I love spreadsheets

I love spreadsheets.* Some of my earliest memories (happy ones) are of my father teaching me how to use Lotus123.

I have on my home computer a spreadsheet to balance my checkbook and track my finances, a spreadsheet to track what meals I've cooked recently and what my partner and I like to eat together, and a spreadsheet to track what toys I've recently put into my birds' cages. I'd keep track of my workout activities in a spreadsheet if there wasn't a spot on my fertility charts for that. Speaking of charting, even though my fertility charting is done on paper, it's very spreadsheet-like: that's probably one of the reasons I love fertility awareness so much.

I also have a spreadsheet to estimate how much it would cost us to have child. While in general the costs don't phase me, the daycare expense for me to work part-time is mind-boggling. Since my partner hasn't been convinced we should have a child, it helps to keep that expense mind if I need to fight off baby fever.

At work, I am the go-to person for questions about using Excel. I've converted a few important company documents from Word into Excel and have my eye on a few more. It's amazing how one type of software program can have a positive impact on so many areas of my life.


*I really wanted to title this post "I love Excel". It's just so much more catchy, and for most people probably a more familiar name for this product. But even aside from my fond memories of Lotus123, I use OpenOffice software at home, not Excel.