Monthly Archives: July 2013

What do you hope someone knows? Tell them.

templife

This beautiful moon presented itself to me from my driveway last week.

MacGyver lost his dad a week ago very suddenly.  He was only 66 years old.  We are still processing the shock of it all and our hearts are swollen with sorrow.

One of my best friends lost her dad the very same week.  And I heard two stories just yesterday of people who lost their young fathers suddenly.

I lost my sister when she was 36, my mentor when he was only 57 and one of my best friends when she was only 32.

I’m always saying that life is short but even I often  lose sight of just how fleeting and temporary it can be. We’re so lucky to be here right now and to have those in our lives right now.

One of the blogs I follow had a post recently that stressed the importance of focusing on the wonderful in those in our lives and not missing chances to tell people about the things in them that we appreciate.

I think MacGyver knows how much I appreciate, adore and respect him because I tell him constantly.  But I hope he knows I mean it with every ounce of my heart.

I hope my kids know the unmeasurable amount of love I have for them and how very proud I am of the young men that they are, even though we frustrate each other so often.  And how my heart breaks for them when they struggle,

I hope my Dad knows how wicked smart I think he is and how much his drive and determination inspire me. And I hope he knows how much I appreciate all he has done for me and taught me and that I wish I still lived down the street. I hope my Stepmom knows how much I appreciate that she is in my life and how much she has taught me through her grace and loving heart.

I hope my Stepdad knows how much I love and appreciate him and the way he has stood by my Mom.  And I hope that my Mom knows, or knew when she could, how much I appreciate all the sacrifices she made for me, all the love that she gave me and all the things that she taught me which helped make me who I am.

I hope my friends know how much I appreciate them and their thoughtfulness, support and patience with me despite my myriad of idiosyncrasies.  How much I love to hear their voices or read texts or notes from them, and to learn from them and laugh with them until my face hurts.

I hope my oldest niece knows how much I treasure our relationship and that she realizes how wonderful I think she is.  I hope my nephews know how impressed I am with the young men they have become and how proud of them that I am.  And that my young nieces know how much I love them and look forward to watching them become young women.

I hope my cousins know how much I appreciate their efforts to stay connected and how happy I am to be part of their family tree.

I hope my Mother-in-law knows how much I appreciate how she raised such a wonderful man.  And that I appreciate her and love her.  And that my sister-in-law knows how much I love and care about her and wish we lived closer.

I know that my sister knows how much I miss her and keep her in my heart every day because I can feel her with me.  For that I am truly grateful.

And I hope that my father-in-law, who I called Big D, knew how much I loved and admired him.  How much I learned from him … not only about how to hang sheet rock or tile a bathroom at record speeds, but more importantly about keeping a positive mental attitude and always being willing to roll up his sleeves and give a helping hand to anyone who needed it.  I wish I had told him all that and more.  And I hope that he knew it in his heart.  I think he did.

What do you hope someone knows?  Tell them.

Something to help that ‘not so fresh’ feeling

FreshThere I was, sitting in the waiting room for my annual gynecological exam a few days ago.  (My puns are out of control here so don’t  worry – this isn’t going to be gross.)

At any rate, this visit is not my favorite of visits to make each year but something that feels good to check off the list.

But this visit seemed different than other visits before.  This time after I checked in with the perky but tired receptionist, I had to scan the very large waiting room for several minutes before finding the one, single empty chair surrounded by giddy and emotional pregnant 20- and 30-somethings staring at their ultrasound pics giggling.  I was literally surrounded.  And I was the only one taking advantage of the freshly brewed strong black coffee most likely because my days of having babies are a distant memory punctuated by the fact that next year I will have two kiddos in high school.

I sighed and texted a couple of friends to express how suddenly I felt like a yogurt in the fridge that had gone just past its expiration date.

When the nurse who I call Wonder Woman because she looks like Linda Carter (even though the waiting room full of preggos are too young to even know who that is) took my blood pressure, I asked her if I was the only non-pregnant person there.  She replied, “Yep, except for those of us who work here.”  I sighed and we giggled together as she assured me us ‘regular patients’ were still welcome.

So I was happily surprised to learn of something very fresh today. My last post,  “Recipe For: Life on Wry” has been Freshly Pressed!

To put this in perspective,  I tried to research a bit on Google about the odds of being Freshly Pressed, and VERY coincidentally found a conversation where someone was comparing the odds of being Freshly Pressed (the Holy Grail of Blogging, so to speak) to being the one sperm out of 200-600 million sperm that makes it to the egg.  Which I thought very appropriate given my not-so-fresh analogy.

To help me further grasp the odds, I discovered that there are currently 68,600,151 WordPress blog sites in the world. There are 37 million new blog posts each month. And WordPress editors select 8 of them each day to be Freshly Pressed. Being Freshly Pressed sends your blog visits and views through the roof and exposes your blog to oodles and oodles of other bloggers out there.

The odds of being Freshly Pressed are said to be about 12 per million on any given day.  And to have it happen for a second time in less than a year (my last one was “If you aren’t registered to vote, quit reading my blog and register”  last September – only published because I deleted the all caps DAMN IT at the end of the headline most likely – just kidding) … well that’s just math I don’t even know how to compute (I’m a Journalism major, after all).

So thank you WordPress,  and thank you patient and kind readers.

Remember, it’s all wry.  Otherwise life would be way too boring.

Can you spot a truly confident person?

This is a cactus-like weed I walked by in the park with my hot dogs. Unassuming and beautiful.

This is a cactus-like weed that I walked by in the park with my hot dogs. Beautifully unassuming.

I’ve always found that the easiest way to spot insecure people who lack confidence is to look for the ones in the room who are bragging the most and talking so much that others can’t get a word in edge-wise.

They feel the need to make sure that everyone knows how smart they are because I think they need reminding.  They want to be sure you know that they were really the ones who came up with just about every idea first.

And often when they ask you a question they start reminding you of  their expertise again before you can finish answering their question.  This can be exhausting or humorous (laughing on the inside kind of funny).  It depends on my mood.

Most of it comes down to listening which is a skill that I try to be mindful of and catch myself when I am talking more than listening.

I just read a great article on LinkedIn about the Nine Qualities of Truly Confident People.

These were my favorite points from the article:

-Truly confident people listen ten times more than they speak.

– Truly confident people don’t brag, instead usually they appear quiet and unassuming.  … ” They already know what they think; they want to know what you think.  They ask open-ended questions that give other people the freedom to be thoughtful and introspective: They ask what you do, how you do it, what you like about it, what you learned from it… and what they should do if they find themselves in a similar situation.” (best line of the article.)

-Truly confident people realize they know a lot, but they wish they knew more… and they know the only way to learn more is to listen more.

-Truly confident people can feel when the spotlight is starting to shine on them and they are able to adjust the spotlight so it shines on others, even if they did a lot of the work. They don’t need the glory because true validation comes from within.  And letting others feel the spotlight helps others build their own confidence. Which is a good thing if you’re already confident.

-Truly confident people own their mistakes and can admit when they are wrong.

-Truly confident people only seek approval from people who matter.  Another great line from the article: “You say you have 10k Twitter followers? Swell. 20k Facebook friends? Cool. A professional and social network of hundreds or even thousands? That’s great. But that also pales in comparison to earning the trust and respect of the few people in your life that truly matter.”

I remember insecure bullies at school when I was growing up.  They bragged, jumped up and down to get the spotlight, didn’t let others talk and were fine with making others feel less than.  They also weren’t my friends.  Unfortunately school age bullies often grow up to be adult bullies, but I try to avoid the breed as much as possible.

Truly confident people are beautiful people.

How confident are you?