What I learned this week:

A frog a day keeps procrastination away. Or something like that. I recently enjoyed lunch with a friend, and she shared with me a book that has helped her, a blogger and writer, accomplish more and procrastinate less. The book is Eat That Frog! by Brian Tracy. The frog eating relates to Mark Twain's wisdom noting that if the first thing you do each day is eat a live frog, it's likely the worst thing that will happen all day. Tracy uses "eat that frog" as a metaphor for getting your most challenging task of the day out of the way first and the rest will come more easily. I bought the book. I drank the Kool-Aid. This week I began gobbling frogs daily. While they don't taste too bad, the difference they make remains to be determined. Stay tuned.

Facebook connections matter. It's easy to be blasé about the significance of social media in our lives... until you lose a connection that did in fact matter far more than suspected. I lost a connection with a loved one this week without one whit of notification. It hurt significantly. All is better now. Sucky day, sucky lesson. Bottom line: Facebook connections with IRL face-to-face connections do matter. Surprisingly so.

Another book to covet. No matter how many books I have, I always want more, more, more. This week I learned Alice Hoffman just released The Museum of Extraordinary Things. I love the magical books by Alice Hoffman. I have no doubt I will love this one. When I get it. Which I hope is soon.

Counting calories counts. My oldest daughter and I have renewed (again) our efforts to get into shape, and we're doing it together with the help of the LoseIt! app. We count our calories in, our calories out, and we share daily reports on how we're doing. If I continue to do as well as I have the past four days (the first day, Sunday, was atrocious...lesson learned!), I'll be in far better shape by the end of May. I'm counting on that — and counting on Brianna and LoseIt! to help me succeed this time.

I can't do situps to save my life. As part of our slim down/shape up effort, Brianna invited me to join a LoseIt! "challenge" in which you must do pushups, squats and situps. A circuit that increases in number daily. I can do pushups. I can — and do — do squats. Situps? Forget it. But I can — and do — Just Dance. Perhaps my new moves on the family room dance floor (moves that have earned me the designation "creative" attached to my game profile) will make up for my inability to do the the situp moves. Maybe?

Today's question:

What did you learn this week?