Starting Over from Scratch

This has been the theme in 2011. As such, there are a couple of options in front of me in life:

Scenario 1 - Return to my long-lost homeland of California. Become happily re-united with my favorite ocean. Throw away all of my winter hats and scarves once and for all to make room for new sundresses. Return to a year-round sandal rotation. Become very tan. Find a Cal Poly boy who understands the enchantment of SLO and convince him to marry me on Dexter lawn. Eat a lot of sushi. Live a sunny and adventurous life.

Scenario 2 - Pack up and head south to the Carolinas. Become a Southern Belle. Learn how to cook?? Say goodbye to my life as business lady and head to grad school. Marry a shy Southern boy with a good brain and an adorable accent. Develop my own adorable accent. Make friends with the Atlantic Ocean. Become very tan. Buy a plantation and raise some kiddos. Invite all of our Southern friends over for barbecues on the patio.

Scenario 3 - Try my luck with a different state on the West Coast. Move to Portland, Oregon. Become a hippie. Spend my days bumming around parks. Buy some cute galoshes and a sturdy umbrella. Finish writing my novel (yes, I have a novel, and I am currently on the first chapter). Get it published and become mildly famous for being the girl who wrote that one brilliant novel. Live happily among the trees. Never pump my own gas again.

So there you go. Yes, these are all perfectly feasible. Except maybe I wouldn't become too much of a hippie. (I will probably never become a vegetarian or wear a leather headband or refuse to shave my legs.) And I'd probably find a day job in Portland just in case my brilliant novel doesn't work out. But one of these could describe my future! Stay tuned.

Just Another Manic Monday

I am a girl who isn't shocked by much, and who doesn't get thrown off guard very easily.  But you know what. Sometimes you encounter things that are just... for lack of a better term... whack.

Call me crazy. But I think the universe sometimes disguises the forces of good and evil as any number of places, things, experiences, and - most deviously - as people.

And sometimes when you have been afflicted with the forces of whack in a given day or a lifetime, the best thing you can do is shake you head while remembering to keep your values close by and your humor in tact.

Happy Marathon Monday + Patriot's Day + tax filing deadline!

Fenway Park

In case you are not familiar with Fenway, it happens to be the oldest standing park in baseball, right here in Boston. It will be 100 years old in 2012!  As such, it is smaller than most parks, and tickets are very hard to come by.

However, I was lucky enough to get invited to a Red Sox game this weekend with awesome seats. Not just any seats... box seats!  Which means VIP treatment and more importantly, really sweet views.

  

 

 

How am I ever supposed to go back to the bleachers and nosebleeds now...?

(I'm only kidding. I'm sure I will find a way. But it was awfully fun while it lasted!)

The Little Things

This Monday's Ripples message was all about taking notice.

When I read this one, I got excited. Because I immediately thought, "yes! I do that!"

You see, some people might call me a space cadet. It's true that I frequently have my head in the clouds. Sometimes this comes at the expense of having my head focused on whatever task happens to be in front of me.

However. I secretly like to think of this is one of my best attributes.

Maybe it's because the author of Ripples has the same personality type as me, but we are clearly on the same page. Meaning that we like to pay attention to little things in the world which single-minded, highly-focused, head-in-the-moment types of people might never bother to notice.

(No offense if you are one of these single-minded, highly-focused, head-in-the-moment types of people. I'm sure I can think of dozens of reasons why you are very bright and may end up being more successful than me.)

For instance, when I first walked down the hallway and to the restrooms in the gloomy building where I am working this week, I immediately noticed the pretty piano / orchestra music playing in the background. Which made me think of classical concerts, Disneyland, and France. (Common theme: places I'd rather be than at work.) This was an instantly welcome sound. And a simple reason to be happy during an otherwise boring afternoon.

Or when I was driving through the not-so-glamorous outskirts of Dallas last night, I instantly fell in love with all of the green trees, open fields, and big storybook houses which I stumbled upon after taking a wrong turn. (No, I am not moving to Dallas. This was a temporary kind of love.)

I later fell in love with the walnuts in my salad. They were really good walnuts.

Other examples of things which tend to be worthy of noticing include window views; blue skies; people, along with all of their actions and reactions; and anything else which happens to create a peaceful / cheerful / interesting moment. Admittedly this could be a lot of things.

I'll be honest. During the past two years I have wrestled and struggled and racked my brain to understand why anybody would ever want to be a grown up. Sometimes it seems like grown up life is inherently filled with routine boring-ness. I have even wondered if all of the happiest and most thrilling days are behind me. At a minimum, grown up life seems to involve longer stretches of predictability, broken up by fewer moments of excitement. Which is not really my lifestyle of choice.

I tend to be pretty keenly aware of people around me. As such, I've noticed that many people deal with these dull patches by maintaining a constant stream of busy-ness, by focusing on what is in front of them rather than worrying about the future, and sometimes... by drinking a lot.

But staying focused isn't really my strongest skill, and drinking too much just makes me feel sick the next day. So, instead, I do the very thing my mom used to tell me to do when I was a bored kid stuck inside the house during summer vacation: use my imagination. Enter "head in the clouds" philosophy. I daydream about happy things. I write blog entries when I should be working, and I linger too long in bathrooms just to hear the orchestra music. I make a point to notice little things, and I hold onto these things all day long. I try to let in the positive while filtering out the negative, and I make a point stay connected with the world around me. Because it's so much bigger and more interesting than the mundane realities of grown up life would sometimes have me realize. And in doing so, I like to think that I am able to create my own meaning. At least enough to hold me over until those intermittent moments of excitement come along. And those seem to be sneaking up on me more frequently. Which is a good sign.

Isn't there some expression that goes "stop and smell the flowers" or something like that? I think that's pretty much what I've been getting at. So I'm not going to pretend to be startlingly original, or anything. But what a good philosophy this has been for a girl like me to keep in mind.

I guess what I'm really trying to say is thank you, Paul, for helping me to rationalize the act of being a space cadet.

Circle the Cat

If you happen to enjoy wasting time, then you might appreciate this game. 

(Thank you to my fellow time-wasting pal for sharing.)

Please note that I assume no responsibility for any time that is wasted as a result of this post.

Learning in Style

Remember how I was teaching a training in Texas earlier this week?

Well, the first day was a "learn by PowerPoint" kind of day. I think it went pretty well given that I had not rehearsed any of my slides and instead elected to wing it. (In all fairness, I had very sincere intentions to practice beforehand. It just never happened. I was too busy / distracted this weekend. And then I was way too sleepy on the plane ride to study PowerPoint slides. Not too sleepy to watch The Tourist, though. I can't decide if it was clever or awful.)

Then, yesterday, I was left on my own to lead some hands-on training.  

So how did THAT go?

Terrific. We ate gumdrops and evaluated one another's personalities.  I had an astoundingly high accuracy rate, mind you.  And we had some very insightful personality chats.  One guy asked me if I would be able to offer some advice that might help him along in his quest to find a girlfriend. I happily agreed to send him some links. (In between all of this fun, I taught them a few boring things about auditing, too. Bleh.)

...this is what happens when I'm left in charge.

A Couple of Things

Happy (belated) opening day! I happen to love baseball season for several reasons: (1) It means spring has arrived, and summer is just around the corner; (2) It makes me think happy thoughts of sunshine and hot dogs and all things summery; (3) It means I will probably get to go on some baseball outings with friends / travel buddies / whoever happens to invite me; (4) It's America's favorite pastime, and one of mine, too; (5) There is a brand new chance that these guys will win the World Series! 

In addition, happy (belated) April Fools' Day. As an April Fools' joke, certain people filled my umbrella with "confetti" so that when I started to open it up last night, I was greeted with a nice surprise. I'm pretty sure I screamed loud enough for all of Boston to hear.

Maybe it's because spring is in the air, but the number of people I know who have gotten engaged lately has been an awful lot. Seriously, people are dropping like flies everywhere I turn! In fact, I took a Facebook hiatus for a little while, and when I came back, I discovered that FOUR people had gotten newly engaged while I was gone. And one had gotten married. And those are just the ones I've noticed. When did I become old enough to be friends with engaged / married people anyway?

In other news, I have never fancied myself as a girl who would like the South. Or who would enjoy the drawl of a Southern accent. (Except maybe when walking around the Atlanta and Memphis airports talking in my own wonderfully authentic Southern accent. When in Rome, ya know?) But I have discovered recently there are many different varieties of the "Southern accent." And it just so happens that I really like the variety from the Carolinas. Alabama accents? Not so much. Texas? No way. But I might just consider becoming a Carolina girl in order to hear these people talk.

So I have a hot yoga date today. And you have to read that as "hot yoga" date. Hot yoga is basically doing yoga in a sauna. You sweat out all of the negativity in your life while becoming happier and more flexible and more in tune with the universe. Cool, huh? (That might be kind of a skewed description, though. For a more accurate one, you would probably have to look it up.)

And next week I am going to be a teacher. Sort of. I'm going to teach part of a training to a group in Texas (where there will inevitably be no good accents). Could this be practice for my future career as Professor Nicole...? Hmm.

That may have been more than a couple things, though. Happy April.