Anyway, I started working on it just before New Year's and I continue to slug away at it. I'm trying to bring my home electronic environment into the 21st Century. This involves a number of sub-goals:

1) Acquire a laptop and figure out how to use it. Check.
2) Get a working wireless network up in the house (so the laptop will be useful). Check
3) Figure out how to log in to work from home, using the laptop (I don't want to use my main computer for that). Check.
4) Replace the antiquated heap of interconnected TV-related equipment with a single TV that will still work after analog TV goes away and show a High Definition picture when appropriate. Check
5) Figure out how to record incoming TV shows on the new equipment (and play them back) Check.
6) Figure out how to record HIGH-DEF TV shows on the new equipment. [haven't tried burning a DVD yet].
7) Figure out how to burn VHS tapes to DVD [new player should do that, but haven't tried it yet]
8) Figure out a way to watch streaming video from Netflix on new TV [under investigation]
9) Call Qwest and get my DSL speed upgraded (so streaming video makes sense). [not yet]
10) Sort the old electronics into piles of stuff that works and stuff that doesn't [working on it]
11) Get rid of the stuff that I don't need anymore, whether working or non-working.  [dependent on #10]
12) Burn all the old VHS tapes that we still care about to DVD.  [not yet]
13) Give away or sell the old VHS tapes.  [dependent on #12]
14) Clean and rearrange the office and the attic in accordance with the New Regime [in progress].

I think I have managed to do at least one thing from my list each day so far, and I checked off 3 or 4 on Saturday.

The biggest weekend accomplishment was dealing with The Sock Problem. You know... socks get bigger or smaller or just disappear completely (but always one sock at a time, never in pairs). You buy new socks to replace the baggy ones you never wear anymore, but never get around to getting rid of the old ones. And who hasn't known the heartbreak of the mysteriously orphaned sock? When do you finally accept that the other one isn't coming back and throw away the orphan? For some of us, the answer is NEVER. So I had a hamper full of single socks whose mates were sure to turn up in the next wash, and another hamper full of pairs of socks because I had way too many to fit in my sock drawer. I dealt with this whole issue by going to The Gap and buying 20 new pairs of socks. No, really. Once I had the socks I felt I needed (a whole bunch of tall boot socks and a handful of light-weight but warm dress socks) I could throw out all those marginal ones I'd been afraid to let go of.

Then I made a great discovery: a bunch of empty drawers! Yes, indeed, the little chest of drawers in the closet of the room we still call Amber's Room had nothing in it. Now it has 3 drawers full of carefully sorted and folded socks. Today I am wearing some really cool black socks with silvery bats flying around on them. They are just the type of sock I like: close fitting but slightly wooly, and they don't fall down. They aren't new; I just saw them for the first time in months when I got near the bottom of the sock hamper.

I also balanced my checkbook for the last 2 months, deposited 3 checks, paid off my credit card balance online, mended some little holes in a favorite shirt, emailed my mother and sister, and bought a new Franklin Planner.

Yesterday's accomplishment was less than spectacular, but it was something I had been putting off. I finally took down last year's 12-month wall calendar and put up the new one in my cubicle at work.

Today I called my hairdresser and made an appointment to get my hair cut. Okay, it's not much, but I'm still emotionally exhausted from the sock purge.