Amy (4 years and 11 months): "I need to take a chill pill!"
Category: Daily Life
Ramblings, often stream of conscious, journaling the events of my life.
-
Absentee Blogger Minded
So Cathy noted that I haven’t blogged since Thursday which is uncharacteristic of me. Seems the tenants in my head have been having some heated debate over the direction the next chapter of my life must evolve.
The loudest tenant seems to think that we have some opportunities in front of us in the form of 8am to 5pm employment which could greatly change the level of stress this body carries, reduce the chance of heart attack, provide some stabilization of historic cash flow issues, and provide other stabilities to our family. That tenant seems to think that blogging "Seems the tenants in my head…" could cause a literal minded human resources person to circular file our resume.
Another tenant is claiming that we have a good situation with a small company in town and although it does not pay that much does provide flexibility and predictability. That tenant admits the small company causes some hardship for the family and is hindering getting some high risk/higher reward work completed. This tenant believes we should maintain the status quo.
Yet another tenant points out that the status quo is not being entirely fair to the small company nor the higher risk/higher reward company. That tenant suggests we let the small company go and put all eggs in the high risk basket. And also points out that developing a cash cow of our own, which brings in some predictable revenue, would reduce the risk.
A tenant with a nervous, squeaky voice suggests a merging of status quo and high risk by bringing on some staff or contractors.
The lunatic tenant in the bunch thinks we should spend all of our time on the house and with the family and seriously expects money to fly out of our butt.
The cacophony between the debaters makes thinking about anything very challenging.
-
Sunk and drowning
So I am scuba diving and I am deep. Real deep! There is a mermaid swimming beside me. Her name is Cathy and she is drop dead gorgeous! Her red hair floats around that beautiful face with such fair skin and seductive eyes. Her perfect breasts[NSFW] accentuate the elegant curves of her waist and hips. She twirls showing off her tail which ends at a wonder set of buttocks. She takes my breath away! Oh no! I am out of air. I look down and see the enormous treasure I sought. I could grab it but I may never reach the surface! I hear Cathy sing. She wants me to stay with her. Another diver collecting water samples offers to let me help him in his research; in exchange, he will give me air but I cannot have my treasure, it will be an eternity before we surface, and I must be apart from Cathy.
My new favorite movie quote: "I think I’m in a tragedy!"
-
Call it toast
Our toaster died months ago. We’ve used the oven’s broiler to poorly toast waffles but mostly gone without toasted items. I have been waiting to purchase the family a nice, expensive toaster on the premise that you get what you pay for. Last night I gave in and bought a toaster…for $6.69. It looks identical to the one for which we paid $24.99 except this has 2 slots instead of 4. I mean everything is the same including the print except for the number of slots and the brand name. Thank you China!
-
Another of Doug’s Mantras
Something else the children hear me drone out over and over: "If you force it, it will break."
-
Fire at Bearden High School
(Ok. Not a fair title but I made you look! Alternate titles: "Hot class at BHS" "Tommy Burns the String at Both Ends" "Tommy Scrambles Over an Open Fire")
Tommy’s wildlife class has been learning how to build fires on campus..an activity that would get most kids expelled. Today his class will have a fire building contest where groups have to build a fire up and burn a string 2 feet high. Tommy has done this on camping trips and should do well. After they burn their strings they get to cook on the open fire. Tommy choose to scramble eggs on his fire.
This morning we prepared his orange by slicing off the top third. Then we used a grapefruit knife to separate most of the meat from the skin so that this did not burden him during class. We put the sliced top back on and held it in place with rubber bands to keep the juices in during school. The recipe calls for 2 eggs so I sent 4. I could not find a egg carrier so I sliced up the egg carton to be a protective case. Tommy did not want any seasoning. We packaged the eggs and the orange carefully in an insulated container with ice packs. In the pocket of the container we put a plastic fork, aluminum foil (wraps around the orange while it cooks in the coals), and printed instructions. While others eat hot dogs and marshmallows, Tommy will be living it up with scrambled eggs!
Update: Tommy did well!
-
Did the governor get involved in the rezoning?
I am at a client location so I cannot confirm the information but someone was just asking me for details about the governor stepping up this morning to offer another solution regarding rezoning. Has anyone heard anything similar? Perhaps the person asking the question munged a couple of unrelated news stories.
-
Ah! Nostaligia!
When I was 8 or 9 I would ride my bike down to Ashworth’s and order a hotdog and a fountain cherry coke. It felt so big to come home and tell Mom, "I’ve already had lunch!" and I’d checked out that Old Timer pocket knife at Pete’s Hardware ($13 dollars allowance later it was in my pocket and still is). I should road trip Saturday!
As part of its 50th anniversary celebration, the [Ashworth Drugs] is selling hot dogs for 57 cents and Coke products for 10 cents. [Source]
-
Yes and…
Earlier I wrote about speaking positively to your child. The next step comes from some comedic training I had under David Brian Alley who trained in Second City with the i.O. under Del Close and Charna Halpern (the teachers of most of the Saturday Night Live greats!).
Using these lessons, I became a founding member of a Knoxvillian comedy troupe called Einstein Simplified and performed regularly at Manhattan’s for two years. We forewent the Harold, Truth in Comedy’s performance piece, and focused on performing the exercises. The end result was a format exactly like Whose Line Is It Anyway? before it became vogue. (Our inspiration was the British version) The performances were thrilling!
Truth in Comedy: The Manual of Improvisation
written by Charna Halpern, Del Close, and Kim Johnson should be considered a guide to positive living. Its lessons can be applied to the stage, business negotiations, better familial relations, politics, parenting and most social interactions. The basic lesson is "Yes and…"
For instance, on the stage, one performer might say, "the sky is green." The other performers must now roll with this statement. To negate it is argumentative and not comedic. The next performer might add, "Yes and gravity has quit working!" If another performer said something like, "No that’s crazy" comedic opportunity ends because again the performers are arguing or contradicting. So instead, the next performer agrees and adds, "Look, the ground is blue. Pull your ripcords!" By agreeing and adding information, the comedians create a story. Is it funny? That depends on the connections it makes with the live audience and physical choices the actors make. As long as the actors did not argue or contradict, they are at least entertaining in the fact that they could piece together such a story on the fly. Connections with the audience can be guaranteed by starting the story with suggestions taken from the audience. "Give us a location. And a color."
Applying this lesson to positive parenting is as simple as avoiding "no" in conversation. When your teenager asks, "can I go to the mall?" instead of abruptly declaring, "no I don’t have time because I am cleaning" agree and add, "yes, as soon as your room is clean." Do not set your child up for failure. "Yes, as soon as you have painted and re-roofed the house" is not agreeing and adding with respect to positive parenting. When your teen asks to go on a date, agree and add, "yes, as long as it is a group date with a chaperon."
Another example might be when a younger child asks for a sleep over. Delayed gratification and planning are difficult concepts in your single digits so their "yes and…"s should be more immediate; however, sleepovers give a great opportunity to teach scheduling. "Can I sleep over at Wyatt’s?" The child is obviously implying tonight. Rather than saying, "no, you didn’t plan ahead" try "yes, and let’s find a good night in our calendar." Your agreeing and adding to the conversation has created a win-win situation whereby the child’s disappointment can turn into anticipation, you bond with the child and teach cooperation as you look together at the family calendar, and planning/scheduling skills are taught. Simply saying, "no" in exasperation would have created an unhappy child who would eventually learn, "there’s no point in asking my parents."
"Yes and…" works in business too. Imagine having a sales meeting without once uttering the words "no," "but," or "not." How energized and excited the prospective client will be from such a positive experience!
Negativity seeps into our lives. The news thrives on shock, gore, and evil. Adversity, bill collectors, road ragers, corporate back stabbers, con artists, and just plain mean people abound in our lives. It is no wonder so many people need antidepressants. We should avoid adding to the bad karma! We have all heard that it is easier to smile than frown and yet we furrow our brows constantly. Breaking our negative habit takes hard work. Practice agreeing and adding! You will become a more positive, happier person with greater success in your endeavors.
-
Welcome New Readers!
Due to some recent developments, like being politically active in regard to the Knox County school rezoning and our daughter showing our online publishings to a variety of people who otherwise probably would have never seen these writings, our visibility is up a bit.
Sarah doesn’t like her parents reading her blog so she snipes to her mother, "How’s it feel to have people reading what you write?" If the work was not meant to be read, it would not be publically published…As a friend of ours said, "You put it out there!"
If Instapundit and BusyMom are A-list bloggers, we are probably still somewhere down in the Ts. Some of our friends and family might ask, "Why do they do this?" My answer is published here. The long and short of it is that blogging is fun! It is also a playground for experimenting with thoughts and actions you may not explore in the real world much like an actor might explore a character on the stage. Online is an arena that may allow for exaggeration or outright fiction although Cathy and I tend to call it like we see it. That separation between real world and online world is important. When people from the online world meet for the first time, the experience is unnerving, fascinating, and enlightening for these online people have shared stories and know of each other intimately but are always surprised to find that often the person they "know" online is not the same as the person in real life. Online publishing shows but a glimpse of the person’s real life (unless you are Justin then you get it all) and in real life the person may have much more depth, be less revealing, and more politically correct.
Welcome! Read. Enjoy. Judge or not. Comment and participate or lurk in the shadows. And next we meet, smile and laugh with me!
-
The Half Full or Half Empty Child
Are you raising a positive child or a negative child? As their parent, you will help determine their outlook on life and, in part, it is as simple as your word choices. "No" falls so easily from our lips. As a parent, we have to deny our children often but do we have to say no? Instead we could give them alternatives, or we could redirect in a positive way but right now I want to focus purely on word choice. Consider this sentence:
Don’t touch that!
How many times a day? We say "don’t touch that" for safety, control, and sanity. "Don’t," contraction for "do not," is negative purely because not is a negator. Consider this sentence:
Leave that alone!
Same connotation but "leave that alone" is a positive statement. It is a doing statement. By using a sentence without the word "not" you have given your child a positive statement. By using an action word, you are teaching your child to be proactive. "Leave" gives the child an action where as a sentence with "not" generally gives the child an action to avoid.
Using positive words instead of negative words can help your child be happier, confident, self-sufficient, and will create the foundation for their future interpretation of life events. As adults, think about how dejected and beat down we feel from constant rejection and negativity. Our children need to hear positive words!
That last sentence could have been phrased, "Our children should not hear negative words." I challenge you to watch for opportunities to turn your speech positive. An easy way to begin is to drop the word "not" from your vocabulary.
-
And the bribes roll out
With the vote on the Knox County School Rezoning quickly approaching, and with the board on the fence between a yes and a no vote, the acting superintendent has begun trying to sway public opinion.
Mullins says he’s recommending that some siblings of high school students who would be grandfathered in at their current school … Students in the Crestwood Hills Subdivision could choose to attend either Hardin Valley or Bearden. The Holston Hills subdivision will remain zoned to Carter…[Source]
We have to remember that this rezoning plan is flawed on a whole. If suddenly, your neighborhood is not impacted, the plan is still flawed and the board needs to hear concern from your non-impacted neighborhood that your concern extends to the entire county and the board should vote no to this plan! Grandfathering siblings is purely a bribe. As time passes, and the younger children’s friends go off to a different high school, and the parents realize transporting their child to school everyday is unfavorable, they will concede to the rezoning in apathy forgetting the issues of safety and illogic which occurred with a yes vote.
The plan in its current form must be rejected! A new plan developed committee must be formed. Vote NO!
Update: See comments here.