This girl kicks ass.

Posted by random olio

This video is making it around the Internet this week. I love it. Long live aunt flo! How easily I can remember fourth or fifth grade when we had “sex ed” and learned all about aunt flo. If only we had such a bad ass video at the time to feel empowered about the changes that were about to or were happening to us. I most vividly remember a video we watched on a film strip about finding out you had your period for the first time, and the emotional foreshadowing was of such gloom. Will anyone find out? Will the boys know? Who cares.

I only hope this video will empower girls to feel fierce, free, and normal about their period. The video below is called: “The Camp Gyno.” It is from a company called: “Hello Flo.” Such a clever idea to help girls acclimate into the world of womanhood. You will laugh, I promise you. This girl is hilarious, she takes getting your period to a whole new level. One of my favorite lines is: “It is like Santa for your vagina.” Be sure to check out the blog on their website. There are some fun and clever videos, and content that demystify “the period” for a girl.

This could mean a menstrual revolution. Bring it on!

Farting on an airplane?

Posted by random olio

Come on, you know that either you are a victim of the airplane fart, or you were the one that wounded everyone. I have had this article saved in a blog draft for months now, and I just found it. I think at the time that I found this article I thought why would anyone want to read about farting on an airplane? Recently I was on a flight with Chris and while waiting for other passengers to board the plane we smelled the most horrifying body odor. I wanted to gag, or maybe I started to gag. I looked over at Chris and he looked ill. Eventually the passenger continued to walk to the back of the plane and we were saved.

The ironic part about the body odor is that the man who came to sit in the seat next to me leans over and says, “I am so sorry about my body odor. I have been camping in Mexico and I have not showered in days.” The thing was, he did not smell that bad. I will tell you, I might have horrible hearing and eyesight, but the one thing God gave me that fully functions is my nose. My smeller is attuned and always on high alert. This guy did not smell that bad. I told him so. I thought to myself, what amazing self-awareness to alert me. I appreciated his bluntness and if he was going to be so blunt I thought, why not respond in kind? So I lean over to him and say: “You do not stink at all, you missed the guy that has the bad body odor.” He smiled and said, “Oh, good. I felt bad that I might.”

Which leads me to the actual topic of this blog: Flatulence on an airplane. You will want to read this article I just shared. For a little tidbit, it starts out with: “Flying increases flatulence.” How many times have you thought, seriously who did that? The smells and odors that willingly escape and waft through the heavy, hot, and stuffy air seem to linger, and slowly kill our nose hairs. And, yet, we probably have all had a bad day, a bad airport lunch, or got stuck with a crazy, uncomfortable stomach while turbulence has imprisoned us to our seats thanks to the fasten seatbelt sign.

I am not going to lie. Chris has berated me for such misdemeanors. What can I say? Sometimes you cannot help it. Yes, I would rather be the guilty one, then the recipient.

Eternal Searcher

Posted by random olio

I can find contentment in my life. I can appreciate what is right in front of me. Yet, I also find that I am always searching, voraciously for new information. I am a learner. I have often wondered what made me crave wanting to know and learn more. Over the weekend I finished reading: Poor Man’s Feast: A Love Story of Comfort, Desire, and the Art of Simple Cooking by Elissa Altman. It is a memoir about food and she often talks fondly about her father and how he helped shape her craving to want to learn more about food. As a child he would whisk her away to upscale restaurants while her mother would be off getting her hair and nails done.

This quote made me think about why we search in life. Altman is talking about her father’s mother leaving when he was young.

“Her leaving him at such a young age turned my father into an eternal searcher–always walking, always moving and hoping and looking for something he was never quite able to find, or to nail down.” page 219

It made me wonder do I do that? It has always been so hard for me to slow down. My days and sometimes nights are filled with work, which I love. Yet, I also squeeze in my hour run each day, and this weekday blog. It often means I crawl into bed and look over at Chris and say “Before we turn the lights out, can I just catch up with my Words with Friends game? It is the first moment I have had all day.” Then my eyes close and I am quickly off to la la land.

Do we all have a bit of wanting to be wanderers? Do we know when to stop or when enough is enough? Usually I know when I have hit my limit. It happened last week. I came home from work and essentially crawled into bed and fell right to sleep. Chris woke me up a few hours later, and I babbled nonsense to him as I woke from my nap. None of it made sense, and I think it showed just how exhausted I was from my ongoing, never-ending days.

Maybe being an eternal searcher is a good thing, as it means that you are always creatively looking freshly at the world. I would like to think that I am the eternal searcher, content with my life just as it is, but always grateful for that new idea and inspiration that comes as I pop into a boutique, finish that good book, have an aha moment during my run. What I can tell you is that the only way you will find me as a couch potato is if I cannot keep my eyes open and I have to (s)nap out of my long wandering ways.

Start with the basics

Posted by random olio

Some of you that follow my blog know that I have a passion for money management. My passion evolved because I wanted to make sure that I truly understood what we were doing with our money, and that I trusted the information we were using to make our money decisions. I cannot do that in a vacuum. It means I have to read, learn, and ask the right questions. This recent Daily Worth had an idea that resonated with me:

“Money management is like cooking, or fixing a car or anything else you can learn,” says Myers. “But if you tell yourself you’re simply not good at it, you’re less likely to take steps to learn the basics you need to be financially healthy.”

I have to agree. While I am not a cook, I would feel comfortable calling myself a baker. I learned over time how to work with dough and understand why a recipe called for baking soda rather than baking powder. I am still learning new things about baking, and enjoy trying out new recipes. The same goes for money management. As the world changes and evolves fast, we have to shift and adjust with it, and be aware of whether the decisions we have made in the past continue to serve us, or if we need to adjust our financial allocations based on changes in the market, and our lifestyle.

Some individuals work with a financial planner that they trust, others rely on friends and family, and some look to books, the news, and the Internet to help inform them on what decisions they make regarding their money. Whatever step you take, I encourage you to continue to learn. Maybe you are young and a beginner, or you might have a family and are looking now at how to save for your children’s future, wherever you are in life, there is always something to learn that can benefit you today and in the future.

Sea squirts inspire play

Posted by random olio

You have to keep playing. Get on your hands and knees, crawl through the dirt, climb, surf, dance, sing. Each day the more we play, the more we grow. I do not mean your waist, I mean your brain muscle. Play is a catalyst to keep adapting and growing, learning and evolving. Last week I finished reading “Play: How it Shapes the Brain, Opens the Imagination, and Invigorates the Soul” by Stuart Brown. It is a very interesting book and makes me realize how much more I need to PLAY in my life. This specific idea about sea squirts resonated with me:

“The sea squirt is an example of a basic principle of nature: Use it or lose it. If a capability is not being used, it becomes an extravagance that is jettisoned or fades away. Either we grow and develop or we waste away. Most animals don’t go to extremes like the sea squirt, but the pattern remains the same. Most animals grow new nerve connections extensively only during the juvenile period. The sea squirt stops moving, and many higher animals stop playing, and the brain stops growing. But not humans. The brain can keep developing long after we leave adolescence and play promotes that growth. We are designed to be lifelong players, built to benefit from play at any age. The human animal is shaped by evolution to be the most flexible of all animals: as we play, we continue to change and adapt into old age. Understanding why many animals stop playing in adulthood, and why humans don’t, helps further understand the role play has in adult life.” Page 48

A little side note about sea squirts. Earlier in the book, Brown explains that sea squirts swim around during adolescence, then attach themselves to ships or other structures, then later eat their own brains. It was his example of something that stops developing and growing. If you think about most kids, they do not stop moving, they do not stop playing. Even if they are glued to video games their brain is thinking, changing, even strategizing their next move.

Adults need to be more agile. We need to move it. We need to play. This week I am really going to try to embrace the idea of play. I am going to get rid of my sea squirt mentality and be adventurous, learn, play, and have fun. Are you with me?