like when I first went to college. I'm pretty sure I'm taking less stuff then I did then. I'm also pretty sure I have less stuff in general than I had then. And like I was then, I'm walking this line between stuff I want to take with me and things I really need to take with, and making the decisions on an item-by-item basis. I'm not taking any of my furniture. I'll have a bed to sleep on, and everything else is already there. I'm taking my computer, but none of my appliances. I'm not taking any crafting stuff except my embroidery box; everything else, I can get new if I need it, and my main crafting I foresee is going to be making nail polish*, and all those ingredients haven't been bought yet. I'm not taking any winter stuff because it takes up too much space, so I'll probably have to get a new coat, and maybe some new heavier clothes. I am taking my bedding, and most of my daily-wear clothes. Only some of my shoes. All my jewelry, makeup and hair stuff. Very few of my tchotchkes. Almost none of my old writing or all those piles of files containing it. Only books I have to read for school or review. None of my cookbooks. It's scary, on one hand, because I feel like everything I have left after the last few moves is stuff I actually need or love, and I feel like I'll need it now, even though I don't have anywhere to put it. On the other hand, it's pretty freeing, and I know from traveling that I can do fine on very little--and, I mean, I'm staying with family, so it's not going to be nearly as self-sufficiency-needing as living out of suitcases in hotel rooms. I'm just so conflicted on the whole thing. I don't want to move, but there's not enough keeping me here (and none of the big things like a job) to be stubborn about it. And I always did say that my next move had to be a move out of state, so there you go. And hopefully, at the end of this whole rigmarole, I'll have a place of my own, an new job, and a decent start on a new, less isolated life. How are you handling change? I'm not good at it, but I'm working on it, and I'd love to hear about your trials and tribulations and how you do it. *See incidentaltwin.blogspot.com for updates on that!

List: Six Word Happiness

Over on Mom101 (http://www.mom-101.com/2012/07/a_few_words_on_happiness)* right now, she's been talking to Gretchen Rubin of the Happiness Project, who is one of my favorite people. And they've been talking about the gs that make you uniquely happy--and saying them in six words or less. So here's my list of six words or less happiness-nuggets:

 -Having a stack of new books.
-Starting a new book.
-Reading a whole book at once.
-seeing movies at the theatre.
-Seeing old friends without catching up**.
-A whole pot of good tea.
-Eating expensive chocolate, slowly.
-the smell of dirt after rain.
-Tiny baby kittens doing anything.
-Kitty-snuggles when I'm napping.
-Sleeping whenever I'm tired.
-Watching tv shows I love.
-Geeking put for hours with friends.
-Listing things.
-When writing is going well.
-going through a new airport.
-Hearing my earrings jingle at me.
-Cooking with friends.
-perusing bookshelves for hours.
-Being noticed by people I admire.
-Surprising people with something I say.
-Hugs. -finding out that people smell nice.
-Finding roses in unexpected places.
-Feeling textures things.
-Getting a perfectly-fitted pair of shoes.
-skits that swish around my ankles.
-A perfectly executed RomCom.
-Watching shows about deep space.
-Perfect cool days.
-Dozing during thunderstorms.
-Daydreaming.
-Being somewhere new.
-Standing on top of hills.
-Skinnydping at night, under full moons.
-Being in a group of kindred.
-After delivering a presentation, the rush.
-Seeing my name in print.
-When babies smile at me.

 I could probably go on. In fact, I probably will, at some point, but I think you get the hint. What makes your list, in six words or less?

 *Please forgive all the nonlinked links--my comp died and I've been updating from the iPad, which has limited features, none of which are hyperlinking, and I can't seem to get the app to post anything. ::sigh::
**as in, just picking up where we left off as if we'd never been away.

What to do when you don't know what to do.

I'm not good with change. I'm like a cat, like that--I've never been good with change. I think it's because I have such a hard time maintaining balance that when something happens that knocks that balance, it's too easy to just topple all the way over, and lose track of my whole life. I'm in the processor moving. I've never had to be the one totally in control of stuff before, and while I intellectually understand that I need to learn to be active and in charge, that I can't just spend my whole life waiting on someone to do stuff for me, I really don't like it. Here's what's not really a secret, because I feel like I talk about it all the time: I'm almost dysfunctionally right-brained. This is great for when I have to write a novel* or when I have to develop a method for being inspired all the time**, but it means that things that require a left-brain have always been rough on me, and my coping mechanisms aren't always all that effective. Things have to make sense to me the way they make sense to me, and that means, sometimes, a long way around. For instance. It took me almost two weeks to get the moving crate because 1) I had to spend a few days getting my head around the idea, 2) I had to also spend those days researching so that I had a foundation of basic understanding to work from and to ask the right questions from, and 3) because I had to take a day or two off in the middle because of panic attacks after the first one had to be cancelled and I was back at square one. This is maybe not that sharp an example, but it feels like one: I couldn't have done the scheduling without taking a while to get my brain to accept that I needed to do this thing in a specific order and I needed to get these specific bits of information lined up and integrated, and I needed to know what I was doing before I could even think of just calling strangers out of the blue. And along the way, I had a lot of self-defensive daydreaming, sleeping, and worrying. And I think I may have decided to design and patent furniture that negates the need for packing. So here's what I've learned: - if you're an introvert, being dropped I to a situation where you have to be in control and have to handle a lot of stressful things is going to really suck. - if you don't know something, you need to figure out what it is you don't know, and get some of that info into you head, so you can know. - being an adult is something that needs a whole lot of work on how it's done. And the big answer to the question of what you should do when you don't know what to do? Action. Whatever action you are capable of doing. For me, it's researching, getting to know what I don't know so that I can then go and do what I need to do. Maybe for you, it's just setting out and doing, and learnig along the way. But either way, do it, and all doing is of the same value once you've gotten stuff done. So long as you get stuff done. How do you decide what your next step is when you've run off the rails and don't have a plan? *Which I am doing. Check out my writing blog at http://herdingthedragon.blogspot.com to hear more about it! **Which I'm also doing, based on a really scary teaching module that I actually really liked thinking about. I'm in brainstorming stages now, and sometime after the move, I'm going to start work on an ebook.