A writer, a scientist, a talker

Posted by random olio

A good friend shared this quote recently via social media, and it was a reminder to me to keep writing. You know those days when you say: “why am I still doing this?” Lots of things in our life take time, and sometimes that means time away from our family, friends, work. Each activity can be a sacrifice to not be doing something or being with someone else. Sometimes my blog has been that for me. At other times I wonder why I write at all. The quote my friend shared was from Chris Guillebeau:

“That’s the promise: you will live more curiously if you write. You will become a scientist, if not of the natural world than of whatever world you care about. More of that world will pop alive. You will see more when you look at it.

Writing needn’t be a formal enterprise to have this effect. You don’t have to write well. You don’t even have to “write,” exactly—you can just talk onto the page.”

I have read his book “The Art of Non-Conformity” and have a hold on his most recent book “The Happiness of Pursuit” which came out in early September. I loved the idea of being a scientist. I am like that each day when I blog. I start out by reviewing ideas and notes from my day. Sometimes I am sparked by something someone said. A conversation with a colleague, family member, or my better half. Other times it is an article I read, a video I watched, or some idea that was shared via social media.

However I came across the idea, I dig a little deeper to find out if my fingers will start to tap away. If they do, I see where the idea goes. I have almost two hundred draft posts in different stages of completion. Often I start a post and find that there is no ending, so I leave it and try another idea. Sometimes I go back to those older posts and find that I have an ending, and the writing comes alive for me again.

Be a scientist. Curious, raw, and alive.

Let go of the old. Make room for the new.

Posted by random olio

Sometimes we are put into situations before we are ready, and sometimes we will never be ready for the situation put before us. I had an aha moment while reading “The Best Yes: Making Wise Decisions in the Midst of Endless Demands” by Lysa Terkeurst. A great, thought-provoking book that might lead me to share more in future posts. A quote she shared was such a vivid analogy for me. A quick side note, I am a very visual person, and I often go on side tangents with random analogies. Sometimes they are good, and sometimes they are so off the wall. In any case, this one so perfectly explains her idea.

Terkeurst talks about an early snowfall and seeing what happened to the trees due to the weight of the snow:

“That’s what happens when a snow comes early. The trees weren’t designed to face snow before releasing their leaves. They weren’t made to carry more than they should. And neither are we.” Page 92

Such a great reminder that we have to let go of certain things in our life to make room for new things. Let the old fall away, let the leaves drop to the ground in order to be strong enough for the next phase. If we try to do it all we cannot withstand the strain and the toll, and either we break or a limb breaks, often with irreversible damages. If we hold on too long for fear of what is next, not aware of what is right in front of us, we may jeopardize our future.

Lately I have been resisting change in my life big and small. The small stuff: I am not ready for fall. I do not want the temperature to change (we had to turn on the heat one night this week). I detest looking at my clothes from last winter, and saying goodbye to summer dresses and flip-flops. Yet, there is also pumpkin, yummy fall spices, and looking forward to the beautiful colors of fall. It is a shift, a new way of looking at the world, a new stage.

Ah…pondering life through a tree, leaves, and early snowfall. Are you preparing yourself for the changes happening in your life right now? Watch out for the early snow fall.

Encyclopedias were my Google

Posted by random olio

I am not that old, but I did not grow up with the Internet at my fingertips. Instead, I had World Book Encyclopedias. They were not cheap either. At one point my mom sold encyclopedias. I always found it kind of odd. However, looking back I have a hunch she sold them so that we could have the sample set in our house. Whenever we would ask a question about something my mom would tell us: “Look it up.” I was never really a fan of pulling out the volumes that were massive like “S” and always wondered what was in the volumes like “Z.” “Q” (like Z) were in mint condition because they were rarely opened.

I had not really thought about encyclopedias in years, until I read this in the book: “Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good: A Memoir of Food and Love from an American Midwest Family” by Kathleen Flinn:

“Encyclopedia salesmen were a fixture of suburban America in the 1950s and 1960s, widely mocked by comedians. Regardless of the brand, the hard sell invariably included an expression of grave concern that a potential client’s children would suffer without having a ‘library in the living room.’ Most offered a payment plan to help ease the impact of the investment, which could be the equivalent of half a year’s rent.” Page 81

Her book is such a great memoir and reminder of so many items long forgotten in life, such as Chef Boyardee (which I wrote about a few days ago). It is actually incredible if you think about how fast the sharing of information has changed over the years. In addition to encyclopedias, we also had issues upon issues of National Geographic. While some of the covers and photos inside horrified me, it was a view into other parts of the world. Now we can do that in just a few clicks.

Today we are spoiled rotten. We do not have to wait to print a new version of encyclopedias and know that the money we shelled out for an entire edition of encyclopedias are old the second they are printed. We can read more than one can ever imagine after a few key strokes. We have instant access to good information and instant access to time-wasting information. It makes it much harder to know the integrity of the details, but there is plenty of it, and it is fast. We never have to worry about having a “library in the living room.”

Chef-Boy-R-D

Posted by random olio

I remember as a kid that my mom made a few items for dinner that I just found nasty. I will name a few: creamed dried beef, Brussel sprouts with vinegar, lima beans with nothing (yuck, lima beans in general makes me gag), too-thick hamburger burnt on the outside and still raw on the inside, and hard, break-your-teeth pizza. Now do not think for a minute that I am throwing my mom under the bus. She tried and I know my family was finicky. I for one was. There were so many things I hated as a kid, but I am sure a lot of it had to do with the rotating meals — many of which I could not stand. What I want to tell you about was the pizza.

My mom would make pizza from a box of Chef Boyardee. I used to make fun of the name, and spell it out: Chef-Boy-R-D with a slight accent. For us it meant buying an item at the grocery that was “name” brand. It was supposed to be special, but I found it disgusting. It tasted nothing like the pizza from Pizza Hut (which I had the opportunity of having occasionally due to Book It – where in grade school you could get free pizza for reading). I was recently reminded of our pizza adventures when reading the book: “Burnt Toast Makes You Sing Good: A Memoir of Food and Love from an American Midwest Family” by Kathleen Flinn where she shares:

“So imagine their delight when they discovered a local grocery carried the new ‘pizza kit’ from Chef Boyardee. The box contained ‘all the ingredients for a traditional Sicilian-style pizza’: a package of add-water only pizza dough, a small can of tomato sauce, and a packet of dried Parmesan cheese. Following the directions, they spread the dough with oily fingers into an inexpensive pizza pan, spooned the thin sauce over the top, and then sprinkled it with the powdered cheese.” Page 12

She says it so well: add-water dough, can of tomato sauce, and dried Parmesan cheese. Which part of that makes you think yummy? It tasted like cardboard. Pizza night should have been a fun night and instead I wondered what excuse I had to get out of eating it. My sister remembers a different pizza story. She remembers a much later phase when my mom began making pizza from a can of biscuits. Hopefully you can see that our pizza experiences eventually got better. Not amazing, but better.

We would open the can of biscuits, and place each individual blob next to each other on the pan and then roll them out together to form the dough, add tomato paste (yuck who uses tomato paste for pizza)? Then shredded mozzarella, and then she baked it. I rarely remember other toppings. I think very occasionally she would get a tube of sausage and cook it so it became ground sausage and sprinkled it on top, or at a random time she might have purchased a packet of sliced pepperoni. Otherwise it was cheese only. I do not remember there ever being spices. Almost as though she tried to recreate what she saw, but forgot the flavoring part of it.

The evolution of the canned biscuit pizza did evolve into a treat. Somehow we started having dessert pizzas. Canned biscuits rolled out with pats of butter chunks were laid around the crust, brown sugar and cinnamon were then added on top of the butter. Whatever fruit we had (not all kinds worked) put on top and then baked. Often it was an apple. I never cared so much about the fruit, the brown sugar and cinnamon was what made it all worthwhile. Yum!

Say no to 1,000 things

Posted by random olio

Everything in the universe at this moment is telling me that my biggest lesson in life is about saying “NO.” Each day I find an article, read a book, have a conversation that reiterates the ongoing dilemma I have with life. What can I truly handle? Have I bitten off more than I can chew? Yes, and no. It really depends. I do know that I need to figure out a way to scale back. Part of that means that I have to say “No” more and more and more. How does one do that when your modus operandi is to help others, solve problems, and to try to make the world a better place one day at a time?

I wanted to share a few of the ideas that have been bombarding my thoughts these last few days. I came across this Steve Jobs quote:

“People think focus means saying yes to the thing you’ve got to focus on. But that’s not what it means at all. It means saying no to the hundred other good ideas that there are. You have to pick carefully. I’m actually as proud of the things we haven’t done as the things I have done. Innovation is saying no to 1,000 things.”

If I could truly do what Jobs said, maybe I could have a fraction of the success he had in life. It has become a common theme for me these past few weeks and months to figure out how to scale back at work and at home and yet life feels like it is a treadmill on the highest speed, and sometimes at the highest incline. At times it feels like the buttons are inoperable and I am not able to adjust to the appropriate speed, so it means running crazy fast and then wondering how long I can sustain the speed.

There was this Fast Company article called: “The Exact Amount of Time You Should Work Every Day” that shared this idea:

Make Realistic To-Do Lists: “We often bog down our to-do lists and make them not feasible for us to accomplish [plus] we underestimate how long it’s going to take us to do something,” says Sexton.

Prioritize tasks. Choose three major tasks to focus on for the day and add other tasks as they pop up throughout the day to a separate list, readjusting your priorities throughout the day if required. It’s a lot easier to look at a list of three tasks than 30. Once you knock off the first three items, choose your next three priorities from your lengthier list.

I do not feel like I have a problem with To-Do Lists, tracking what I need to do, or prioritizing my tasks. I feel it is having too much happening at once. Too many projects to track on, too many deliverables, and not enough time or bandwidth to execute or strategize on how to make it all happen.

How have you learned to say, “No?” Teach me. I want to learn. I want to know what has worked for you.