Early morning Cat On Your Lap thoughts

[serinde]

I see a clear need for some kind of wall-hanging projection-y thing which can sync with (Google Calendar|iCal|Outlook|whatever), and display whatever's going on today for whomsoever is desired. This way the entire household could have a large obvious place to see the same information. It's sort of filling the same niche as the big eraseable whiteboard calendars, but it would mean you don't have to write out information you already have in a computerized format.

This thought is brought to you by never-ending iterations of "Oh, was that TODAY?" and "did anyone change the catbox?".

And while I'm at it, how about an indexed inventory of my clothes and shoes, so I could say "I want to wear my grey skirt today; what tops will go with it?" And if I then select, e.g., my blue leopard print sweater, I could then get a list of what shoes I'd already determined will work with that combination. Selectable on any element of the outfit, naturally; possibly including jewelry. Previously I hadn't much of a need for this, but with the dual whammies of new work clothes and having to achieve a certain level of Appropriate, a lot of mornings end up with me running late and a giant pile of clothes on the bed as I howl "That doesn't work EITHER!!1". sweh advocated index cards for this. Index cards?! Feh! Are we not the 21st century? I demand an overcomplicated technical solution.

Comments

[must-sew-faster.livejournal.com]

Hmmm...no idea how to do the computerized wall calender, although something along the lines of a digital picture frame seems appropriate. But it would have to be way bigger than what's currently available.

However, Vis a Vis markers, and a white board might do your scheduling. You use the water erase ones for "permanent ones" like drawing the columns, writing the days of the week, changing the cat box, watering the plants, and dry erase stuff for the things that change weekly/daily.

My even lower-tech solution for keeping the kids on schedule is actually a piece of paper in a plastic sheath (aka the character condom) that hangs on the fridge. All the kids' info is on that paper - their school phone numbers, their bus and van numbers, the phone numbers for the schools and transportation, and most importantly, what days they have gym and library and speech therapy.

As for the getting dressed for work, probably your best solution is to block out some time on Sunday (or Saturday) and actually assemble your whole outfits for the week, down to the stockings/shoes and jewelry. Hang them in the closet that way.
If you have to share shoes between outfits, you could always attach a post-it note with which shoes go with the outfit.

To keep track of your options, you could take a digital photo of your completed outfits and slip that into plastic sheath and put that into binder. List the components of the outfit on the side. That way you would always have an appropriate choice, and you'd know when you had to replace certain items as they became worn out, etc.

[syringavulgaris.livejournal.com]

I did try and use a whiteboard for chore scheduling at one point. This utterly failed to work, in a failure mode that was half not-being-looked-at and half not-being-updated. Sigh.

My attempts to pre-plan outfits have often stumbled over this ritual: I'll decide the night before "I'll wear this blouse with those slacks", and then in the morning I'll decide I don't want to wear that at all, and Ensue Fashion Crisis. If I have more outfits defined, the ensuing fashion crisis should be of much shorter duration. In theory.

[rainbear.livejournal.com]

Actually..

Here's a 15 inch photoframe... (http://www.thinkgeek.com/electronics/cameras/96a6/). They even have ones that accept *email* input! (Though not at 15" across...)

But that's ok. Soon we'll have flying cars and robots to do our housework! :)

[must-sew-faster.livejournal.com]

*snort* I want my rocket pack!

Really, when more people can actually parallel park, then we'll see about the flying cars. If they can't navigate in essentially 2 dimensions, then they ain't allowed to try it in 3.

As for the cleaning robot, I remember a few years ago when my beloved sister-in-law bought a Roomba to keep her floors clean.
She has 4 children, all under the age of 8.
Roomba died a horrid death; we're not sure whether it was sucking up the baby sock that did it, or if it just got overwhelmed by the dirt from the backyard that never drained and just gave up the ghost. It hid under some furniture for a while, then made a brake for the patio door, but then got sidelined by a toddler, and BOOM, it was all over for Roomba. My brother could care less about the state of the floor, so Roomba is still dead.

Schedules only work if people look at them. You could probably put a an electric bill board up in every kitchen in America, and some people will still ignore it.

The best punishment for not looking at a schedule is when someone ends up not getting a ride, or getting locked out. But that only works when you are the adult in charge, and they are the child/teen that can't drive. Ask the foreign exchange student who came in at 1 in the morning and then forgot her key how cold it was sleeping in the van overnight in March.