An interesting way to shop online

Posted by random olio

A few weeks ago, I found a cool website that displays boutique products as though you are virtually in the shop itself. ShopStoree is the namesake, with the tagline: “Every shop has a story.” When you hover over specific products, you have the option to then purchase them online. It is a great way to merchandise products mixed with other items, rather than a conveyor belt option of items in silos unto themselves.

Each photo is of a different shop, and when you see the black dot, click on it and it will give you the name, price and link to the online shop of the boutique. You also can click on “About this Shop” to learn about the online or brick + mortar boutique. ShopStoree says: “We believe an amazing retail experience is not confined to a physical store.  It transcends that. It is about the joy of discovery. And we believe that kind of discovery can be experienced in a digital world.” I have to agree with them. It takes online shopping to a whole new level. I can experience a boutique in Cleveland I have never been to, or explore one in Portland and see if I want to venture there in person.

It looks like they have an assortment of shop styles to explore. The only caveat is that you can look at a photo and find that there are many other things on that table that you want to purchase but does not have the black dot. Eye candy you cannot have! But, I guess if I saw an item in a photo that was not for sale on ShopStoree, I could always contact the specific store and ask them for more details on a that product.

Interested? Check them out!

Moment-by-Moment Choices

Posted by random olio

We always have this moment, and the next, and the next. We always have the option to decide how to respond and react. We can lash out or respond with poise. We always have a choice. Last week after writing about how Marianne Williamson was running for Congress in California, I continued to research and read about what she has been doing. This led me to finding her blog, and one comment in particular resonated with me:

“We make moment-by-moment decisions what kind of people to be — whether to be someone who blesses, or who blames; someone who obsesses about past and future, or who dwells fully in the present; someone who whines about problems, or who creates solutions. It’s always our choice what attitudinal ground to stand on: the emotional quicksand of negative thinking, or the airstrip of spiritual flight.”

I want to be someone who blesses, dwells in the present, and creates solutions. I can tell you that I sometimes get sucked into the emotional quicksand of negative thinking. Yet, if we make moment-by-moment decisions, then we can fix that negative thinking in the next moment. I saw that last week when I was angry with someone. I really do not like feeling angry. I do not like how it makes my body or my mind feel. It makes me feel off. However, I have a hard time saying I was wrong, or forgiving.

Last week however, I leveraged that moment-by-moment decision-making. I allowed myself to be angry for a few hours, and then I thought, “What a waste!” Sure I am still bummed by what happened, but does it do me any good to be angry? No. So I told this individual that I had forgiven them (well almost). I did it in a way that made me feel like the bigger person (I was not completely ready to let them off the hook).

It was progress though. That is all we have to do each day is make progress in becoming the individual we want to be, to unearth the individual we already are.

Being Me and Being Seen

Posted by random olio

What does it mean to be me? Saying what is on my mind. Not having a filter. Laughing when the urge hits me, even when sometimes it might not be appropriate. Going there. Yes, I mean sometimes going there, to the gutter, and sometimes it is the wrong time. Listening wholeheartedly. Saying yes way too much. Rarely crying, but when it happens, it is because something hits my emotional core, or when someone sees and speaks to a raw part of myself.

I struggled so much during my childhood and even into my college years with being enough — wondering if I was enough. Was I pretty enough? Was I small enough? Was I smart enough? Was I good enough? Enough with all the enoughs. Eventually I got fed up. Eventually I lost it. Eventually I just wanted to be me.

As I got older, and I had the ability to see life in hindsight, I saw a little girl who loved children, who loved to be childlike, who wanted to play, but who had to keep life together and make sure that from the outside everything was okay. In many ways, having the facade of normalcy, was what she wanted. She just wanted to be normal, and in some ways trying to prove her life was normal concealed to those around her what was really happening. Sort of like a company that needs more employees, but rather than the current employees showing that, they just work harder and longer, instead of making it apparent that what was needed was more bodies and minds to help.

All this came to me after reading a recent blog post from Emily Parkinson Perry’s. I have shared her blog before, and her words are always an inspiration to me. This quote about authenticity made me think about being me.

“To me, being authentic means being unapologetically you. It means laughing out loud, accepting your faults, being present with pain, and okay with uncertainty. It means saying you’re sorry, or that you don’t know the answer. It means saying, ‘I love you’, and allowing yourself to drop into the free-fall feeling of it. It means allowing yourself to truly be seen.”

It took until I was a senior in college, but I finally understood that being me meant not hiding behind what others wanted of me, that I could be me as loud as I wanted without apology. And I am. I am loud, and sometimes emotional, opinionated, and strong-willed. I know what I want, and sometimes it is hard to get me to change my mind. Even if I am wrong. It is hard for me to say “I’m sorry” and I will always tell you if I do not know something. Then later she says:

“Your authenticity lies in the moments when you’re caught off-guard; when you blush at the compliment, laugh at your own mistake, or get caught singing in the car. Those are the precious gifts you give to the world—they are the moments when you let down your guard and allow yourself to be seen—you, as your beautiful, true, authentic self. When you let yourself be seen, it gives others the courage to do the same, and the world needs more of that.”

I love, love, love this. It happened last week when a co-worker asked me something out of the blue. She saw me at my rawest, and that made me cry. Or when I said burger instead of booger, and Chris could not stop laughing at me. I was seen, and I laughed and I cried.

Kick Ass Author for Congress

Posted by random olio

One of my all time favorite authors and lecturers, Marianne Williamson, is running for Congress for California’s Congressional District 33. Hell yeah! While I have no desire to move to LA, and politics and party lines aside, it would be so fun to vote and fill in that box by her name on my ballot. What an inspiration her words have brought to my life. It brings me joy and inspires me, and hopefully it will inspire women to vote, and to get off their ass and open their mouth and speak up.

The very first Marianne Williamson book I read was in high school, called “Return to Love.” I still have my copy of that book, with all the tabs and highlighted quotes and notes. The pages have become worn with age because it is not a book I read once or twice, it was a book that sustained me during some tough times in my life. I can remember being a sophomore in high school, away at boarding school, and that book would go with me everywhere. Return to Love is her take on “A Course in Miracles” which I never got into, but her explanation and personal experience was just the right story I needed to hear at a time when what I needed most was a showering of love in my life. Here is a quote that resonated with me and was very marked up in my copy of Return to Love:

“People who have the most to teach us are often the ones who reflect back to us the limits to our own capacity to love, those who consciously or unconsciously challenge our fearful position. They show us our walls. Our walls are our wounds–the places where we feel we can’t love any more, can’t connect any more deeply, can’t forgive past a certain point. We are in each other’s lives in order to help us see where we most need healing, and in order to help us heal.” page 107

Over the years I read quite a few of her books. The two that I remember and stand out to me the most (if you were interested and wanted to crack one open) are “A Woman’s Worth” and “The Gift of Change.” Of course the feminist in me found solace in A Woman’s Worth. It is a book that looks at women’s issues from a lens of healing, rather than lacking. The Gift of Change really looks at our lives and how we can shift and change our world, this one has a very spiritual twist.

I encourage you to read her announcement and why she is running for Congress on the home page of her website. If you live in the 33rd Congressional District, vote, vote, vote!

#Inspiredbymarianne

“I have been taught to filter.”

Posted by random olio

My father always said that children were to be seen and not heard. I think of it often when I have a hard time finding my words. I think of it when I am angry and pissed and I struggle to keep my emotions in check, because when I am mad it is harder to use my words. I was not taught to use them. Since I knew to keep my mouth shut, I learned how to filter. If I ever made a bad choice, and got into trouble, then the potential punishment was in the form of his wooden fraternity paddle. That thing scared me. As did my dad’s disappointment.

I began to read voraciously when I was very young, and I started writing and illustrating my own stories too. Sometimes I wrote to get out of my world. Now I write to make sense of my world, to put the puzzle pieces together and try to understand it all. The thoughts and opinions I have of myself and how I perceive each situation. Did I handle it well? Did I react confidently and with poise? Or, did I go overboard and lose my cool? I remember a few classmates in college that impressed me with their writing ability. I can remember someone in particular that was able to put pen to paper about womanhood in the rawest of forms, and I never felt I could write like that.

So when I saw “Shrinking Women” it reminded me of my days studying Sociology, Women’s Studies, and Women’s Writing in college. While I was intensely into my studies, and at times felt like a hard-core feminist, I could never write poetry. I actually even had a hard time following poetry in general. Unless it was short and sweet, I was usually not interested. Lily Meyers, who wrote, “Shrinking Women” kept me listening. Maybe it is because I relate to her story. She won Best Love Poem at the 2013 College Unions Poetry Slam Invitational last April, and is a 2015 future graduate of Wesleyan University (Middletown, CT).

Here are a few lines that stood out to me:

“My brother never thinks before he speaks. I have been taught to filter…You have been taught to grow out. I have been taught to grow in…I learned to absorb…That’s why women in my family have been shrinking for decades…How much space she deserves to occupy…I asked five questions in genetics class today and all of them started with the word: sorry.”

Lily will make you think about how women view their body and their space, and how your actions might make your sister, friend, daughter, or niece view their body and space. It gets good at around 1:25 minutes. Maybe her passion, youth, and talent will make other women get rid of their filters. Enjoy.