The good news is that there’s more good news than bad news, more kind people than mean. With a tiny shift in focus, you’ll make this your reality. [read more at HowDoesShe.com]
About Me
Drops of Awesome LDS Resources
Wondering how Drops of Awesome is informed by my faith? You’ve come to the right place!
I recognize that most of my readers are not members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and many do not share my belief in God. This is why I created the Drops of Awesome Journal with a broad focus to reach a wider audience. The book really zones in on what each of us can do personally to shift our focus and recognize the good we are doing in the world.
However, I also find great joy in my belief that I am not doing this alone, that there is someone far greater than myself contributing to my Bucket of Awesome.
So, after several requests for LDS resources to accompany lessons and activities about Drops of Awesome, I’ve been slowly gathering scriptures and conference talks that will work as a supplement to the book, coming out in September from Familius. I will continue to update this page as I find material. Feel free to leave me a comment with a talk or scripture reference that helps you remember to keep trying and that our small efforts matter….
I Could Have Danced All Night
It’s jazz night at the Senior Center. Dan’s playing saxophone in the band and the kids and I are eating delicious gentle-on-the-dentures delicacies, reading middle grade fantasy novels, and periodically dancing like spasmodic maniacs.
My feet move in a pattern somewhere between awkward tween shuffle and the jive. My arms twirl and throw Laylee around until she’s dizzy, grinning and confused. We’ve got moves. They just might not be sanctioned by any of the currently ruling international dance organizations.
Out on the floor is a couple who knows all the moves. They’re probably in their eighties or nineties. She’s beautiful and he’s a little hunched over but incredibly strong and confident. They glide through turns and lifts like they’re still in their twenties and people applaud them whenever they take the floor.
Near the end of the night, the man taps me on the shoulder and asks me to dance.
“I don’t really know how,” I laugh.
His smile is warm as he gestures to the floor. “It sure looks like you do.”
“You are kind, but last time I danced with someone at one of these things, he was very disappointed.”
“I can’t believe he would tell you that. I have never in my life made a lady feel bad about her dancing.” He looks incensed.
“I’ll try if you promise to help me and be patient.”
His look says, Don’t be ridiculous.
It’s an understatement to say he’s good. He is A-FLIPPIN-MAZING! Hands down the best dancer I’ve ever danced with, of any age. I shuffle along at first but gradually start to pick up on his lead and find myself doing moves I’ve never attempted. My face is locked in a perma-grin.
Between songs, I thank him for dancing with me. “My husband is in the band so I rarely get to dance.”
“And let me guess,” he says with a twinkle in his eye, “If you’re husband’s in the band, he’s probably not much of a dancer anyway.” He winks. This ninety-year-old man is flirting with me.
I don’t let him lift me off the ground, although I can tell he wants to, and when the song ends my dip is not as low as he intends. At 35, I’m not as graceful or petite as his bride. But I feel amazing.
As he leads me off the floor, everyone applauds, and I realize that I didn’t once notice anyone around us while we were dancing. I’ve rarely been so absorbed in an activity. My cheeks ache from smiling and I’m drenched in sweat.
That dance was a gift.
I take a minute to imagine myself as a young girl in the 1940s, having a night out at a dance hall. Instead of Chacos and a t-shirt, I’m wearing pumps, hose, and my best dress, my hair curled in victory rolls. I wonder what my dance partner looked like back then.
Then, I laugh to think what senior centers will look like when I’m in my nineties. Will we be crowded around an aging DJ, cranking out Milli Vanilli and Dub Step remixes, while we imitate MC Hammer and pop and lock? Maybe one of my friends will teach krumping on Tuesday afternoons.
But no. We will never grow old so I don’t even need to think about it. I could better use my energy preparing for the hip hop class I’m taking with my friends later this summer…
To-Do or To-Done?
“To-Do or not To-Do, that is the question. I have a wide pendulum swing when it comes to To-Do lists. There are times when I am obsessively writing, writing, writing everything I will do on a given day and checking off the items as I go. At these times, I will often add times to each item so my day is a series of overscheduled minutiae. At other times, a 43-day-old To-Do list languishes on a napkin in my purse or a neglected app on my phone and I’m flying by the seat of my capri pants, doing everything or nothing as the mood strikes me and forever missing deadlines in a house that looks like the seven dwarves’ cottage before Snow White kicked their butts into gear.”
[Read about my current answer to this problem at HowDoesShe.com]
Slug Friends Probably
Slugs sick me out. They make me want to vomit. If you’ve never stepped on a slug with your bare feet and felt it pop, you might not be emotionally equipped to understand what it feels like to truly hate a slug the way I have come to hate them. That being said, I’ve made it one of my many diverse missions in life to help my kids be okay with slugs.
When they see a slug, I compliment it. “Wow,” I say, “What a cute slug friend. We should name it.” Or, “Aren’t we lucky that we have slugs to leave sparkly trails all over our front door and car door handles? People who don’t have slug friends wish they were us.”
Maybe this is disingenuous. I prefer to think of it as positive psychology or self-deception for the greater good.
So, Wanda is convinced that she loves slugs and they love her back. She talks to them, adopts them, cries when we wake up to a slug-free morning. One thing she never does is touch them. This is telling. I can say I think a boy is cute, but if the thought of touching him makes my skin crawl, I probably don’t like him all that much.
So, last night Wanda left her shoes out on the lawn by the trampoline… so the balls and shovels and popsicle sticks wouldn’t be lonely. Tonight when she was coming in after a parentally-mandated, screaming-fight-with-her-brother-motivated cease and desist order, I told her to bring in five or ten shoes from the area around the trampoline.
She began gathering them up and soon screams erupted. “AAAAHHHH! MOM!!!! They’re in my shoes. THE SLUG FRIENDS ARE IN MY SHOES!”
These were not screams of delight. They were screams of terror. They were screams filtered through tears, shaky tears.
“GET THEM OUT! I’m seer-yuss.”
I couldn’t help laughing. I could help taking a picture of her distress but I chose not to.
My favorite part is probably the position of her fingers as she tries to hold the shoe with as little of her hands as possible. Eventually, I made my way out to the front porch to shake the slugs out of her super fast cheetah shoe. Four slugs people. Four invaders. Or so I thought.
There were five.
One more slug had somehow clung to my person as I came inside and several minutes later Laylee noticed it shlumped on the middle of the living room rug.
Chaos.
I was busy sitting, so I asked Laylee to get a kleenex and flush it down the toilet. She looked at me like I’d asked her to fill her own bed with rat babies, but eventually agreed. “Oh… kaaaaay.”
She left to grab the tissue.
She returned with hands full of half a roll of paper towel, bunched up into a toddler-elephant-sized wad.
“Aaand I guess you won’t be flushing that.”
She giggled nervously. But she bravely did the deed. Slug friend was disposed of and we salute the many trees who gave their lives so our house could be free of living slime.
When we say our family prayer each night, every person gets a chance to say one thing they’re thankful for that we then incorporate into the prayer.
Tonight, Magoo said, “I’m thankful that we got rid of all the slugs in our house… probably.”
Laylee said, “I’m thankful that the slugs are gone.”
Wanda said, “I’m thankful that there are no more slugs in my shoes.” She then gave a cheery smile and continued, “Isn’t it cool that we all said slug things for the prayer?”
I prayed tonight and when I got to the slug portion of the oblation, I said, “And we’re thankful that we got rid of all the slugs in our house.”
Magoo whispered, “Say, ‘Probably.’”
Probably.
Who Do You Think You Are?
I’m serving up a little introspection over at HowDoesShe.com today, courtesy of Magoo and a belching contest. You’re welcome.
“Who are you, deep down in your cream-filled center? If you had a five minute interaction with a complete stranger, would she come away knowing the you that you want to make known? In those five minutes, would your words and actions be in line with your core beliefs and ambitions?” [Read more at HowDoesShe.com]
Blowing Young Minds at a Bookstore Near You
When I say Laylee loves the Fablehaven series by Brandon Mull, I mean LOVE, as in the characters are practically honorary family members. I’m fairly certain that she’s read all five books in the series no fewer than twenty times. You might think, Fablehaven must be the only thing she reads, but you’d be mistaken. The girl averages eight or more novels each week. Fablehaven books just seem to make their way back to the top of the pile more frequently than most.
The love of reading has spread to Magoo and he’s currently reading Brandon Mull’s most recent fiction, Sky Raiders. When my kids read, they read everywhere. I recently took this picture of Magoo, reading Sky Raiders, walking through Costco and holding onto the side of the cart like it was a Seeing Eye dog.
I thought, If someone is ever that engrossed in one of my novels, I will want to know about it. So, I took a picture of Magoo to tweet to the author. When I went to find his Twitter handle, I noticed he was currently in Seattle. I tweeted to ask him if he had any public events. He responded quickly that he and a few other authors were in town doing a series tour for Scholastic and he had a book signing in a little over an hour in downtown Seattle.
Now, we always say we live “in Seattle,” but we really live way the heck outside of Seattle and we had other stuff going on Tuesday night, but I rallied the kids, threw them in the van and we headed to the U district to meet their favorite author.
At the University Bookstore, they were treated to readers’ theatre with Brandon Mull, James Dashner, Gordon Korman, and Jude Watson. I think Laylee almost had an excitement-induced seizure.
Then we made our way upstairs, where Laylee and Magoo gave Brandon carpel tunnel, having him sign his name on a gazillion books and the leather covers of their nooks, where most of his books live at our house.
Laylee is rarely at a loss for words, but when she met Brandon, she couldn’t remember the answers to basic questions, like how old she was.
“Did I blow your mind with that question?” he asked.
She giggled.
I had to translate.
“Have you read some of my books?”
“I’veReadEverySingleBookYou’veEverWrittenExceptTheSecondCandyShopWars BecauseIOnlyRecentlyFoundOutItExisted.” She managed to breathe out.
He was sweet and took real time with each of the fans standing in line. A really great guy. When we left the bookstore and headed home, Laylee told me it was one of the best nights of her life. Sometimes it’s worth blowing off other commitments in order to be spontaneous and blow your kids’ minds. Laylee’s biggest, hairiest career goal is to be a fantasy author and meeting Brandon Mull was just the boost she needed to keep going with her writing. I am grateful for people who are capable of being successful and humble at the same time, who are willing to inspire kids in a genuine way.
Well done, Mr. Mull.
How Can I Be Happy About This?
“Three minutes.
That’s how long I had to work hard to focus on the positive before I began to feel happy. Three minutes of work to turn a nightmare into a great memory.”
Not Quite Insta
I have a love-hate relationship with all things social media. I love the way it creates and extends relationships across distances but hate the way it distills people’s thoughts, feelings and beliefs into sound bites.
I find that often people I love and respect say thoughtless, hurtful, stressful or inflammatory things on the internet that they would never say to someone in person. For some people, Facebook seems to be a dumping ground for all their worries, fears and insecurities.
Less and less are Twitter and Facebook happy places for me. I use them as I need them, but they’re not fun like they were in the beginning. They are not my “happy places.”
Because of this, I’ve been resistant to expand my social media horizons.
Finally, about 50 years after everyone else, I joined Instagram last week and WHAT TOOK ME SO LONG!?
This is the happy social media hub. It’s a place to post small pieces of light, joy and humor in the form of photos. Little slices of life. I love it. LOVE. I’m way late to the party, but Instagram has replaced Facebook for me as a daily go-to to see what’s happening in my friends’ lives. This is the real stuff. It is 99% positive. It is visually pleasing.
Instagram – Look at the frog I found at work.
Facebook – I am suing my employer for discrimination.
Instagram – My desk is messy because I just wrote an awesome paper.
Facebook – Here’s a link to a whitepaper about how all is lost.
Instagram – Doesn’t my crazy Ragnar hat look rad?
Facebook – I’m so sick of all the crazy Ragnar people. They are a sign that the government wants to take away all of our rights and deprive us of Oreos.
So, join me on Instagram. Because it’s awesome. Because I want to know if you found a frog at work. Or what your daughter’s milk mustache looks like. These are the things that matter to me. Life is too short to not share pictures of your cat all day.
Novica – Review and $75 Giveaway
Do you remember when I became obsessed with only buying fair trade items?
Dan does. It was the year I told him exactly what I wanted for Mother’s Day but said I only wanted it if he could find it made of recycled glass by people in fair working conditions or previously-owned. He spent hours with the kids in an antique store finding me the perfect glass pitcher. I bought him a bathrobe and called the company to verify the working conditions of the textile workers. I wanted to know they had air conditioning, a fair wage.
Yeah. We got tired and lazy and we just started buying stuff again, trying not to think about where it came from or how it was made. But I still think about it, a bit. It just takes work to know what you’re buying.
That’s why I love Novica. It’s a website that partners with National Geographic to bring fair trade items from artisans around the world to consumers worldwide. Each of the items offered for sale comes with an artist bio and information about where and how it’s made. You can view these profiles online as you’re browsing and feel secure that you’re helping small businesses flourish, often in impoverished countries.
Novica also partners with Kiva.org to provide microcredit loans to their artisans, allowing them to start or grow businesses, employ others, and preserve ancient artistic techniques. You can offer a zero interest loan to an artisan through their website.
To give me an experience to blog about, Novica offered me a $150 gift card, which I spent $75 of and I’m giving the other $75 to you.
There are a ton of great products to choose from. It took me days, and sadly, by the time I made my mind up, the item I wanted had sold. I’ll have to check back later. Stock varies from day to day as artists sell out and get back to work creating. So, if you find something you love, snatch it up right away. It’s a great way to buy gifts and feel good about what you’re purchasing.
I went with this great Ica Traveler cotton handbag with leather accents. It is big enough without being enormous and has great organization with pen holders, cell phone pocket and two zipper pockets. It’s really pretty and well-made and I’m enjoying carrying it around.
It came quickly, considering it made its journey all the way from the Andes in Peru. When I placed my order, the website was glitching so I called the number on the screen and they completed my purchase over the phone.
A few other items I like that are still there are:
Leather Wristband Bracelet
Family Love Elephant Necklace
Soapstone Candle Holders
Brown Leather Messenger Bag
They also have leather handbags, jewelry boxes, sterling silver necklaces, Mother’s Day gift suggestions, blue drinking glasses, and much more.
Leave a comment if you love shopping fair trade and want to do it for free. I’ll use a random number generator to choose a winner at 10pm PST on Thursday, April 3rd, 2014. Good luck!
