Do you want to play Barbies with me?

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Recently my sister reminded me about how much I used to love my Barbie dolls as a kid. I would bug her endlessly by asking her if she wanted to play Barbies with me. She could not stand playing with my Barbies and did not pretend to enjoy it, and yet I still always asked. Sometimes I think she just could not stand to hear me ask again and would cave in and play, and other times I think my mom told her she had to play with me.

Ah, Barbies. It makes me laugh that I was so addicted. I can remember that I had about 10 different Barbies, a cardboard-esque townhouse, a car (but not THE Barbie corvette – I had the knockoff version), and the beauty salon. I can remember the beauty salon. It had a special marker that you used to color Barbie’s hair, and then you could put her in a seat that somehow piped water thorough this straw thing to wash her hair. What a mess. What I learned the hard way was that you should never cut Barbie’s hair. It does not grow back, nor does it grow like human hair.

Barbie’s clothes were also impossible to put on at times. I can remember I had one Ken doll for my 10 Barbies. He had two outfits; a white tuxedo, and workout clothes. The tuxedo pants would not go on or off without my putting baby powder on his legs and in the pants. I guess you get crafty when you have to!

I am no longer a Barbie girl. It makes me laugh to think back to little me, and then to me today.

The secret to a full life…

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I am a people person. I watch a room. I watch how one person treats another person. Are they paying attention? Are they distracted? Do they care about the conversation? It gets harder and harder these days to stay focused on life. Our pockets vibrate or beep to tell us that someone wants our attention. Is the conversation we are having more important than the vibration in our pocket? Who wins?

I recently came across this Anaïs Nin quote:

“The secret of a full life is to live and relate to others as if they might not be there tomorrow, as if you might not be there tomorrow.”

What if we did that each day? What if we approached every conversation as if it were the last one, for us or the individual(s) speaking to us. Would we be more focused, and care less about the beeps and vibrates from our phones? Would it mean that we would get down on all fours and play more with our kids, pay attention to a friend on the phone, or to our spouse when they walk in the door at the end of the day? Would it mean we would be kinder to the cashier, or the driver going slow in front of us?

Anaïs Nin goes on to say:

“This thought has made me more and more attentive to all encounters, meetings, introductions, which might contain the seed of depth that might be carelessly overlooked.”

What if being more focused in that conversation meant the other person felt more loved? Would that be so bad? What if you got to know them better, and a friendship blossomed? Most of the time I can tell if the person I am talking to is paying attention and focused on our conversation. When I find that they are not, I pull back. Why? There is no point putting myself out there if the other person does not want to be part of the conversation. It is not worth the energy. I am going to try to focus on others more and dig deep.

#AnaïsNingratitude

What my email needs from you

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Do you ever have days when you never see the end of your email inbox? When you could literally spend the entire day reading and responding to emails? I recently read this Fast Company article “Why Every Email Should Be 5 Sentences Long.” and it really made me think. What if we were blunt at the beginning of our email if we need someone to take action?

I will give you an example:

ACTION: I need you to review the below and give your feedback by 5 pm today.

[Body of the rest of your email that needs to be reviewed.]

I have always been of the email camp that an email should be a conversation, and I am not backing away from that stance. Except. Yes, there is an exception. I think it depends on the audience and intent of the email. If it is from a company and they are apologizing for an issue that they caused to a customer, then they need to have a more structured email. They need to greet the customer (just as they would if it was in person), state what needs to be said and conclude/say goodbye. That process I still strongly think needs to happen.

It is the action oriented emails that need a change in behavior. These are the exception. With the volume of emails that we receive on a given day, we all need help to know which emails are important. That is thanks to those of us who may have colleagues that have abused the red exclamation point to the extent that no one really knows if an email is truly urgent.

Try it today. Any action oriented emails, put ACTION at the top, and tell others right at the beginning what you need them to do with your message. I would love to hear how it goes.

Know my thoughts, not my bra size

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Ah reminiscing. Over the weekend I went through a file folder of writing from childhood through to college. I came across a packet of writing from May 2000. It is a compilation from a woman’s writing class by all the women in the class. One of the exercises, I believe (based on the result), was writing our “woman seeking” ad. Here is my ad from 2000:

“single, white, midwest female seeking: single man who is not afraid of short hair or loud voices, who can listen and share, who is CLEAN and knows how to cook, who likes to sleep and demands comfy beds, who would rather know my thoughts than my bra size, who wants to influence this world, knows how to change a diaper, and can cuddle all day long.”

I laughed out loud when I read it. Then I found Chris and read it to him. See, it is a perfect fit. How did I ever know three years earlier that I would find my single man who loves to cook, sleep, cuddle? Who not only knows how to cook, but loves to, and he listens, shares, and definitely cares more about my thoughts, and just laughs at my bra size. I have seen him change diapers, but know once that day comes he will sleep less, continue to cook, and we will listen and share with that little one together.

Maybe now I should write an ad for what I want my next ten years to be like. If it comes anywhere close to what my senior year of college mindset gave me, life will be bliss.

#womenswritingrocks

Groundedness and gratitude

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I recently read a book that has made it to my top ten list for 2013. It is a memoir of food, life, and recipes. I find that I am often a magnet for good food writing. Which is funny because I cannot cook for the life of me. I am a baker, but do not expect me to whip up a dinner, unless you want to go with raw foods. So when I read “Bread & Wine: A Love Letter to Life Around the Table with Recipes” by Shauna Niequist, not only was I inspired by her outlook on life, I found pages and pages of recipes that looked easy, unpretentious, and like the yummy comfort food that makes you want to snuggle on the couch with your significant other and nibble away.

Niequist intersperses God and her faith a bit throughout the book, but not in an over the top way. She made me think, ponder, and appreciate life and food so much more. She uses the word “groundedness” in this quote and I love it. Don’t we often look for what is next? For something more? Just last weekend I was looking at a painting of mine and said to Chris I want to give that painting another life. It is time to paint over it and move on. I do not do that often, as I love most of the artwork I have done, but there has always been something about this set of paintings that I have wanted to change. I am grateful for the time it served in our home, but time for something more.

“I want to cultivate a deep sense of gratitude, of groundedness, of enough, even while I’m longing for something more. The longing and the gratitude, both. I’m practicing believing that God knows more than I know, that he sees what I can’t, that he’s weaving a future I can’t even imagine from where I sit this morning.” page 59

Does Niequist mean this about that next job we want, or that person we want in our life? Who knows. Maybe it is our next meal that we are craving because we have such an insatiable desire for food — its tastes, flavors, and our craving for it. That could be, as she talked often about her addiction to food. Whatever it means I feel she has encapsulated such a wonderful idea. To cultivate gratitude and groundedness. To know that what we have is enough, even as we stay open for something more.

We cannot be overly grateful, and yet, in order to grow and not stay complacent we need to yearn for more. Gratitude and groundedness seem like just the right balance.