Directness and Transparency

Posted by random olio

I am not sure why I feel inspiration about this topic at the moment, but for some reason I have been thinking about directness and transparency. There was a time in my life where I would have hidden from you. You know when you see the child hide behind their parent’s leg, only peeking out to see if it was safe? That was me. My father used to scare me, and often I just was the quiet soul. Yes, you could bring me out of my quietness, you could get me comfortable and make me laugh, but if I thought there was a place of fear or conflict I would usually retreat back into myself. However, the old ladies at church did not scare me and I usually put on the charm for them.

Something happened as I continued to evolve into myself. Maybe it was losing my parents at a young age. Maybe it was seeing so many people hide their feelings and not be honest with themselves or those around them. Somehow I started talking and well I guess I have not stopped. If you interact with me on a daily basis you know you will hear exactly what is on my mind. You will know when I am happy, or sad, or frustrated. You will be able to see it on my face or you will know by how I respond. How exuberant I am to help and support you, or how short I am with a response. You will learn that I love deeply. You will learn to never mess with someone I love.

All of that comes out with my directness and transparency. There are times where I could probably be more careful with my delivery. I am aware of that and I try to be careful with the audience I am around. However, if I am comfortable with you, and we share our day-to-day life, I will probably tell you when my basement floods or when I have just received the perfect POTD (Picture of the Day) of my niece. You know the days when you are so utterly frustrated and you see the look on their precious little face and you are transported to a different world and you inhale and remember none of this really matters except the irresistible snuggles and coos of a little one? I have a video on my phone of my niece, Charlie, that I have been playing on repeat over the past week or so. She is cooing at herself in the mirror and I just want to eat her up.

I digress. You just witnessed a bit of my transparency and brain-barf of what is on my mind (I just paused to watch the video of Charlie again). I hope you live your days and moments in full transparency, without fear of what people think. Be direct. Say what you think.

#lifeistooshort

WDWDWF (What Did We Do Without Facebook)

Posted by random olio

During these weeks that fly by with such crazy speed, I find it harder and harder to keep up with life, emotions, and the state of the world. I have not watched the news in months. I stay connected with morsels of information from Chris, whatever pops up in my Facebook feed, and the few moments I am at my desk at work with glances to see what is happening on CNN on the television in our area. Not too connected you might say?

Well, Facebook always tells me when a famous person dies, with friend’s status updates stating: “RIP, ________.” Or if there has been a plane crash, weather disaster, or incident in the world, my Facebook feed might say: “You are in my thoughts, ________.” I even know what job, home, or city my friends would be suited for based on the quiz they just took and shared. Or what level of Candy Crush they just completed. And, worst of all, whatever product I just searched for on Google, will now show up in my Facebook feed as a “Suggested Post.” So the news just follows me, I rarely have to go find it.

I almost forgot, I started following the No Poo group on Facebook, and now every other post is about someone who has failed or succeeded at removing toxic shampoos and conditioners from their personal care routine. Don’t get me wrong I have learned tons of new insights, but it is a lot of information and crazy amounts of people chattering on my Facebook feed. How to dye hair and stay “no poo”, how to get rid of frizzy hair and not use toxic product, how to start out on low poo, or mothers that have never washed their kid’s hair. I can only imagine what other “groups” discuss and at what frequency. It is like Dear Abby on steroids on every topic imaginable.

At the end of the day, some of it is worthless, some of it is so-so news, and some of it is just hilarious. WDWDWF? (What Did We Do Without Facebook)? We sent more texts, emails, and picked up the phone and talked to each other. Go figure. Before that we wrote letters (yes, I miss the lost art of letter writing). These days the only items I get in the mail are junk and bills. An occasional letter, yes, but that is the exception.

In any case, I am grateful that it is Friday as I look forward to a few extra hours of sleep tomorrow, time to catch up on emails, clean my house, run some errands and eventually curl up with a good book. Not too much to ask right? Oh, and I will probably take a few moments to peruse the mindless chatter on Facebook. Either it will be a waste of my time, or I will laugh, share, and like what you have bestowed on my feed.

I’m only speeding because I have to poop.

Posted by random olio

I was the kid on the road trip that constantly whined: “Dad, I have to go to the bathroom.” Sometimes there was an urgency that my father did not share with me. Maybe I have a small bladder, but I struggled to be able to hold it in for a long period of time. At times I think my dad was frustrated with me and the constant hourly announcement that I needed to bless a gas station or rest area with my presence. Maybe it is a girl thing, but when I have to go, I have to go. As a kid I know my father’s impatience with me occasionally meant I missed my window. Yes, I am going where you think I am going. I had a few “I pooped my pants” moments. You know you all had those moments as a kid. For those of you that are parents, if your kid tells you they have to go, just trust them.

On our way home from work the other day, I took a photo of this great bumper sticker that says: “I’m only speeding because I have to poop.” If I was a woman who cared to cover her car in bumper stickers (I am not one of those women), this would be on my bumper. I cannot tell you how many times I have headed to the airport in the wee hours of the morning only to think, “Crap, I gotta go. Where the hell am I going to stop?”

Apologies for the grainy photo. It was taken through the windshield.

As you read this, you might be thinking, wow, Tami will talk about anything, and yes, there are a lot of things I will talk about, but I have to say why is pooping and farting so taboo? We all do it, so why is it such a big deal? At the end of the day, I can imagine that all of us have sped because we had to poop. It is just that some of us will admit it and others will not.

So where do you stand on the subject?

Farting, freezing, and hand sanitizer

Posted by random olio

My flight was uneventful last night while flying back from California. A good smooth flight, but you know when you fly in a puddle jumper life is just a bit different in the friendly skies. Over the course of the 1+ hour flight someone (whether they were aware of it or not) could not stop breaking wind. As stated in my post last summer, about Farting on an Airplane, I know it is not always something individuals can control, but this was out of hand. Here is the list of things that came to me while making my trip back to Portland:

Overhead bin is so small, it is like a glove compartment
Someone keeps farting
The guy next to me has a cell phone with a revving motorcycle ringtone going off throughout flight
It is freezing, not above me through the vents, but around my ankles and no blankets on board
The person behind me keeps kneeing my back
Someone farted again
The guy next to me across the aisle will not shut up
The bathroom is so small, there is no sink, and they just leave hand sanitizer out for you
When the person coming out of the bathroom grabs my headrest as they walk by and I think now I do not want to put my head of hair on the headrest, because all I can think is, “Did they use the hand sanitizer?”
Someone farted again
I wonder when they last wiped the tray table down and the seats themselves
We arrive at our destination a half hour early only to stand while they take 20 minutes to figure out how to get the ramp to connect to the door
Someone farted again

Have you had enough?

Missed moments

Posted by random olio

By the mere fact that you are reading this blog it means you are on a smartphone, an iPad, or on your computer. A device that lets you connect to the Internet and go to a webpage. I love all my blog readers and followers, but for today I am going to tell you, read this blog today, watch the video below, and then turn it off for the day, or better yet, pick a day of the week to put your phone away, or a day a month, or if that might be hard for you, start by putting your phone down for an hour a day, and maybe gradually increase that to more and more time.

Some of you might have already seen this video, or it has been displayed on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Regardless I encourage you to watch it again and think about how many opportunities have you lost because you were too busy reading emails, scanning your Facebook feed, sending a tweet, or posting to your Pinterest board? I am just as much to blame. Yesterday I was at a conference and found myself in and out of a distracted mind between work emails, the presentations, and feeling completely out of it. I took ideas away from the day, but what if I had just turned my phone off? How many times are you in meetings and you see the same behavior (yourself or others) throughout the day?

I have written before about Sliding Doors moments, and I wonder if our phone is often that train that means that because our head is down, or our focus is off, that we miss out on important eye contact, fun moments, and maybe worse of all I wonder if our distraction actually makes others not trust us. Do we ever lead people to think that our phone is more important than they are to us? Yikes. There are times when Chris and I will go out to a nice restaurant and have somehow over time built a pact that we are there to be together – aka – no phones.

Watch this poetic way of getting us to realize how many moments we miss each day.