I just accidentally navigated away and lost my entire entry. I had most of the letters done to!

Anyway, picking up alphablog where I left off, I'll start with the letter M. Again.

M is for Millions. I still haven't won the lottery so my evolving bookstore/bakery/bar plans are on hold which is too bad because there is a sweet property with sufficient parking right on Main Street. Oh well.

N is for new Kindle. This was my birthday present from Tony. I didn't go with the Fire because the features seemed a bit redundant with my smart phone. I figure I will be using it exclusively for reading, and the non-back-lit e-ink screen on the Touch is really superior to the Fire for reading. And it has better battery life and costs half as much.

O is for odor. There are no winners in the game of "EWWWWW! What's that smell?"

P is for picture day. Katie had her senior pictures taken today. That was weird, but funny watching the photographer contort her through the range of standard and increasingly awkward poses. I think somewhere she had a spinner hidden because she kept using cryptic instructions like "Right hand yellow," but she had a very thick Russian accent, so maybe that's not really what she was saying. Who the hell knows Katie just nodded a lot and then was scolded for moving her head. Other cryptic suggestions included "Sit up straight. Now lean to the left, and turn you head right but point your nose over here."

Q is for Queen. Rodeo Queens to be exact because they inspire limericks and limericks are always good.

R is for Rock as in Crocodile Rock which was the venue for both of the concerts Katie and I have gone to recently. It is an experience. We'll just say that. Well no, we'll say more. It is an experience that makes you want to hold it until you get home. Excellent concerts though and lots of fun.

S is for shedding. It's what all the cool animals are doing this season. So I got this new gadget called The Furminator. I am planning to furminate all of my animals, but I want to do it outside, and for that, I need to wait for it to stop raining.

T is for teen driver. Katie takes the road test for her driver's license next Wednesday. She's been practicing her parallel parking and is doing really well at it. I think she gets a little self conscious though because I've been dragging the garbage cans out to the road for her to practice parking between them, and then the neighbors start coming over to play "I remember when she used to run naked through the sprinkler and now she's driving."

U is for Umbrella. After a dry April, it is finally raining. I love listening to the rain at night.

V is for Visitors, Thanks to all of you who have stopped by the new website and blog. You all are awesome.

W is for water bottles which have been banned at the high school. No beverages are allowed outside the cafeteria because the kids have been bringing vodka into the school and drinking it during the day. This seems kind of stupid to me. It won't stop anyone from drinking during school hours, it's just going to limit their alcohol consumption to lunch period.

X is for xcommunikay. My second twitter account, and one that is linked to the new site. I never thought I would sign up for Twitter, and now I have two accounts. S is also for surreal.

Y is for "you too." My daughter was complaining the other day that she will often respond to niceties with a friendly "You too." Unfortunately, "You too," is not always a fitting response. For example, I walk out to the bus stop with Katie in the morning, and so the bus driver is used to seeing me. So, on Friday afternoon, Katie was getting off the bus and the driver said "Tell your Mom to have a good weekend." Katie said "You too." After a second, she realized that she didn't know his Mom, but hopefully bus drivers Mom is alive and had a nice weekend.

Z is for Zack. The boy-child. Well, let me tell you, I think he is turning into a teenager. I had given him what I considered to be a pep talk about Language Arts. I told him that the year was almost over and that he just needed to suck it up and do his work and get through May. Well, when Zack went to school on Monday, he told his teacher Mr. G. that he didn't care about his assignment, he didn't care about the class, and it didn't matter because it would be done soon anyway. Mr G. was not pleased. I have to explain to Zack that there are things you think and things you say, and this was probably something that belonged in the first category. Mr. G. emailed me, but I didn't respond. I just don't really care because that class is almost over anyway.

Alright, I made it to Z! Woohoo! Who's going next?

***I would like to acknowledge the contributions to this blog entry made by my awesome daughter who helped me think up words that start with R and U and N and Y. Those were tough.
 

Apparently during the month of April there was a web-wide blogging challenge, and I completely missed hearing about it until Today... the day after it ended. Sigh. I guess the idea was to blog about something relating to the letter of the day. I don't actually know what the rules were because, like I said, it ended. Still, I'm going to do this anyway, but all in one entry -microblog style! Even at that, it'll probably take several entries, but I'm gonna do this. And seriously, you should do it too. Yeah YOU. You know who I'm talking to.

Here goes. Logic would dictate we start with A.

Big A, little a. What begins with A. Man, it is really hard to think of something that doesn't involve Aunt Annie's Alligator. Oh wait! No it's not. A is for AGING. Yeah, we are all doing it, but I'm quickly approaching that milestone marker of aging defined by the big 4-0. Woohoo. But I'm not too traumatized by it.

B is always for books. Okay, maybe this goes back to to the aging thing because B used to be for Babies. Not anymore. Books, books, books. I love the smell of them. I love the fact that when I open one up, I never know what I'll find slipped between the pages. An abandoned bookmark, a receipt, a tag, photo or note, or sometimes even a fortune cookie fortune. I got a new Kindle in the mail yesterday as an early birthday gift, but I still love my books.

C is for cookies. We went from Dr. Seuss to Sesame Street there, but my daughter went on a cookie making binge over the weekend. She made these triple chocolate chunk cookies and took them to school yesterday. She gave one to her favorite teachers and she said you could actually see the look of wonder when he bit into it. He asked her "Are there Oreos in this." Why yes. Yes there were. Crushed oreos and white chocolate chips in a rich fudgy cookie. He told her "My God, I think I might cry." They were that good.

D is for dog. Funny story. Yesterday I was driving to the vets office and was listening to the audiobook "Last Child in the Woods" by Richard Louv (amazing book, by the way). I was listening to a chapter on how vital contact with nature is to the emotional and physical health of all people, but especially children. Then he talked about the rising use of antidepressants. I believe he said they are now THE most commonly prescribed medication. He mentioned how it is becoming alarming more common even amongst preschoolers. My jaw dropped at that thought. Preschoolers on Prozac! Holy crap that's scary and wrong and... then it hit me. The irony of the situation was that I was in my car driving to the vets office for my dog right? Well, the point of the trip was to pick up a refill of his Prozac. Yeah, my dog has an anxiety disorder.

E is for eviscerated. The kitty scored his first confirmed kill sometime yesterday evening. Not sure what it was though. Hard to tell from just the innards left in there neat little coil on the front steps. Me thinks the chipmunks won't be feeling so bold anymore.

F is for Friendship. And fortunate. And Funny. And Feelings. I am feeling fortunate for having many funny friends.

G is for Geographical bachelor. The technical term for Tony living in NC while I continue to live here. Everyday it seems he is alternately encouraged or discouraged in regards to his chances of staying on there after his temp tour ends in October. He really wants to stay and I can tell the not knowing is bugging him. It isn't really bothering me though since I know where I'll be in October.

H is for Hiking. I went out with my friend Emma on Sunday morning. It was an absolutely beautiful day. And yes, I really think that connection to nature helps my mental and physical health. Must do it again. And soon!

I is for irreverence. Long live irreverence.

J is for jumping in with both feet . . . which I feel I have done in launching the new website. Such a rare thing from me to jump in without over thinking and talking myself out of even trying.

K is for Katie. The girl-child is a wonder. I haven't known very many parents who say that 16 going on 17 is a wonderful age, but I really and sincerely feel that way. God I love that kid!

L is for last one. I'll come back and finish this later (which also starts with L). Okay, I guess that is kind of cheating. L is for late nights. I've had a few of those lately. You know, people can be really judgmental about how other people spend their time. We all have the same number of hours in the day. It seems that whatever I do, whether it is reading a book, working in my garden, taking a hike, or launching a website, it seems that their is always someone snidely remarking "Oh it must be so nice to have time for that." The message is that they are too busy or too important to engage in such frivolity. I probably do this too though when I look at what other people do with their time. Like manicures... I can't imagine taking the time to go sit and have a manicure. I might say I don't have the time, but clearly it is really a matter of priorities and making different choices about how we spend our time. Oh yeah... and late nights. Not sleeping gives you more time to do stuff.

Okay... 12 letters. That's almost halfway!



 

They say it is better to light a candle than curse the darkness, but sometimes that's easier said then done. It is hard to light a candle when you can't get the lighter to even spark. You need that spark. So here I am after a fantastic hike up the mountain on an absolutely gorgeous day. My friend Emma went with me, and was great company. I told her about the new web-site too. Honestly, I'm very excited about that because last week at this time, developing a website seemed just totally beyond my particular skill set, and to have Something out there is pretty cool. My site co-author seems to be very pleased with it also, and now the ideas are starting to snowball and grow and ideas have a tendency to do. And all of that just puts me into an overall more creative and positive frame of mind. Life is good.

Unfortunately life is also demanding, and I have laundry to wash, a dishwasher to unload, groceries to buy and a child who needs a hair cut. If you do pop over to see my shiny new site, sign the guest book so I'll know you've been! I'll even throw some Sparkly gps at anyone from this site who leaves a comment or signs the guest book.
 

A while back I wrote about how my old high school boyfriend and I had reconnected on Facebook and were messaging each other. Well, his wife pitched a fit about it, and we stopped the messaging, but we moved over email and have continued to have a regular exchange. Actually, switching to email probably upped the frequency of the exchanges. Anyway, last week we got into an email discussion about core beliefs, and I started looking back through old blog entries trying to come up with an entry that summed it up. Long story short, I ended up reviewing my entire first blog to... uh... sanitize it a bit, and then sent my friend links to several of my favorite entries. I told him that it made me a little sad because I've fallen out of the habit of blogging. And that's when he pointed out that in our daily exchanges were essentially me blogging to an audience of one. Go figure.

So then he said "We should publish this shit."

So we went back and forth about the possibility of a shared blog. What we do, how we would do it, what we could call it, and how much trouble he'd be in with his wife if she ever found out. Right. Pseudonyms. Check.

Anyway, I've decided that this is the real reason my blogging has slacked off so much. I am more likely to write if I feel engaged. If I feel like I have someone to riff off of... so yeah... we decided to go for it. Seeing as I have no life, I spent my Friday evening setting up a website. It is only a freebie trial for now, and I don't think he's even seen it yet. I'm sure I'll hear about it when he does! Anyway, I was pretty impressed with myself, and I added the link over there on the right in case any one is interested in checking it out. It's called Ex-communication . . . because he's my ex and . . . we communicate.

Don't worry though, I won't abandon this blog.
 

My daughter is trying to get a job for the summer. I keep trying to encourage her to go into places of business, introduce herself, and ask for an application. She prefers the apply online and hope for the best approach. I guess it is a better approach than shy lil' me took when I was a teen. I remember asking my Mom to stop in and pick up a job application for me. That didn't work out well. They basically got all excited and offered her the job on the spot because they wanted someone "mature."

Back to the girl-child. The other day she was completing an online application for Olive Garden. For the question about gender, they had a surprising number of answer options.

1. Male

2. Female

3. Prefer not to disclose

4. Canadian applicant

I suppose when you come from Canada, gender is irrelevant, eh?

In other excitement, I went up to Scranton for my nieces 5th Birthday party. I didn't actually go to the party though. I sent the boy-child to the party and stayed back at my brother's house to babysit my nephew. He is 15 months old, and I just love that kid. He's such a sweet baby, but he kinda reminds me of Bruce Banner.

"Simple, clear purpose and principles give rise to complex, intelligent behavior. Complex rules and regulations give rise to simple and stupid behavior." -H. Dee

I first encountered the above quote several years back. I was putting together a powerpoint presentation for work, and was looking for a quotation to add to a title page. I wanted something that captured the often frustrating bureaucracy in which we work. I saw this, and quickly passed it over in favor of something that went a bit lighter on tragic truthiness, but this quote was filed away somewhere in my brain with enough accuracy that I could call it up again with a quick Google search.

Earlier this year, I discovered audiobooks. I’d never given them a try because I am not an attentive listener and I thought I would miss too much. As it turns out, I very much enjoy listening to audiobooks in the car. I don’t drive very far usually, but even listening on the short 2 mile drive to work is quite enjoyable. I’ve been listening to a book called “In Pursuit of Elegance: Why the Best Ideas Have Something Missing” by Matthew E. May. The book is pretentious at times, but has butted up against things I’ve pondered – even blogged about – in the past. In doing so, it has managed to get thinking along these lines again. Now the one thing that does frustrate me about audiobooks is that the words are so slippery. I can’t easily re-visit a phrase or sentence that lights up part of my brain the way I often do when reading. Last week I drove home for lunch one day, and came rushing into the house to right these words down before I lost them. It may not be an exact quote.

“When you remove predictability and certainty, awareness and engagement increase.” -M. May

The author illustrates this point beautifully by talking about the way in which traffic flow has been improved in several European towns through the removal of all traffic control devices, signage and road markings. I was familiar with the work of Hans Monderman and his efforts to demonstrate how traffic lights make roads more dangerous because a long, long time ago – in my first blog- I wrote an entry on that very subject. The author used another great example. Although good tires and breaks are thought of as important safety features, they really make us less safe. Bottom line is that when you know your tires are worn and your brake pads need to be replaced, you adjust your speed accordingly. You drive more cautiously on wet roads, and leave more braking room between you and the car up ahead. When everything is in top condition, your awareness of risk decreases.

So these two quotes go hand in hand with the second quote explaining the mechanism behind the first quote. Complex rules and regulations create a sense of predictability and certainty and thereby contribute to simple and stupid behavior. This concept is striking home with me at the moment because we just went through our regulatory oversight process at work. Since we receive most of our funding from Federal Medicaid dollars, we deal with a high degree of complex, rules and regulations. Topping that off, we’ve become increasing prescriptive in the past year in terms of standardizing all of our processes in an effort to make the work as mindless as possible. And then we sit back and complain that people seem to be regressing. Seriously, it is as if someone spiked the water with stupid. Does anyone stop to think about what they are doing or saying? Do they stop to ask if it makes any sense? If it doesn’t make sense, do they care?

I see it now as a natural consequence of this path we’ve been on. People have checked out. Disengaged. They are simply going through the motions. Trying to make sense of the regulations is pointless because they are overly complex and constantly changing. Better to do what you are told, when you are told, and not think about it too much.

These leads to another take away from the book. We have a tendency to be additive. It is our nature to gather, collect, hoarde, expand, and build. When something isn’t working we enhance it by adding on. We add features to our smart phones, lanes to our highways, and page after page to our regulations to address the problems. This calls to mind another blast from the past quote that I’ve always liked but can’t find anyone to attribute it to.

“Don’t just do something – sit there.”

The solution isn’t always about adding processes, and developing checklists, tracking tools and spreadsheets. More often than not, the solution is stop doing those things that aren’t working. In fact, May suggests that for every “To do” list we write, we should also make a list of what we will stop doing. I like this idea. It is a bit of a throw back to the blog entry in which I decided that instead of a bucket list of things I wanted to do, I needed a fuck-it list of things I didn’t ever want to do or do again. So I’m all in favor of the “To don’t” list, and I think I’ll start one of each for the week when I get to work tomorrow morning.

I think I’ve mentioned that with the Governor’s proposed budget, things have been looking pretty grim at work. There has been a lot of discussion about looking at everything we do and identifying which activities are essential. There has also been a lot of talk about going to a “living room” model for the bulk of the workforce. This would mean consolidating offices and having staff work in the field and from home and only physically come to the office one or two days per week. Now, given the outbreak of stupidity that we are combatting, this seems a little scary, but I think the answer is pretty clear. You really can’t micromanage a mobile workforce and have it work. I think the only solution is to define the deliverables required from each worker, and leave it to them to devise their own processes. With any luck, the result will be some of that fabled complex, intelligent behavior.

 

I picked my husband up at the airport last night. He is home for a week. I think he mistakenly thought I would have more time off around the Easter Holiday, but I am only off on Good Friday. I did take a personal day off from work today to spend some time with him, but also because I needed to go to the doctor. Yucky as it is, I have a very painful plantar's wart on my left foot. My attempts to get rid of it with over the counter treatments have been unsuccessful, so I was due for a visit to the doctor. Oddly enough, Tony wanted to come with me. More specifically, he wanted me to want him to come with me. And really, what couple couldn't benefit from a bit more togetherness in the form of wart removal. Well, it was just too far of a stretch for me to say I wanted him to go, so I left it at shrugging indifference and he tagged along.

Fast forward to this evening. His first evening at home . . . with his children . . . who were already in bed when we got in last night. Did we bask in the togetherness? Not hardly. He made other plans. He went to the gym for 3-4 hours to workout with & catch up with some friends because he hadn't seen them in a long time and probably wouldn't get a chance to again before he left. At least he is consistent.
 

So, I am one of the millions of people who didn't win squat in the record shattering Mega Millions lottery. It is probably just as well. About a week ago I was watching a podcast at psychfiles on the psychology of happiness. According to the podcast, people have a set point for happiness. Life has it's up and downs, but we keep returning to and settling in at our happiness set point. Some people obviously have a much higher or lower threshold. I used to think my Grandmother was happiest when she was good and miserable, so I guess her happiness set point was pretty low. Then there is the gal who works the checkout at Target who just radiates sunshine and light. She probably shits rainbows and rides her My Little Pony to work. Once I figured out that she was just genuinely freakin' happy, I came to love her and will always chose her lane when I'm in the store. She would be an example of someone with a high happiness set point.

Interestingly, most of us think we are happier than the average person. Of course, the reality is that, by definition, most of us are average. Now, in the podcast, two things were mentioned that can shift your happiness set point. The first was cosmetic surgery. Turns out that people who have cosmetic surgery become happier and stay happier. Obviously, there are some pathological exceptions who become addicted to surgery and appearing on Maury, but they are not the norm. So cosmetic surgery increases your happiness set point. Guess what lowers it? Yep, that's right... winning the lottery. Hitting a big jackpot initially makes you freaking ecstatic, but it doesn't last, and most lottery winners experience a lowering of their happiness set point.

In light of this, I have developed a plan, and if I ever win the lottery, I will quickly schedule a consult for cosmetic surgery. Maybe they'll cancel each other out.

As I was saying though, it is probably just as well I didn't win. My daughter and I had developed a nifty business plan though. My town has been without a bookstore since Borders went out of business, so our idea was to open a new bookstore with our lottery winnings. It would be more than a bookstore though. It serve as a gathering place for people who like books, A cultural Mecca that would give back to the community by donating all profits (assuming there were any) to promote art, music and literacy programs in the community.

Daughter's idea - Live music on Friday nights

My idea- We could add a wine tasting bar

Daughter's idea - We could host book signings featuring her favorite authors

My idea - And microbrews. We could do microbrew tastings too. We could call it Books and Brews.

Daughter's idea- We could call it anything BUT Books and Brews.

My idea - How about Brews, Booze and Books?

So you see... it is probably a good thing we didn't win the lottery... this time.
 

There is something about the spring that drives me to purge out the old and start fresh. So here we are. A fresh new blog. Take a big whiff. It even has that new blog smell. Eventually I'll add a description and make it look more welcoming, but for now, I just wanted to get it launched.

Tonight when I was feeding the animals, I noticed the flavor listed on the canned cat food was "With Chicken." I found this to be disturbingly ambiguous. I think that unless you are Ben and Jerry and very creative with the naming of flavors, it is probably best to not start a flavor with a preposition. Yes, I think I'll start with some "from the fryer," and a bit of "beneath the balsamic." Then, for the main course I'll take some "Despite the Cow." Or not.

This weekend got away from me as most of them seem to, and I haven't made it through the big ol' pile of laundry. I did however manage to wrangle several bags of papers, magazines, and junk mail out of the house and off to the recycling center. I also got the kids to go through and purge some things from their wardrobes. The boy-child is 13 now and what fits one week seems to be too small in the next week. I think I'm going to give up with the idea of his clothing ever getting put into dresser drawers. I think I'll just clear off a couple shelves in his closet and set the piles of folded laundry there. Opening drawers to put clothes away only to take them back out is apparently too much of a bother.

I recently got a book called "The House that Cleans Itself." I haven't had time to do more than skim it so far, but according to the back, "by adapting your house to fit your family's behavior, you can create a house that cleans itself." Well... here's hoping.