Month: September 2015

What baking has taught me about love….

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Dear Readers,

Every year, my dear friend Jessi makes Christmas cookies from scratch and provides an assortment and (keeping in mind which person like which cookie) its just as labor-intensive as it sounds. I have “helped” her do this exactly one time and that help pretty much consisted of tasting batter and entertaining her with stories and occasionally moving one dish from the table to the sink. Her love language is Quality Time so it works.

Lo these many years, bemoaning my lack of ability to cook I allowed myself the use of premade cookie dough and occasionally would spoon it on to a cookie sheet (instead of my mouth) to “make cookies” for people I cared about. But over the last few years as I learned how to make cakeballs (to great compliment) so I can no longer say that I don’t know how to cook, I did attempt to find out how to make my Aunt Nancy’s cookies which is are known all over St Louis for being amazing. I watched her once and despaired I would ever figure it out. It is not that difficult, it simply takes effort which I recently learned is well worth the time to expend. Let me explain.

On Tuesday night, I hung out with my friend Meredith and amidst lots of time spent and grocery shopping we made over 100 cookies, some for the church, some for my team, some for the checker at the grocery store who took notice of us and said, “I want some cookies” so we brought him some. He was happy and surprised that we did.

I was struck by how easy it is to take the shortcut and buy the premade dough and if you do this, I want to be clear, I am NOT judging you, as there is definitely something to be said for the sacrifice of time for convenience. The difference between the prepackaged cookie dough cookies and the homemade cookies you mix the flour, sugar, butter and chocolate chips is like night and technicolor morning! I had no idea the difference was so stark. The richness of the flavor, the sweetness of the chocolate chips each one melting in your mouth, absolute heaven! How does this relate to love you ask?

Simple, we can love everyone the same, cookie-cutter emotions, words and ideas or we can choose to take the time, the effort, and the energy to find out exactly what the other person wants, needs, and desires. Yes, it takes time. Yes, it takes effort.  However, the result you get is much like the difference between pre-packaged cookie dough and the cookies we painstakingly mixed, scooped, and baked the other night with the most important ingredient, LOVE.

Think about it…. and Happy “baking”!!cookiescientist

What’s your Love Language?

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Dear Readers,

I come to you today to ask a question. What is your love language? I actually was very surprised when I went to this link to take that quiz. http://www.5lovelanguages.com/

The last time I took it, was seven years ago when my boyfriend (now husband) agreed (at my urging) to take it so we could better communicate and relate. In retrospect, I remember thinking it was a fun exercise and didn’t have much to do with how I would behave moving forward. I know at the time, my highest score was “words of appreciation” so while actions are still important, as a logophile (lover of words) I love words of appreciation. Really shocking.

However, the more important result was my partners. Acts of Service is the best way to show your love to him. This would likely not surprise anyone who knows him. He is the kind of person who not only would give you the shirt off his back if you didn’t have one. He also would take particles and pieces of things from the ether to MAKE one for YOU before ever thinking of HIMSELF. This makes him a giving and selfless person and utterly lovable.

I hate doing landry so much so that I have a saying.. “I love you laundry loads” which for a long time was an “inside story” I had with a member of my family of origin which I have mentioned to my husband in passing, and he has truly taken it to heart-

What this means is I love you as much as I HATE doing laundry. Simple and awesome right? It turns out my husband understood this much better than  I did… Since he did an act of service for me..  which would be doing the trash, dishes, laundry and cooking.. things like that.. you know the things we all would rather not do. Well I came face to face with the fact that acts of service means more to me than I thought because the other day, though he was bone tired, my husband finished my laundry for me. I woke up early to finish.. and lo and behold I woke to find this ==Loveyoulaundryloadswhich is the physical manifestation of someone loving ME Laundry Loads. I teared up a little and headed to work, happy with my lot in in life to be loved so completely.

In case you are curious, this my love language NOW –

7 Quality Time
7 Receiving Gifts
6 Words of Affirmation
5 Acts of Service
5 Physical Touch

It lines up well with my values, because as many of you, quality time is hard to come by and the most valuable commodity to me. It behooves all of us to know how the people in our lives can “love us better” so I recommend you take the quiz, at the very least to understand more about yourself and how you feel most loved.

Think about it…..

Spend time taking care of yourself, its the best investment you can make!

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Dear Readers,

I do a lot of talking about self-care to my coaching clients. The idea normally involves a bubble bath, a cheesy movie or a chocolate treat. Today I am talking about the self-care you can do for yourself that helps your health. Doing something that makes you FEEL good matters. I used to run until I hurt my back so for now I walk. Most recently, I walked 1.82 miles with my husband (proud of you honey!) and that felt good for lots of reasons but mostly because he walked with me and was proud of himself for doing so.

But back to taking care of yourself, so in my journey to feeling better, I tried doing a lot of things. First, I stopped exercising at all, which has the double whammy of not being good for you and making you feel bad (no good).

Second, I went to see a doctor who told me, “you are getting old this is normal” – All due respect to your medical training, doctor but I am 38 and not even close to done working on what I can and can NOT do with this body of mine, thank you. (annoying, and a more than a little condescending, so also not good)

Third, I went to a chiropractor who asked me what do you do all day? Do you sit? Do you stand? Do you stretch? What do you do for exercise? After a few minutes, he was able to tell what was wrong and how to go about fixing it. HALLELUJAH! Now, I don’t want to give the impression that it is a magic wand, and I am all better. Like anything else in life, it’s not that easy. The chiropractor told me that in a few weeks I could go back to walking (I have done so!!!) and in a few months I can go back to running (patience, Iago!) but the biggest thing he shared with me is that I am in CHARGE of stretching, standing and walking and incorporating more movement in my day (hold on, time to stretch) and the people who are the most successful with maintaining health are the ones that manage their own care. WHAT A CONCEPT! Seems simple right?

Wrong. We are creatures of habit, so I have had to break the habit of constantly sitting, and every 30 minutes a timer goes off so I remember to stretch. After a few weeks of doing this, I am happy to report, I almost don’t need the timer… my body is adapting and the lack of pain is helping to solidify the habit. You will note that I said, “almost” because it is not worth it to me to “forget” that stretch so crucial to keeping me aligned and out of pain.

If you are the type to need some science to back up the fact that its bad to sit all the time, here is an article or two for you to peruse.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/killer-chairs-how-desk-jobs-ruin-your-health/

http://www.fastcompany.com/3021985/work-smart/the-science-of-posture-why-sitting-up-straight-makes-you-happier-and-more-product

If you don’t sit at your job and this doesn’t apply to you, great! Likely you know someone who does and this could perhaps benefit them, and help them avoid the issues I experienced.

So back to you, dear reader, what do you do for self-care? What do you do to maintain your health mental and physical? What habits do you need to break? What habits do you need to build? What can you do TODAY to make your life better?

Think about it…….

Social Media- Blessing or Curse?

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Dear Readers,

If you are anything like me, you enjoy social media but in our Tuesday night meeting, the Toastmaster posed the question, “Social Media- Blessing or Curse?”

I got a lot of answers to this during the meeting, some of them arrogant and funny and others poignant and thoughtful but it got me thinking..

I say both with the caveat that like everything else, balance is required.

Case in point, Our Toastmaster attempted to periscope the meeting but realized while he was doing that he wasn’t fully “engaged” in the speaker or the meeting. This is a real hot button of mine because I think too often in our “must have it now” society we spend a lot of time comparing our lives to those people we are friends with on social media and not knowing the ins and outs, we judge ourselves and find our lives lacking.

I personally have a love/hate relationship with social media. I love to hate people who use it too much. Okay but seriously, I think it has its place. I have made and maintained many friendships with people online who I have never met and I can honestly say that encouragement helps and that “like” or “comment” (mostly the comments) keep me running or walking when I REALLY do NOT feel like it. So it’s healthy in that sense that we can encourage each other, but the flip side is we can also hurt each other with social media by posting vitriol and racist and really unpleasant things.

So as my husband put it, “Social Media is kind of like The Force, you can use it for good or evil, so on any given day you can choose to be Luke Skywalker or Darth Vader. What will you choose to be ?

one post on facebook talks to you about donating to a worthy cause while another complains about something that while its “trending” isn’t worthy of your time to read about. I guess that’s the point, you decide what you want to use your time and energy to spread in the world.

What will you meditate on? Good or Evil?

Think about it…..