6-6-11 11:54 a.m. Groceries, Dates, and Nails

Hello dear friends! While my postings were held hostage by an evil Internet troll, I went out looking for great resources to come back and share with you. Here are a few - hopefully some will interest you or someone you know:

Groceries: On-line shopping offers more than meets the eye. First of all, King Sooper's offers on-line grocery ordering here in Loveland. For a fee of $10.00 (waved for your first trial) they'll deliver your food to your kitchen counter. That may sound like a lot of money to pay someone for simply bringing in sacks of groceries. Here's what else it's paying for:

Let's say the store manager rearranges products on the shelves. With on-line shopping, some other poor sod hunts for your favorite, now relocated food item. Let's say the store tries to market to you by placing things you wouldn't normally buy right at eye-level. Or maybe they try to sell you 10 of something for $10.00, something which wasn't even on your list. Or maybe they try to market to your kids, thinking that you'll only put up with so much whining before that item lands in your cart. Slave-to-marketing no more! When someone else picks out your victuals, you get to enjoy looking at your flower garden, rather than resisting so much temptation in the grocery isles.

And about that individual picking out your groceries: his or her job performance at least partially depends on selecting exactly the items you specify in your order. I mean, down to the brand, type, weight, and measure. You can even specify things like "Please choose the greenest bananas available." I've given directions for listening for hollow melons, and sitting on my kitchen counter, this very moment, are some hollow-sounding melons. Depending on how trusting you feel, you can even specify to allow for substitutions. Otherwise, if the store is out of stock, you won't see the item in your purchase. Talk about control. Now, when I plan to spend $100.00 for a week's-worth of food, that's exactly what I spend, and not a penny more.

From a fuel-efficiency standpoint, what could be more efficient than grocery-deliver? Instead of those of us ordering, all making separate individual trips to and from the store, one delivery truck travels from the store to several points in sequence, and returns to the store in a single trip. Saves gas, my car from grocery cart dings, and those of us waiting at home for our food are happily going about our lives rather than negotiating crowded food isles. Yes, they honor my coupons. Yes, they honor my Sooper's card. Yes, I think on-line groceries are the next-best thing since sliced bread!

On to dates. We recently experienced the rare opportunity of having Anne spend the night away from home at a friend's house. Time for a date! We went to our old favorite Japanese restaurant, only to find that the owners had changed hands. So there we sat, water and pickled cucumbers sitting on the table, quietly expecting us to place a dinner order when it hit me: we'd not signed a contract, we'd simply been seated. We could order just an appetizer, and then go! Yes, you can get up without ordering, yet how to do that without making someone feel badly, or causing a scene? So after our beef negimaki we trolled for a meal elsewhere. Dinner was found at a trendy new cafe, and then dessert came to us from the basement of a very fancy hotel, speakeasy style. By the end of the night we'd patronized three different spots. Yes, we paid a bit more. Yes, we burned a bit more gas. Over-all, however, we felt elated. The night had been ours. We'd made it our own, and loved every minute of it! (When you get out as infrequently as us, a good date feels like a vacation.)

Nails. Have you had yours done lately? How do you feel about drills? Ever heard of shellac? Creative Nail Designs now offers a new technology in nails. You can apply it at home, they last like professional nails, and all at about a tenth of the cost. The longer you use your system at home, the lower the cost-per-use sinks. You need a CND UV lamp, base and top coats, the nail prep. liquid (I swear it seems a lot like alcohol), and whatever colour you choose. Lastly, you'll need nail wraps to take the shellac off after about two weeks. So, to re-cap: Professional-looking, long-lasting, non-polish, low-cost manicures. I'll do them myself, thanks! (p.s. amazon.com offers the products on-line. If there's another source, it's news to me. Local beauty-supply stores told me I need a license to buy this stuff, yet it can be bought on-line.)

OK, and may I add just one more little tid-bit? A couple of years ago we gave up our cable. It cost too much money to sit in front of the television switching channels to pay for this so-called "service". Then we signed up for Netflix, hoping to more purposefully spend time in front of the "idiot box" as my Mother's so fond of calling it. Then our monthly fee jumped, because I now realize, we were using the mail. For only about $10.00 per month, we can watch any instant "play now" offerings they make available. Needless to say, penny-pincher's that we are, we made the switch. So far, we're happy. Plus, this new routine has me thinking about Internet television, which I know is a growing force in the media-entertainment market.

Well, good friends, there they are, my latest finds. Harold is still adjusting to less time wondering the ketchup isle, and yet...he has yet to leap off the couch declaring a craving to run out and get groceries. Anne has all the television programming we'll allow her to watch, we're having more fun on our dates, an my nails look so nice! While not the keys to happiness, these little finds give us more choices about how we spend our time. In my opinion, that's resource accumulation.

6-6-11 11:53 a.m TEST BLOG

Ok, enough of typing and posting to no avail. This is a TEST post!

5-11-11 6:19 pm Sometimes Ya Just Gotta Have Faith

Thanks to some caring friends and co-workers, I held it together today. It's tough wondering about my future employment. Ironically I hurt, even though those who care about me reassure me. They're looking out for me. They tell me so, and I feel their love. The result is that I feel less lonely, a luxury to be sure. Still, it's painful to worry about the state of my career when I love what I do and the people with whom I work, so very much.

So, it was a busy day, attending to tasks, walking the halls sans tears, and teaching. Stopping off at church to pick up music to sing at next Sunday's service felt like a hastle on my list. I had to just make myself do it. We went the measly one mile out of our way, fiddled with the locks, picked up the music, and wound our way home.

The bath was necessary. Starting the laundry, a good idea. Yet I had to force myself to look the songs. Plunking out their notes on the keyboard felt like a Herculean effort. Slowly the notes began to come together. Melodies revealed themselves. "I Know that My Redeemer Lives" is actually a pretty cool hymn.

And now it's repeating in my mind. And it's making me feel better. Maybe the trip to church was divine intervention. I'm so glad I stopped to pick up that music.

5-9-11 5:30 am Mindfulness for a Child's Soul

Feeding a child's soul. It's easy. And easily forgotten. Kids need guidance, and mindfulness. Who of us knows what makes us happy, until we intentionally explore that question? For me and so many of my friends, this search begins sometime after childhood ends. Why the long delay?

Our children busy themselves trying to earn, retain, or confirm our love. Rich or poor, I see it all the time. They try to please us, even when we fear their rebellion. When in their day, at what time, do they feel free to explore their own joy?

Yesterday was Mother's Day. Harold concocted a lovely steak dinner, followed by a delightful desert of strawberries with chocolate fondue. In the space between dinner and desert, I asked Anne to clear the table. After all, Mother's Day requires I do nothing, yet feel pleased by everything. The pressure of that - it's another topic. Back to the table: Rather than put everything away, I wished for Anne to simply remove dinner items from our eating surface to make room for desert treats. I love feeling honored, and yet, I also felt ready for things to return to normal. I wanted to get on with it.

First came her plate. After bringing it to the counter she began asking for containers in which to store left-overs.

"For now, sweetheart, please just clear. We'll put away later."

"Oh! Sorry!" she begged.

Then came the butter tray. She also brought it over to the counter, began looking for the cover, found it, and placed it by the fridge.

"Anne, please, for now we're just removing items from the table. Please just leave them on the counter and we'll take care of them later."

"Oh! Right!" followed by a smile, again, asking forgiveness.

The last straw was her father's plate. She took it to the trash, and began scraping.

Her body began to visibly tighten. She felt frantic to me. Instead of a simple matter of listening and responding, it became something else entirely. And I began to worry, for the millionth time, for her soul. Her core. Her state-of-being.

When she appears to be checked out in this way, somewhat unresponsive, somewhere inside of herself she's shutting down. Worry takes over and her physiological response puts her amigdula in flight. She becomes unresponsive. The adult (thankfully not always me!) becomes frustrated, and the downward spiral beings.

She wanted to do right. It was Mother's Day. Somewhere in her mind the poisonous idea lurked: Mom must be entirely pleased, at every moment, with me and everything I do, all day and all evening long on this most special day of her year. Try living up to that one! A recipe for disaster for us both, indeed. So, the very second she sensed that I felt anything other than ultimate gratitude for her efforts at clearing the table, some part of her system felt...shock? shame? worry? Does it matter? Whatever she felt, it sent her amigdula into flight and she became unresponsive.

Trapped in my chair, unable to clean up myself, since after all, it was Mother's Day, my only recourse seemed analysis.

"Anne, what's going on? Even though I keep asking you to simply remove things from the table, and leave actually putting them away for later, you keep putting things away."

And then Harold wanted to know why things felt "tense". More gentle questioning from me, more introspection for Anne, time, search for strategies rather than blame, all those ingredients combined in some proportion to let us move on to the strawberries. Eventually.

We got there. She allowed as how maybe she wasn't responding. Honestly, the final resolution eludes me now. And truly, it's secondary.

Dirty dishes be damned! Messy counters will wait. What I want is for my daughter to know herself. I want her to better know herself so she can better care for the lovely being that she is. I want her to know herself so that she can experience love. She deserves to acquire, retain, and regularly use the skill of caring for herself. To me, her self awareness and care might look like this:

- If she knows that her chest is tightening, she notices, and tells herself to breathe more slowly.
- When her mind begins to race, she sees observes the speed and slow down.
- If she feels disappointed, she conciously decides tocreate something to which she can look forward.

It's soul care. Care for her core. Self-awareness. She can learn to sew, cook, change the oil, and write a resume. Yet, what good is any of that if she fails to care for her core being in this critical way?

So, the questioning begins:

"How do you feel?" I ask her a lot. Happy, sad, either way I ask the same questions. "How does your tummy feel? Your head? Your chest? What might you notice about your body right now?" It's important to me that she note the differences in her physical state. When she takes a moment to check in with herself, the next step becomes obvious. She knows what to do once she realizes how she feels, physically. It's more a matter of taking the time to figure out that critical piece, to answer that critical question: "What is my body telling me right now?" It's mindfulness.

5-4-11 5:27 pm Recipe: Happiness

OK, there's a formula, at least for me, and here it is:

In equal parts:

Comfort (physical)
Purpose (raison d'etre)
Say (input)

Make sure each exist in every moment of life. When one comes up short, the others only make up for so much. Each ingredient requires its own measure. When I address each one, good results occur. I snack less, my patience increases, and I and others know me better.

We all set out to experience a good day. And those of us with initiatives, be they to smile more or smoke less, feel both some excitement and perhaps even some pressure to live up to our hopes and dreams. And then the day unfolds.

Sometimes the folds feel bumpy, or down-right puncturing. Someone comments "You look tired", and even if they maybe meant, hey, how are you?, it feels like: you look awful!

So. Apply the recipe. Comfort? Check, hopefully. Purpose? Check, hopefully. Say? Who knows, and yet sometimes when others make comments about me, I take it as truth. No say. Time to act. It's time to have say.

Different verbal responses elicit a variety of things. "Oh man, bad make-up day for me!" which may bring the commenter to his or her knees with apologies, or a laugh for you both. It sheds light, however, on the bleeding obvious: Don't judge a book by its cover.

"Yes, I feel tired" could win you some help, which may be a good thing. This is a "thanks for recognizing my needs" response. Something about that feels uncomfortable to me, and I think it may have to do with uncertainty. Occasionally I like it when others notice I need support. I want to decide when I ask for help much of the time. Ultimately I think there's a better way to offer help than commenting on one's deficiencies, like: "I have some extra time, would you like any help?" Offer devoid of judgement. Safe. It invites the possibly tired one to have say. That's a true gift.

Another alternative response: "Darn, I was going for 'Goth'!" certainly leaves room for a good belly-laugh. This one assumes that the original commenter can swing with verbal punches. Really, the "you look tired" comment carries its own assumptions so the 'goth' comment feels dangerously 'tit-for-tat' to me. However, if it really seems time for a wake-up call to the commenter, it is at least a fun way to do it. After all, it take care of one-tenth of our daily healthy dose of laughter, maximizing both parties' DNA potential. That's good for everyone!

"Ouch", my favorite for conveying the message: hey, if you don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all. In the end, what's said may matter less than taking time to realize that someone else's label for me may not be true. In order for me to have that magic ingredient "say", I need to take time to decide what message I want to share, and then how best to share it. I need to take time to have say, or the other person may just go around making that sort of comment, thinking it's fine.

We all feel passion of one kind or another, I think, throughout the day. The magic in sharing ourselves reveals itself by taking time to reveal ourselves with tact and intelligence, intentionally. For me, the burying of that passion stifles. Oppression, anger, resentment all build and suddenly I'm avoiding certain people. That's when I start feeling boxed in, and then that filth just smears itself all over the rest of my life.

Instead, I need to have say. Comfort and purpose I can do. It's having say and sharing it that feels scary. And yet, the more I talk, the more I have my say, the more love I share with others. We all really do need to know how to talk to one another. It's an art and a science.

We're all teachers. Even those of us who pursue other professions, we're all teachers when we take time to learn about ourselves, and then teach others, overtly and with kindness. I'm looking forward to tomorrow.

4-29-11 4:49 pm Weeds, Bicycles, and Love

Weeding: a metaphor for having say in my life. The plants for which I leave room in my garden result from my own selection. Instead of dandelions, I see tulips. Instead of crab grass, I see an open space where we'll someday put a patio. The design stems from intention, regardless of the seeds wind plants on our property.

And I can weed that for which I wish to leave less room, out of my life with relative success. When I pack up and leave at the end of my contract day, it affords more time to spend with Anne. When I tell someone I need to set up a time to meet with them rather than attending to each professional the moment they seek me out, it leaves room for me to prioritize. Intentional decisions about how to spend time affords needed time for important things. It lets me plan. It lets me thoughtfully approach and attend to projects and tasks. The act of decision-making is a renewable resource, whose only charge is the degree of courage it may take to set boundaries. And like weeding, I can do it any time.

Intentionality. It's conscious planning. And it's a huge resource. Yesterday Harold took us out for a spin on our new bikes. He later told me that the idea occurred on his drive home, inspired by the weather and available daylight.

"I wanted to see you on that new bike again. You looked so happy on your first ride home with it the other day, and the weather's been bad. It's been too long, so I wanted to take advantage of the opportunity." -(or something very close to that.)

He wanted to see me as happy again on my new bike as the first day we brought it home. And his intentional planning paid off. I felt on top of the world, simply riding around a few blocks in our neighborhood. The ride felt smooth and comfortable. My body felt safe and relaxed, whereas on the mountain bike I felt neither. We gazed around at the spring lawns and the homes to which they belonged. And I offered him the comment "I'm having at least as much fun as skiing. Maybe more." After all, our neighborhood roll was lift-ticket free, required no transport of equipment before use, and without commute. We simply hopped on and went. Delightful.

Even sweeter was Harold's wish for my happiness, intentionally materialized into fruition, and truly savoured. I felt love. His caring act of thought, intention, and action, into such a simple pleasure held it's own beauty, quite apart from the love I felt from him. Huge deposit into the "love-account".

When we first married, we may both have projected that an enduring union involved escalating degrees of tolerance. Quick to add, we were, that our overwhelming love for one another would easily make up for it. Not so, at least I've found. We're both fairly insistent about getting our needs met, and tolerate a fairly small margin of inconvenience from one another to that end. It may be less about virtue, and more about fear.

"How can you leave dirty dishes the sink, when you know I need to make my lunch before leaving for work in the morning?" It's more about "don't you care about me?" and less about "the straw that broke the camel's back". So our marriage's longevity so far seems to benefit from looking at what needs caring for more than what can be tolerated.

Harold hates it when I leave the garage open. We have valuable stuff in there, and our garage has been robbed before. He has a valid point about closing, and even locking the door. I, on the other hand, have to heave that beast with all my might in order to slide it open. "Inconvenient" barely touches describing it, for me. So, I agree to keep it closed, and he agrees to open it for me. And we do a fair amount of simply leaving the cars in the driveway.

That sort of recognition and honoring one another's needs makes up part of the maintenance. Another piece more represents theory behind "love languages". When we can identify what brings happiness to one another, and then show a desire to create those situations, we're saying with actions (speaking, of course, louder than words), "I love you. I want you to be happy, and I know this brings you joy, so I'm doing what I can to bring that circumstance into your life."

So, when Harold took me out on our bikes yesterday evening, I felt really on top of the world. The feel of my new Cruiser very closely resembles how my childhood bike felt. I gave myself permission about when and where to go. Someone who truly loves me took the time to come with me. And he let me decide on the route. Maybe we were gone 15 minutes. The relative cost was free. Yet I've spent many hundreds of dollars with the intent to enjoy myself, and failed miserably. Yesterday love brought me great joy. Even the memory fills my cup to over-flowing. This, truly, is the life!

4-24-11 1:57 pm Windfalls, Visions, and Beauty

We got a little windfall in the mail. It's nice to know that the unexpected still happens. Out of the many needs demanding our financial resources, we went with cruiser bicycles.

Think gas savings. Carless transportation. Lower fossil fuel consumption. Physical fitness. We got Anne a new bike for Christmas. That felt easy, since she's growing all the time. In fact, she was well over-due.

For Harold and me it seemed different. Although our mountain bikes feel like medieval torture devices, they were and still are a hot item. We picked them out, and rode them faithfully for years.

We've got plenty of get-up-and-go about us, and yet, we're now mature enough to fess up. We hate those things. It's time for something more comfortable. Harold seems to love his new bike.

He rode down the street wearing a huge grin. "It feels like my old Stingray!" he exclaimed on dismounting. His joy made my heart leap. It's fun to see a grown man giddy.

As for my cruiser, it's robin's egg blue with white accents. It has beautiful lines and curves. The seat feels like a seat instead of a wedge. It needs a white bike lock.

To quote Dr. Seuss, "Oh, the Place's [I'll] go!" My hope is that this new purchase will still look good on me when I'm gray. I hope it will take me to many of the locations that meetings and tight schedules have required a car to complete. And between trips, I'll just look at it. It's beautiful.