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What drains you?

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Lately I have been thinking about what drains me in life. The bright light I keep being led to is: negativity. Now I am not going to tell you I am a perfect angel. Yes, I get negative and frustrated and the world does not always look bright and shiny. When I speak of negativity I am thinking more of the person that is consistently negative. I do not want them in my life. I do not want them in my house. I do not want them Sam I Am. Sorry I got a little Dr. Seuss on you.

We all have someone in our life that sucks us dry, takes, and complains, and we have to work hard to find our equilibrium again. Why do we continue to allow this to happen? Sometimes we do not have a choice. They could be a client, vendor, family member, friend, or co-worker. We might have tried to share our thoughts and opinions while the other person remained defensive or could not see our point of view. What do we do when that person continues to drain us?

I believe that we all have a choice in how we approach our day. We have a choice to how we are going to respond. Sometimes it is not always easy to stay positive and kind when our day might be throwing us curve balls left and right. But you know deep within if it is your tendency to lead with positive thoughts, happiness, and a smile on your face. You know if you are truly enjoying your life. If you throw out the random bad day, do you approach your life with a glass half full mentality? I hope so. It makes things so much easier.

When others have shared their struggle, I often want to find a thread in the story that shines to all the goodness, gratitude, and wonderful things they have going for them. There is usually always a silver lining. My hope is to cultivate that goodness and nip negativity in the butt. Who wants it around? Not me. What if we tried to lead with the joyous part of life, and tried to eradicate the Debby Downers? Are you with me?

Toys, Sesame Street, and Missing Match-Ups

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I cannot remember having a favorite toy growing up. I do remember being addicted to board games. I loved the challenge, I loved the strategy, and I loved the competition. Recently my sister reminded me of one of my favorite and probably earliest games. It was a Sesame Street game called: Missing Match-Ups. The best way to sum it up was that it was the Sesame Street version of memory.

I loved it. I imagine I begged my entire family to play with me. They probably did just so I would stop asking. I remember being very good, and I have a hunch they were not letting me win. I never wanted that, I always wanted to win on my own merit.

I do not know if my love of games grew out of my childhood. What I remember most was that it was a time my family was together. Often my mom did not join us, but I definitely remember the many times that she did. I wonder today how often families turn off the television, their phones, and iPads and sit around a table with food and games and connect with each other (whether your family is young or old). It was a time I always cherished as it seemed that we each gave each other the presence of now.

Do you have a favorite childhood game?

Let the crap get you to your answers…

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I just finished reading: “The True Secret of Writing: Connecting Life With Language” by Natalie Goldberg. Such a great book, especially if you enjoy writing and want to be inspired and pushed to a new place in your daily writing. I love how she tells you to just write, to just put the crap down, not to analyze it, but just write.

Even though I write 5 blog posts a week, I still actually write in a journal that is just for me. Sometimes it is a recap of events from my day, or how I am feeling about something, or I cuss, and go off on people. Writing in my journal allows me to make sense of my day-to-day world. It allows me to see what comes out of me, that I may not have known was in me. This was one of my favorite quotes from her book:

“Feel free to write the worst junk in America. You have to turn over your mind a lot for the gems to pop out. And really in True Secret Retreats and in writing practice we are not looking for the gems, but a way to meet and accept our whole mind. Writing down the boring, the complaining, the violent, the agitated, obsessive, destructive, mean, shameful, timid, weak thoughts allows us to see them, make friends with those parts of ourselves. They won’t then rule us. We won’t be running from them, or battling them in meditation—or in our lives. Writing practice asks all parts of us to come forward. And when we get out of the way and stop judging, aren’t they all their own peculiar impersonal gems?” page 21

She makes you think. Write the good, the bad, and the ugly. As I said earlier, writing helps us to know what is really in our mind, the front, back, and deep parts of what we are thinking. Sometimes we have to get through all our crappy thoughts, our anguish, our pain to see the real issues that baffle us.

So whether you write regularly, sporadically, or not at all, I encourage you to follow Goldberg’s advice. Write down the crap, write it all down, and I bet, if you stick with it, the letters that form into words, into sentences, will begin to tell a story. Maybe it will be just for you, or maybe you will want to share it. Those letters and words often tell us what is inside that we often do not know how to make sense of it. Let the crap get you to your answers.

Inherited recipe card nostalgia

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I am a sucker for a feel good novel. You know the kind that makes you dream about living on a farm or opening up a bakery, regardless of all the work it actually takes to pull such ventures off. Over the weekend as I was finishing up such novel, one of the very last paragraphs on the last page of the book reminded me of my mom and grandma:

“My grandmother’s handwriting filled the yellowed index cards, her letters tall and elegant, directing the creation of breads and cakes, pies and pastries, cookies, and of course, muffins. Even in the faded peacock-blue ink, her words live on.” page 341

The book? The Irresistible Blueberry Bakeshop & Cafe by Mary Simses. A novel about a woman whose grandma had asked her to deliver a letter for her and then dies, and the journey the woman has to make to unravel a past she did not know about her grandma. A fluffy, fun book? Yes. Still, it was good. She talks about food throughout, and juxtaposes it with the woman (a Manhattan attorney) who is always careful about what she eats only to find comfort in the food she eats on her journey.

I still have a few of the index recipe cards in both my mom and grandma’s handwriting. You can tell how often a dish was made by the grease and spill marks, the worn look of the paper, and sometimes the bleed of a pen. I only have a few remnants of these recipes. At one point many years ago, when laptops became a hot item (although they still looked like bricks) my sister and I transferred the recipes we inherited to her new laptop so we could both have copies, and then not too long later the laptop died and was not able to be resurrected. In some ways it is fine as we have found, explored, and made our own favorite recipes, but there are still a few that linger out there that I have not been able to replicate.

Sometimes Chris asks me if the memory of the time, or the memory and nostalgia of that favorite recipe is strong but if I actually was able to replicate the dish would it still have the same effect on me? I love my mom’s coffee cake, and yet that was not lost (thanks to Betty Crocker). I have even changed it up and added my own twist. There are many that I probably never even know that I am missing. The one that I have tried over and over to recreate with horrible luck was her chocolate chess pie. I remember making it often as a kid and loving it, but each time I try now it is a runny mess. I think Chris has given up on it. So if any of you have a chocolate chess pie recipe that you want to share, I am all ears!

Find my husband… app

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A colleague was recently telling me about an iOS app that was pulled from the iTunes store called: “Find my husband.” Apparently it was pulled for privacy issues. The intent of the app was that a wife (or I guess a husband too) could install this app on their husband’s phone and then be able to track their whereabouts whenever they wished. So if they called or texted their husband and they said oh I am just leaving work, and the app shows that they are nowhere near work, they would catch them lying.

I find such an app strange. It undercuts the entire idea of integrity and trust. I guess I feel that way because I know and trust my husband, but I suppose I can slightly understand why someone freaked out that their husband is cheating on them might install this app. Apple removed it from the iTunes store for privacy issues, but it looks like it is still available for Android users.

Having said all that, I am still a bit flabbergasted by this app. Of course there are times when I might want to know where Chris is, but not to track him down because I do not trust him, more because I want him safe. I can call him or text him to see where he is, and ask if all is okay. Couples need to tell each other the truth. If a spouse is cheating, be honest about it or leave the relationship. What has the world come to that our smart phones are now filling in as undercover detectives in our lives? Instead have the tough conversations.

I can understand the “Find my kids” app, but is the Find my husband app going a little too far?