Gnawing or biting?

Posted by random olio

I was a biter. I told you all about it in my blog post: “I Was a Biter” almost two years ago. Over the weekend I got to hang out with my almost 3 month old niece, Charlie. In the two days I got to spend with her, she liked to gnaw on my finger. She does not have teeth, so it was more a gummy gnaw. How could I resist the drooling, gnawing cuddle muffin?

My niece has the nickname of Charlie, and since I was a biter, we were talking this weekend about whether Charlie will be a biter. My sister then brought up this video from 2007, and we laughed, and yes we had tears in or eyes, because quite frankly, Charlie in the video has this sort of snarky laugh that we can all relate to. I had forgotten about this video but love it. If you have not seen it, it is of two English boys, Charlie and his brother, Harry. Well, I can relate to Charlie. I was the youngest of three and whenever I could get just a second ahead of my sister or brother I felt like I had caught up, only to then have to run fast again to catch up again. Somehow when I struggled with communicating, and when I got frustrated I would resort to biting.

This video, per Wikipedia: “As of March 24, 2014 it has had 682,138,599 views and remains the most viewed YouTube video that is not a professional music video.” I have added to the views since March, as it is now at: 707,959,985. Crazy. Go Charlie, keep holding your own. Bite away.

Missed moments

Posted by random olio

By the mere fact that you are reading this blog it means you are on a smartphone, an iPad, or on your computer. A device that lets you connect to the Internet and go to a webpage. I love all my blog readers and followers, but for today I am going to tell you, read this blog today, watch the video below, and then turn it off for the day, or better yet, pick a day of the week to put your phone away, or a day a month, or if that might be hard for you, start by putting your phone down for an hour a day, and maybe gradually increase that to more and more time.

Some of you might have already seen this video, or it has been displayed on your Facebook or Twitter feed. Regardless I encourage you to watch it again and think about how many opportunities have you lost because you were too busy reading emails, scanning your Facebook feed, sending a tweet, or posting to your Pinterest board? I am just as much to blame. Yesterday I was at a conference and found myself in and out of a distracted mind between work emails, the presentations, and feeling completely out of it. I took ideas away from the day, but what if I had just turned my phone off? How many times are you in meetings and you see the same behavior (yourself or others) throughout the day?

I have written before about Sliding Doors moments, and I wonder if our phone is often that train that means that because our head is down, or our focus is off, that we miss out on important eye contact, fun moments, and maybe worse of all I wonder if our distraction actually makes others not trust us. Do we ever lead people to think that our phone is more important than they are to us? Yikes. There are times when Chris and I will go out to a nice restaurant and have somehow over time built a pact that we are there to be together – aka – no phones.

Watch this poetic way of getting us to realize how many moments we miss each day.

That deep emotion that brings tears to your eyes

Posted by random olio

We all feel it. You know those times when the emotion of the moment, the song, the words that someone says to you that hits your heart, and the water flows so quickly from your eyes. You try, yes, you try so hard to hold it back, your face puckers a bit and eventually the tear slides down your face. Emotion has hit you, sometimes when you least expect it.

Yes, this video has been going around Facebook and the Internet in the past week, but I could not help but share it just in case you have not seen it. I have never seen this type of emotion from someone so young (10 months old). It is as though this baby can feel and understand the music. It brought tears to my eyes. Not the music, or the words, just watching the feeling and depth of this baby’s reaction. It is truly priceless.

Have you ever seen anything like it? Do you think this baby understands music in a way that many cannot comprehend?

#amazing #happyfriday

Ship my baby. Huh?

Posted by random olio

Two viral videos that made me laugh. I could not help but be sure to share them with you. The first reminds me of sixth grade. The video itself does not remind me of school, but the word “ship” does. Ship, huh? A strange word to recollect from my past. It was sixth grade Social Studies, we were studying the 1600’s or some time in that range a few hundred years ago. We were each given a topic to do a report on and then we had to present our findings in front of the class the following week. I was given the topic of: ship building. Boring right? Well I did my research and my report and then it was my turn to present to the class. All I remember is that during my entire presentation every time I said ship building it always sounded to me like shit building. I cannot remember what it sounded like to my classmates, but I was mortified, and I thought it was a little funny.

Which is why Kmart’s recent video: “Ship my pants” made me laugh and remember sixth grade Social Studies. For more background on their video, read this Fast Company article.

It plays to our childhood humor, but it is clever. As is Evian’s “Baby & Me” video. It just launched over the weekend, so you might see it on television (that is if you ever watch commercials). Over 400 babies were cast for this video, and in May they release an app “Baby & Me” where facial recognition will show the user’s baby face.

Happy Monday!

Anything is possible…

Posted by random olio

A friend shared the below video on Facebook yesterday (thank you, Kim)! I was curious when I saw her comment earlier in the day: “such a fantastic story. i am continually amazed at what the human spirit is capable of…” but the screenshot of the video did not spark my interest. When I got home last night, the thought came to me: “You need to watch the video Kim shared.” So I sat down to watch and by the end there were tears streaming down my face. It was just the video I needed to see.

Over the past few days my knees have been killing me. I’ve been running 6+ miles a day for a few years now, and never had any problems. We recently had issues with our treadmill and it has meant that I have done my runs outside. After a few weeks of running on pavement, my knees have been hurting. Last night I came home and took a long, hot salt bath in hopes it would help my knees to rest a bit. After watching the below video I realized my complaints are lame in comparison.

I am also completely addicted to Coldplay’s song “Fix You” which is featured as a cover in the below video. The story and a bit of “Fix You” might shift your perspective today. It is a bit long, but so worth it when you get to the end.