From the monthly archives:
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.
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
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
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:
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 play below.
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.
Show Music: The Same by Terrace
Show Length: 44 minutes, 55 seconds
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!
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
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
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