What I Learned in February 2020

February was kind of a wash for me in many ways, and apparently learning was one of those ways. I don't feel like I learned very much this month. (Or maybe I did, and it fogged right back out with the cold meds.) It may not be much to offer, but here were the few things I did pick up throughout the month.

1. Elvis was only 42 when he died.

I know it was a different era, but when I think about pictures I've seen of Elvis toward the end of his life, he always looked much, much older to me than 42. Anyone else think that? (Maybe I'm just in denial about what 42 looks like, since I'm about to be 42.) When Ryan and I spoke at the Valentine's banquet earlier this month, the entertainer for the evening did some oldies love songs, including an Elvis collection. He was the one who taught me this information, which promptly blew my mind for the rest of the night.

2. Our dryer has an enhanced touch-up setting. 

Ryan's cousin, Kevin, is on the maintenance crew at our church, so he and I hang out and shoot the breeze many times a week. In one such random conversation, we talked about our mutual disdain for ironing, and he told me about a setting on his dryer called enhanced touch-up. He said the dryer has a water line attached, so steam feeds into it and helps cut out wrinkles - and odors, too. (He's also a full time firefighter, so coming home with smoky smelling clothing is a regular thing for him.) I told him that sounded like a great feature, and I wished we had it.

Guess what?

WE DO!!!

I came home and looked at our dryer just for funsies, and right there it was! Enhanced touch-up. We've owned this dryer almost four years and NEVER KNEW THIS. (In our defense, the washer and dryer came with the house, so we didn't really research their capabilities.)

3. You can increase the speed of your YouTube videos.

Okay, so maybe I'm the last person on earth to know this one, and if so, just smile, pat my head, and move on to #4. Abagail (the one I'm filling in for at the church) sent me a YouTube video to watch this week. It's podcast-style, and I sat down to watch it, but it was 44 minutes long! I didn't have enough time to watch it then, so I told her I'd have to watch it later. She told me she usually speeds them up to watch them.

Wait. What??

She told me in the settings for the videos, you can speed them up, so she finds a faster speed that's still understandable and watches videos that way to maximize her time.

Who knew????

4. Lightning strikes can begin at the ground and go up. 

On our day of fun at home, Ryan and I watched some episodes of Dirty Jobs. In one of them, Mike was helping a guy install a bunch of lightning rods on a property, so they were talking about all things lightning. I confess I wasn't paying super close attention, but I did hear them say that lightning strikes can start at the ground and go up. I had no idea. I thought they always came out of the clouds! I looked it up, and indeed it seems to be true! I'd have to do much more research on this one to feel completely educated on it, but I still learned a little something.

***

And now, in the land of accountability for February...

I confess I was nearly as much of a failure in my February goals as I was in learning things. Ryan was sick the first couple of weeks of the month, and I was sick through the middle of the month, so I sort of lost my motivation to do anything besides sleep.

My exercise and eating habits were mostly terrible, but I confess those to you as a side point, because I didn't officially have those on my list of goals for February. Here's what did (and did not) happen this month.

* Finish the details for my/our upcoming speaking engagements.

My day in the ski lodge (on February 1) was my main prep day for these events. I spent almost that entire day writing and tweaking for our February speaking engagement (at the Valentine's Banquet) and the retreat I'm speaking at in March. I spent more time on them here and there throughout the month, and I felt pretty good about what I accomplished! I will add that working full time makes this a whole different adventure. I'm used to being able to devote multiple days at a time to these opportunities, but I've had to find a new way to manage the time.

* Archive two more months of old blog posts. 
I barely got this one done, but I did! I archived one month's worth right at the beginning of February, lost the bulk of the month, and did the second month's worth just this week. I did find a few good treasures of stories in there! I'd completely forgotten about some of them! (Another reason I love blogging.)

* Work on our closet!

Well...there's always tomorrow, right? We did look into pricing some closet organizers when we were at IKEA this month, but that project will have to be down the road a bit. (Still fun to dream!) Because of feeling so lousy so much this month, we did not get the closet cleaned, but I really do hope to work on it tomorrow while Ryan works on the bathroom. Since tomorrow is the last day of the month, I could yet accomplish this goal! (Please note that the closet in the photo is an IKEA store model and not our actual closet.)

* Finish the Atlanta scrapbook. 

This was a January goal that ended up being deferred, because I had to use January to hurry through a couple of other BIG albums, so I could order them on a sale. I'm quite happy to report that in February, I did finish that Atlanta scrapbook and I stayed current on my 2020 chronological book. I'm happy to mark this one off my to-do list, and now I can work toward another book!

* Enjoy two more at-home dates. 

Well, thanks to our sickness, this one was a fail. I actually have one planned for tonight, but that will be the only one we squeezed into our February. We just didn't feel like doing much this month on the nights we were home, because we were trying to rest, get well, and conserve energy for the nights we had plans to be other places.

Even though this was a list-fail, I will say that we had some really wonderful outside-of-home dates this month, and we did really enjoy being together on the nights we were home, even if we were not feeling well and not enjoying a planned date.

* Work on vacation planning.

Yes! I did this! We have dates planned out for our first trip of 2020, and I have started my research on places to stay and things to do while we're gone. I have far to go in laying it all out, but I'm so happy to have the first steps completed! (It's always exciting to know where we're going and be able to be specific in my dreaming.)