Are you a waker?

Posted by random olio

Gosh, I feel like I know what it must have been like on Noah’s Ark. It will not stop raining in Portland! Yes, I have lived here a long time and I am used to it, but usually it rains, then is gloomy the next day, then it rains, you get the picture. These last few weeks it has been raining non-stop, and my iPhone shows rain for the next week straight. I am starting to think that this year the saying should be March showers bring…sun and flip flops in April? For those of you that have sunshine send some my way!

Yesterday I read the book: “Evil Plans: Having Fun on the Road to World Domination” by Hugh MacLeod. It is a quick read, with short, quick chapters and even has cartoons throughout that break it up a bit. I read it all during yesterday’s run, so you will only need about an hour. I definitely recommend it if you are wanting to get out of your current job and you are needing inspiration and a little kick in the butt to do so, OR if you left your job and are breaking out on your own and need a reminder for why you broke free. Hugh starts the book with this idea:

“Sigmund Freud once said that in order to be truly happy in life, a human being needed to acquire two things: the capacity to work, and the capacity to love.” [His premise of an “Evil Plan” is to be able to do both at the same time]. page 2

He also has a cartoon that says: “the best way to get approval is not to need it.” I love that idea. (I apologize I forgot to note the page number). At the very end of the book he has a chapter called: “Are you a Waker?”

“A waker is someone who is very good at waking other people up from their metaphorical slumber, temporary or otherwise. Some people just have the gift. Being around them or their work just makes you feel more alive, more inspired, more motivated, more awake. The best wakers will make you do crazy-ass things, like quit your boring job and start your own business, write that song, move to Thailand, forgive that someone who once hurt you, or finally tell that girl that you love her. A waker reminds you on a constant basis just how alive you really are. Just how much human potential you really have inside of you. And there’s something about their influence that makes you utterly unable to go back to “sleep” ever again, despite your best efforts.” page 168

I love this idea of being a waker and wanted to share it with you! I want to help others feel more alive and more awake! Just as I want others to help me in that endeavor. What if we all attempted to do that for each other?

You can learn more about Hugh MacLeod on his website/blog.

Happy Friday! Stay dry or enjoy the sunshine…be a waker this weekend for someone else!

Listening to Self + Words

Posted by random olio

I had a rough weekend, spent mostly in bed or on the couch. Starting to feel a bit better, but still snuggled on the couch. So rather than share a recap of my not so great weekend, and since it is Monday, I thought I would share two Daily Om’s from last week hopefully as inspiration for your week.

As you might be able to tell from past blog posts, I am a strong supporter of women’s issues. I love finding ideas that promote the strength, poise, and talent of women. So when I came across this Daily Om from Monday, March 19, 2012 a smile grew on my face. In the past I have mentioned the Daily Om that I subscribe to daily (Here are two of my past Daily Om posts). Like any newsletter, there are days that it resonates with me more than others. This is the part of this Daily Om that I love:

“Even though we might want to think of a strong woman as being defined in this way, what really makes a woman confident is her capacity for listening to her true self and being able to call upon her feminine wisdom to any situation that may arise. A woman does not need to step into an assertive role or act like a man in order to be effective at what she does—she simply needs to get in touch with her insight and sense of compassion to truly demonstrate the depth of her strength.”

This is a great reminder for all women. Rock on feminine wisdom and intuition!

The second Daily Om I wanted to share is from March 22, 2012, called: “The Music of Language.” I love the following idea from this Daily Om:

“When we speak or write, we use the vehicles of words to carry meaning, as well as energy, from ourselves to another person or group of people. We may be speaking to our baby, our boss, or to an audience of 500 people. We may be writing a love letter, a work-related memo, or an entry in our own diary. Whatever the case, each word we speak or write has a life of its own, a vibratory signature that creates waves in the same way that a note of music creates waves. And like musical notes, our words live in communities of other words and change in relation to the words that surround them.”

We often forget that our words have energy and lives of their own. Our tone and how we deliver and communicate each word has an impact on those listening to us. Are we creating a story of positive, helpful, and uplifting communication? Or do our words bring others down?

I have a print idea (on my husband’s honey-do list) that I want to put in the entry way of our home: “You are responsible for the energy you bring into this home.”

So this week, women: listen to your true self. Women and all: watch for the energy behind the words you use!

Happy Monday!

First Day of Spring!!

Posted by random olio

It is March 20, 2012, and the FIRST DAY OF SPRING! I am so excited. I cannot wait for days and days of sunshine. The stems of my daffodils are up, as are my snow caps. The leaves are getting bigger and bigger on my hydrangeas, and my hostas and irises are just sticking their heads out of the ground. In the front, the weeping cherry tree has small, light pink buds opening up. And yet, we had snow flurries on Sunday and actual snow just a few miles away yesterday morning. Each time the snow hits, I pray my green budding friends will continue to bloom. I am not much of a green thumb. I tend to kill most indoor plants (my husband keeps them hydrated because I forget). What?! Sound strange? If something does not yell for my attention, I can easily forget about it. Which means quiet plants = no watering. Somehow I have managed to keep the plants in the backyard alive. Although I do not think I can take all the credit. It must be our sprinkler or maybe Chris is really watching over them.

My green budding friends mean that soon I will be able to break out my Chaco flip-flops! I cannot wait. In honor of Spring, here are a few ideas I wanted to share with you. (Click on the image to read quotes more easily).

a few ideas on Spring and renewal...

Enjoy!

Sanding the roughness

Posted by random olio

I am in the middle of reading: “A Writer’s Coach” by Jack Hart. I love that he is from Portland and at the time of the printing was a managing editor and writer coach for The Oregonian.

On page 39, there is a paragraph on writing that resonates with me: “A writer who attended one of my workshops passed along this beautiful metaphor:”

Years ago I used to futz with every sentence, but then an editor told me something that really made sense. He said that when a carpenter builds a piece of furniture he doesn’t first make one side, perfect that, and then construct another side and perfect that. He must build the entre frame and then go back and put the finishing touches on each section. Even when I am on deadline, I think of what I write first as an imperfect frame that will be improved later.

This inspired me and reminded me of when I took shop class in middle school. I think we had to do a cooking class, sewing, and shop class. I actually loved them all. I love to bake, I am not half bad behind a sewing machine (although I hated threading them in middle school, these days they practically thread themselves). However, shop class reminded me of my dad, and his warehouse/garage. My dad was a carpenter/contractor and he had lots of tools, and I often watched him build things. In shop class, we built wooden bowls, made out of scrap wood glued together. We started with a block of 5-10 kinds of wood and we used a lathe and dug out the shape and form of the inside and outside of the bowl. Once we were happy with the shape, then we started sanding.

Just as with wood, we have to sand out writing. Whether a book, business report, ad campaign, blog, etc, after the shape has formed we can go back and smooth out the edges and roughness. Not all imperfections should be removed. Imperfections can give character, depending on the flaw. I still have my bowl, and because we used scrap wood, not every piece was perfect. I still look at that bowl and love the little imperfections in the wood. I fell in love with wood that quarter, and I have fallen in love with writing.

bowl from middle school shop class

YOU in four words

Posted by random olio

Can you describe yourself in four words? I recently stumbled over this blog post where Lori writes about describing yourself in four words. It really got me thinking! I think how one answers this question changes from time to time. How would you answer that question today? Does your answer show where your priorities stand? I do not always like defining myself and putting walls around things, but I do find it interesting to see if my answer would be different today than it is tomorrow. I have seen this image floating around Facebook lately. The idea is the first four words that pop out to you are to describe you.

me on a rooftop deck in Austin

Tami in four words on March 12, 2012: Wife, Woman, Blogger, Creative

A little wisdom from Anne Lamont: “We begin to find and become ourselves when we notice how we are already found, already truly, entirely, wildly, messily, marvelously who we were born to be.”

How would you describe yourself in four words?