Many jubilant thanks to Coach Kammie for the shout out regarding this post and the Escape Adulthood manifesto. Too kind.
If you’ve ever thought that maybe you were meant to be doing something different with your life but wondered how the heck to even begin, you might take a gander at Kammie’s blog, Passion Meets Purpose. She’s got some good ideas.
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Sales Servant Jenna pointed me to a very cool blog called 37days. The author of the blog was led to ask herself, "What would I do if I only had 37 days to live?" after her stepfather was diagnosed with lung cancer and died 37 days later.
Why is it so easy to take the time we have for granted? Are we so afraid of death that we avoid thinking about it at all? Or are we so vain that we think we’ll be the first one to escape death’s inevitable calling? In either case, I can say with almost certain assuredness that you — yes, you, the person reading this — probably figures you’ve got plenty of time left. Be honest, don’t you? (Don’t feel bad, we all do.)
So, what would you do if you only had 37 days to live? The question istelf is likely to summon a pretty generic answer. Something to the effect of, "Oh, I’d spend more time with the people I love." That’s a no brainer. (And yet how often to we actually live like we mean it?) But what would you DO? Travel? Write? Play? Sing? Create?…
Patti (the author of 37days) has commited to asking herself the question every morning. I know of no better way to maintain perspective in your life.
Another of Patti’s posts completely nails the art and essence of delighting in the little things. Here is a snippet of her talking about her daughter Tess:
A few weeks ago, Tess and I had a snack of grapes [red, seedless, organic, expensive], and she was quite delighted (shriekingly so) when she found a teeny tiny grape, an aberrant one, a miniscule grape in the bunch. “Lookeeeee!” she screamed, running through the house naked with her teeny tiny grape held high. “Lookeeee! Awwww, it’s a teeny tiny cute weency bitty grape!” she said in a little, high voice, her head cocked to the side, smiling, her shoulders pulled up as if to envelope her neck. “Isn’t it sweeeeet?” she asked, holding it gently with two tiny fingers an inch from my nose. “It’s very fragile,” she informed me.
Like the soap, her grape goes everywhere with her. She took the plastic top off an empty bottle of bubbles and made a grape bed inside the lid with toilet paper, gently placing little grape on it. Over the weeks since, eeny bitty cute weency teeny grape shrank even more. Now microscopic, he still lives on that little bottle top bed, carried like native royalty from room to room with her, a loyalty rare in this throw-away world, indeed.
The entire post is filled with examples of little Tess holding similarly, um, trivial (from a grown-up’s perspective, that is) items in equally high esteem. Tiny grapes. Hotel hand soap. Porcelain candy dishes. Patti’s challenge to all of us is this:
Be thrilled by small things, fragile things, wee tiny things—carry them with you, honor and protect them, but don’t keep them from other people…In a world in which the cardboard box has been inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame, let’s learn from the children—they can sense the possibilities inherent in simple things: boxes, bars of Hampton Inn soap, a tiny grape, an egg rimmed in gold.
I couldn’t have said it better myself. And yet it can’t be said enough. In life (which WILL be shorter than you think it will), the biggest things are the little things. The little things matter most. It’s easy to miss them when you’re running your engine at 100 miles per hour. But something tells me that if you really only had 37 days to live (and maybe you do), those little things would have a way of becoming much more obvious.
So…what would you do if you only had 37 days to live?
Technorati Tags: little things, 37 days, perspective, death, dying, grapes
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A few years ago when I first started teaching kindergarten I quickly realized that I had a lot to learn about kids and parenting. Five years later I feel like I walked away with a treasure chest of knowledge that I wouldn’t trade for the world, however there are still a number of questions I have.
The first one is this, “Did the person who invented juice boxes ever actually try out his/her invention with a child?” My guess is no. As a grown-up, I, myself, find it challenging to drink one of those things without squeezing it just a tag bit too hard and wearing some of it. How are toddlers and preschoolers supposed to know how to regulate their squeezes? There has to be an easier way!
Well, some practical and light-hearted parents who run a very cool blog called Parent Hacks, have finally figured out the answer and I am excited to share it with everyone I know. The answer is simple…one word- wings.
Someone just introduced me to the concept of ‘wings’ on a juice box. Just fold up the little cardboard tabs on the top, and have the kids hold the juice box by the ‘wings’ — keeps ‘em from squeezing the box (and wearing the juice). Simple.
Such a simple answer. Wow.
Here’s another great tip for all of those parents fighting diaper rashes.
My toddler had a diaper rash and would not put a diaper on for anything. We tried putting him in the bathtub, smeared him with every cream known to man, and even tried giving him some Motrin to get him to put a diaper on. He was still insistent that ‘it hurts.’
I stuck his Pampers into the freezer, left them in there for 15 minutes and when I took them out, he let me put them on! ‘Ohhhhhhh cooool’, he said, instead of ‘it hurts.’
These are two awesome examples of the plethora of practical tidbits you’ll find on this blog that will make life easier…and more fun. When life is simpler, it’s always more fun! As far as I know, infants are still not coming with instruction manuals, but this blog might be a great place to start. What a great way to Escape Adulthood!
Technorati Tags: Parent Hacks, Parenting, Parents, Diaper Rash, Juice Boxes
Related Posts:The How To Have a Mental Breakdown post was a part of The Biggest List of ‘How To’ Blog Posts Ever Assembled over at Problogger.net. It’s pretty much a treasure chest of some really good — and sometimes funny — information. Here are a few good ones that I thought might be of interest to readers of this blog:
- How to Survive Your Young Husband’s First (Unexpected) Heart Attack by Olivia
- Goal Crisis: How to Feel Good in a Bad Situation by Jeff
- How to Be a Parent and Still Have Fun by Mama Duck
- How to Keep Your Relationship Healthy With your Wife by Matt
- How To Make Meetings Fun! by Allen
- Teaching Your Children How to Save by MNC
- How to Revitalise Your Dreams by Anna
- The Myth of the Sleeping Baby and Other Fallacies for the Work at Home Parent by Tony
- How to Define Success by Paul
- How to Take Great Photos of Children by Darren
In this podcast, brought to you from studio 203 in Madison, Wisconsin, we have a great insightful interview with Christopher Noxon, author of Rejuvenile: Kickball, Cartoons, Cupcakes and the Reinvention of the American Grown-Up. We also discuss stressed-out schools, a cookbook inspired by one of your favorite childhood toys, and ask the question, “Can TV really reduce stress for kids?”
Listen now by clicking on the podcast icon below.
To subscribe to the RSS feed of our podcast and automatically receive all new shows, paste this url [http://feeds.feedburner.com/EscapeAdulthood] into a podcast aggregator like iPodder. Or, if you have iTunes, you can click on this little icon to be subscribed automatically:
Show Notes:
• TV Can Reduce Stress for Kids
• Sressed-Out Schools
• Buy yourself a copy of Rejuvenile, by Christopher Noxon.
• Visit Rejuvenile.com. Don’t miss the super cool Hall of Fame section for inspiration.
• Pre-order your copy of Kim & Jason Annual #4 and save some moolah.
• Visit the brand new Kim & Jason Lemonade Stand.
• Make some tasty treats with The Easy-Bake Oven Gourmet as your guide!
Vote For Us: We’d really really appreciate it if you took a few moments to vote for us over at Podcast Alley. Thanks!
Show Music: The Same by Terrace
Show Length: 44 minutes, 55 seconds
Feedback: We’d love to hear your thoughts! Add a comment below or e-mail us.
Technorati Tags: podcast, stress, childlike, tv, television, schools, Rejuvenile, Christopher Noxon, media, culture, Easy-Bake oven,
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Every month, one Club K&J subscriber is drawn as the winner in the Supremely Wonderful & Exciting Loot Lottery. This month’s lucky recipient is Anne Cashman! She wins a matted Weekend print of her choice! Congrats, Anne!
Join Club K&J for your chance to win this month’s prize Loot Lottery!
Related Posts:Never before has such a thorough, step-by-step guide to your very own mental breakdown been published, be it online or off. If you can master these easy to follow instructions, you too can be the envy of all your friends and find yourself well on your way to a life you’ve only dreamed of!
• Treat traffic jams exactly as they are: carefully planned and sinister conspiracies designed to keep you from your destination.
• Pack your day so full that you are not distracted by superficial things like the sunset, the smell of roses, or the toddler smiling at you from across the grocery aisle.
• Avoid the time wasting activity known as sleep. For best results, try to keep it under four or five hours per night.
• Take everything seriously because, obviously, it is.
• Don’t fall into the trap of expecting big, amazing, wonderful things to happen. They probably won’t and you’ll just end up disappointed anyway. And while you’re at it, pat yourself on the back for outgrowing the silly practice of believing in things like Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, and God.
• Make sure you eat most meals either in the car, near the microwave, or from your recliner. If someone invites you to join them for a dinner that is likely to last more than fifteen minutes, respectfully decline.
• Don’t bother asking questions. You probably know all the answers anyway. If you don’t, just act like you do. And remember, "Because we’ve always done it this way" is a perfectly good answer to a almost every question.
• You can take some time for yourself, but only if you’re caught up on all of your work, your e-mail inbox is completely empty, your bills are paid, and your junk mail has all been alphabetically sorted. And the grass has been cut.
• If someone drags you on some sort of "vacation," be sure to bring your beeper. Also, figure out the total time you’ll be on said "vacation" and plan things to do and see that will accommodate roughly double or triple that time.
• Spend most of your waking hours — remember, you should be shooting for about 20 of those a per day — doing things that completely drain you. You know, the stuff you’d never do in a million years if they didn’t pay you such a good salary.
• If all else fails and you forget the other guidelines, a handy shortcut is to observe a child and do the exact opposite.
• And finally, refrain from reading this blog.
Technorati Tags: stress, mental breakdown, nervous breakdown, sleep, traffic jams, vacation, self-help
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Jason and I are blessed by a growing friendship with a fellow NSA‘er, Eliz Greene. (The smiling woman on the right, in the picture.) She has an amazing story, which I highly recommend you read in her book, Passion for Life: Five simple strategies to find the happiness, satisfaction and zest you deserve. She travels the world encouraging people to bring balance and fulfillment to their lives every day. Sneak preview: She survived a heart attack while seven months pregnant with twins! Her passion for life is a gift that is contagious! I love being around her!
Eliz is a triathlete and has completed four to date. This amazes me….swimming, cycling and running. Wow! You go girl!
I played sports in high school and have tried to maintain an active lifestyle since…but a triathlon?! Now, that takes dedication! Last weekend Madison was the proud host of the fifth Ford Ironman Wisconsin. More than 2,000 athletes completed the 2.4 mile swim, 112 mile bike and 26.2 mile marathon run in cold, wet and windy conditions. It was a tough weekend for it, weather wise.
The day after the race, Jason and I were out and about and overheard one of the participants telling someone else that at the beginning of the swimming portion there were so many people in a small space swimming that it was as if he was continually being punched in the face. Yikes.
In all honesty, I have to admit that my ‘lazy side’ begs the questions…why?! Why put yourself through all of this pain and discomfort? Wouldn’t those athletes have rather been home watching football like the millions of others?
Eliz had told me that her and her husband Clay, also a triathlete, were going to be volunteering at Ironman Wisconsin. She sent me some of her thoughts from the day, which gave me a neat snapshot of her experience.
My highlights from the day:
Helping a very cold man get his warm/dry clothes on by putting my hands up his sleeves and holding his hand in order to shove them through the sleeves. (lesson: dryfit clothing does not ‘glide’ on wet skin and cold paralyzed fingers can’t find their way out of the sleeves) He said, ‘now I think I can run.’
Chasing down the #1 woman finisher with the items we didn’t have ready for her. This involved sprinting down the area lined with spectators — my return drew cheers, which was fun. I can sprint — if I hadn’t caught her in the first 200 yards, I was done for.
Helping a nearly blue woman put on a full set of clothing — including shoes, which I tied, during which she thanked and thanked me. Such a small thing, but it made a big difference.
All of Clay’s buddies finished — even the one who had four flats on the bike and only continued because someone else (who didn’t continue) gave him her wheels.
I don’t know why the athletes keep going through rain and cold and pain — then again I don’t know why Clay and I stayed through the next shift until everyone had passed through the area — except there is something incredible about being a part of the defiance of limitations.
These "moments" Eliz shared gave me chills. They gave me a new perspective on "Why?" Like she said so well, "there is something incredible about being a part of the defiance of limitations." She shared that there were many athletes who did not look like your stereotypical tiathletes. Many were overweight, out-of-shape, old (running on legs that don’t straighten all the way and with backs that are permanently hunched) every shape and size. Somewhere deep within each athlete a passion was ignited to take this big challenge. How inspiring!
We are so comfortable in our recliners, content to exercise our thumbs with the TV remote (myself included). The thing that is so neat about Eliz is that she is a living example of her important message and mission. She inspires me to make the simple but meaningful changes in my own life to live with real passion.
We need to stand up from our couches and step through the invisible wall of fear that keeps us within our comfort zones. Living with passion is not always going to be comfortable… but it will be exhilarating!
When’s the last time a show on TV left you exhilarated and passionate about your life?
Technorati Tags: NSA, Ironman, Ironman Wisconsin, Eliz Greene, passion
Related Posts:It can be pretty easy to discount all this Escape Adulthood stuff as floofy (hmm…my spell checker informs me that floofy is not a word). I run in to a lot of business folks from all over who figuratively (and sometimes literally) roll their eyes when I talk about this concept of returning to some of the childlike traits we lost when we grew up. They’re in the business of making money, and have no time for all of this touchy-feely nonsense.
The funny thing is, if you really look around, the people making the most money are the ones who get the idea of Escaping Adulthood. The smart ones know that everyone likes to have fun, and if you can create and deliver an experience in which people have fun — even if the product itself is not generally regarded as fun, like a tea kettle — people will spend more money. It doesn’t always make sense, but it always makes cents… if that makes any sense.
Marilyn Bailey of the Toronto Star does a great job of providing some excellent examples:
The new Volkswagen Beetle: Introduced in the late ’90s, the practical car wasn’t just a retro hippie icon. It was even cuter than the original, as author Christopher Noxon points out, with a flower vase pre-installed on the dashboard and a front end that looks even more like a smiley face.
The Hummer: In the popular school-bus yellow, it looks like something made by Tonka.
Mini Cooper: A Matchbox car big enough for a human to fit in — but just barely.
Michael Graves tea kettle: With its clean lines and its spout that seems to be waving "hi" at you, the kettle looks as though Graves designed it while humming "I’m a Little Teapot."
Macintosh: A computer that brags about its ease of use, designed in colours that look as though they come out of Candy Land.
Appliances: $300 KitchenAid stand mixers have come out in surf green and bubble-gum pink.
If you’re in the business of marketing anything, perhaps you should take a second look at this idea of incorporating a little childlike magic into your product or service. People like to have fun, and they like to reconnect to a time when things seemed simpler. So what’s your tea kettle? What are you selling that could benefit from a little childlike infusion? How can you change your tea kettle to make other people smile? The answer you come up with — and the results they garner — will be anything but floofy.
Technorati Tags: marketing, Michael Graves, tea kettle, Hummer, Mini Cooper, Kitchen Aid, Macintosh, Volkswagon Beetle
Related Posts:…when you point out something nice that somebody else said about you? Probably. But it’s also delighting in the little things.
But I wanted to link to a great review this blog got from Ian Griffin. He is a member of the National Speakers Association and a specialist in speech writing and executive communications, with a particular focus on communication across cultures.
I am proud of the review because it’s a little affirmation that after years of writing and tweaking and tinkering, I’ve got something that’s pretty decent. It’s nice to have someone notice. So thanks, Ian. And welcome to all the new visitors. Please don’t hesitate to let me know what I can do better.
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Well, it’s been a long time coming, but Tales From a T-Ball Outfield: Kim & Jason Annual #4 is almost here. The first proof just got back from the printer and currently sits on my desk, awaiting a thorough review. This particular collection of comic strips (every single one from the fourth year — we just entered the sixth last month) is my favorite annual yet. Mainly because the art and writing are even more consistent, but I’m also quite fond of the cover episode about t-ball.
We’re about a month away from the official release, but you can be one of the first to own a copy. If you pre-order now — shameless plug alert! — you can even save a few bucks off the cover price.
By the way, we are now completely sold out of Annual #1. We do, however, have a small stack of them with slightly worn covers that we’re selling for only $5, which is nine bucks off the cover price. And, as the cheesy used car salesman would say, "Hurry! Take advantage of this amazing offer! This deal is only good while supplies last!"
Related Posts:The anticipation started about a month ago. Anyone who knows my husband Jason knows that he is very passionate about football season. He loves everything about it…the players, the rivalries, the highlights, the opportunity to eat chili and other yummy soups in your flannel pants, and also the fantasy football. Just talking about it all makes him smile from ear to ear, which is a big deal for someone who typically smiles with his mouth closed.
The anticipation has brought him great joy these last few weeks. Sometimes the anticipation is the best part of something. I can’t count how many times he has mentioned about this weekend and how great it was going to be. His childlike excitement has been so much fun to see.
With all of the talk of Steve Irwin’s passing this week, I have been thinking a lot about passion. It is so important. We need to identify our passions and to embrace them with vigor. Steve’s passion for wildlife and life, in general, was certainly unmatched.
When’s the last time I anticipated something for a month? Seeing Jason’s excitement and being reminded of Steve’s life this week has inspired me to re-look at some of my own passions. I feel like I want to put a picture of Steve by my desk to remind me of that sincere childlike passion for life.
I think part of the secret to living with passion is to live with appreciation. Steve certainly modeled this as he constantly appreciated God’s creations, whether it was a Mama croc or a baby garter snake.
Jason’s passion for football is greater than ever today, as he greatly appreciated the Bears first win of the season. Go Bears!
Technorati Tags: NFL, football, Steve Irwin, Chicago Bears, fantasy football
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