And Now, 52 Weeks of Gratitude

My beloved gal pal Candace just introduced me to the concept of the "365 Grateful Project," a project that began in 2008 by Hailey Bartholomew, a photographer who was battling depression and overcame it by focusing on gratitude. She began a project in which she took one Polaroid a day of something she felt grateful for, and by doing this for 365 days, she was able to transform relationships and experience significant personal growth. Ultimately, this project made her happy.

Happiness is the topic du jour at our house currently. Today, my husband and 10-year old daughter and I watched the documentary, "Happy." It was one of those films that sat on my "to watch" list, but because it fell in the documentary column, never got enough family votes to beat out mainstream comedies and family-friendly movies. However, it was worth the wait. Even my 10-year old, who rolled her eyes at the thought of watching a documentary, put down her gadget and paid attention. Afterwards, we discussed our thoughts on the film together. It definitely had an impact on us.

One of the themes "Happy" discusses is how we human types are motivated by extrinsic and intrinsic goals. Extrinsic goals have to do with money, image and status. Intrinsic goals are about personal growth, relationships and helping others. For those that focus heavily on extrinsic goals, they feel caught on what's referred to as a "hedonic treadmill," while those who focus on intrinsic goals are happier.

So, back to the "365 Grateful Project."  My gal pal Candace is going to do it, and asked if others would join her. She's a motivated individual who takes on such projects and completes them. I, on the other hand, start projects like this and flake out quickly. Therefore, I've decided to do my own take on the project, and begin a "52 Weeks of Gratitude" project in which I include a photo, but I also include a bit of writing, since this year I intend to write more.

Without further ado, here is Week #1 of Gratitude for 2014:

Tim and Emily Rose. 12/24/13, Dallas.

I'm grateful for my husband Tim. He's an amazing father to our kids. I can't count how many photos like this I've snapped of him through the years, where one of our three kids is cuddled up next to him. He provides them with a sense of warmth and safety. He's their rock. He's patient, fair, unwavering in his support for his children, and their biggest advocate. He's the perfect example of someone who lives their life focused on intrinsic goals, because the thing that makes him happiest is helping someone else.

When his two older kids were little, we would laugh because they could pull on his ears or yank on his hair or tug on his collar until it stretched, and Tim didn't care. When our youngest daughter grew old enough to pull on his ears and yank his hair and tug on his collar, she did it, too, and Tim would laugh his huge laugh and flash his amazing smile, filling the room with happiness.

This photo was taken this past Christmas Eve. We'd stopped by Tim's mother's house for an afternoon visit. I love how the sun is pouring in on our youngest daughter's arm, and how she managed to snuggle up in Tim's space even though there was ample seating in the room. They are listening to Tim's mother tell stories from her childhood. It fills my heart with love.

The Art of the Semi-Foul Mouth

Last week I was waiting for my husband to pick me up from work, so I stood outside my office in downtown Austin for some people-watching. I try to make a conscious effort to watch people because I'm finding more and more that when I'm alone, I have a tendency to use my gadget to entertain me, when in reality the most entertaining stuff is right before my eyes.

While I watched people pass, two 20-something dudes approached. They were both smoking, and waving their hands around in what appeared to be an extremely animated conversation. As I looked closer, I noticed that one of the guys had on pants with super wide legs.  These weren't sweatpants or any kind of workout gear, rather, they were really wide-legged dress pants. They were upsetting.

Since I didn't snap a photo, I searched for a pretty long time to find a visual representation of this guy's pants. They looked most like the ones in black on the right side.

Unfortunately for this guy, he looked nothing like these fetching little runway boys. He looked more like a casual, schlubby software sales guy with a complete lack of judgment when it came to purchasing pants.

As the guys got closer I was able to properly eavesdrop on their conversation. Typically I delight in little tidbits from conversations like this. I'm constantly writing down random sentences from partial conversations I catch here and there. For example, here are a few little snippets from things I've heard in the past few years that I've quickly keyed into my phone before they were forgotten:

"STOP with the games! Just STOP IT, dammit!" (A completely frazzled red-faced, bald little father yelling at his Nintendo-wielding son.)

"Get yourself a stylist, darling. I mean Savile ROW, for heaven's sake!" (An eccentric wiry-haired woman with expensive glasses and yellow teeth throwing back martinis, talking to her colleague about someone that they clearly both hated.)

"And THAT will give you some historical perspective on the shit I've been dealing with for DECADES." (A cute and exasperated old man in the car next to me with his window rolled down, talking loud enough for me to hear that goodness.)

Usually, I write this stuff down because I assume one day I'll use it for dialogue for a short story or screenplay or whatever, but mainly because things like this can make me laugh for days on end. I like to write down these sentences and sometimes I challenge myself to insert them randomly in unrelated conversations. Did I mention I'm weird?

I gather a lot of this material when I travel for business, because eating alone is a great opportunity to eavesdrop. Often when I'm on work travel, I eat at the bar because sitting at a table alone feels very awkward to me.

Once when I was in in Boston, I was having lunch before a customer meeting and sat down next to a drunk guy and his equally drunk mother who were discussing his recent breakup. I never looked at their faces, but they both had reddish freckled arms and sausage fingers, and the only reason I knew the woman was his mother was that he started every sentence with "Ma." The conversation came out in thick Boston accents, which made it ten times more awesome. The guy was telling his drunk mother about how he went into a strip bar with his friends, only to discover that his girlfriend worked there as a dancer. There were so many great things about that conversation. The guy being sincerely surprised to find his girlfriend was a stripper. The mom not being surprised in the least. The intermittent belches by both parties. While all of it was hilarious, perhaps what was even funnier was that never once did the drunk son nor the drunk mother figure out that I was feverishly keying in their conversation on my little phone keypad, trying very hard not to get busted or burst out laughing.

Given my habit of listening in on conversations I'm not invited to attend, when the dude with the unfortunate pants and his friend finally made it to eavesdropping territory, I was extremely eager to hear what they had to say. I hoped it would reveal something about his pants, or why he was flinging his arms around with such dramatic flair. It was bound to be good.

I was sorely disappointed when the guys approached and all I could hear from the guy in the bad pants was a string of expletives so strong even I was shocked, and I have a pretty bad potty mouth myself.  If the word didn't begin with "f," it was one of the even more foul ones that I can't even mention. It was so distracting I couldn't decipher what he was talking about at all.

Something about hitting 40 has given me the confidence to confront these young kids when I feel like they are out of line, especially when little kids are present. There are few things that bug me more than grown-ass adults cussing around little kids. And while I don't mind what people say to each other in a private setting, this wide-legged pants man was speaking that way in public. It wasn't cool.

So I followed my snarky gut instinct and looked straight at the guy and said,

"I'm not sure what's worse, your pants or your mouth."

He looked up, kept walking and said, "Sorry?"

It was hard to tell if he was apologizing or if he was actually asking me to repeat myself, but by the look on his face, I believe my point was delivered effectively. Now, I am pretty certain that my little comment did not cause this guy to go home and promptly donate his pants (or, for the betterment of society, burn them). I highly doubt my comment caused that guy to immediately clean up his mouth, either, but I said what I needed to say. I felt better, and perhaps in that scenario, that's all that matters.

While I'm certainly not advocating that we all censor ourselves to a G-rated level, I do think there's something to say for moderation when it comes to cussing. I'd suggest we all take a page from the lesson book of my 82-year old stepfather, James. James is one of the most polished, gentlemanly men I have ever known. He has impeccable table manners. He taught several of my high school boyfriends the valuable lesson about about discarding your hat at the dinner table when those poor boys seemed to have no idea otherwise. He opens doors. He is incredibly polite. He also avoids confrontation, once telling me that the few times in his life he's had to have a confrontation in the workplace his voice gets high pitched like a little girl. Despite all of these qualities, he is far from wimpy. He has strong opinions and isn't afraid to make them. He is just genteel about it all, and these days, that kind of a man is rare.

When it comes to cussing, James really doesn't do it. Growing up, I learned most of my good cursing from my incredible maternal grandmother Mabel. She was a lady but she had a mouth on her, and I appreciated that. James, on the other hand, never cussed in front of us. In the privacy of his art studio he may have let it rip like a you-know-what, but I never heard it, and that's important to me. Also, because James is so even-keeled, we rarely saw him angry.

One afternoon, when I was probably in 8th grade or so, James was loading the dishwasher and struggling with the bottom rack. The rack had a tendency to fall of the track, causing you to have to yank it around in all sorts of directions before it would go in properly. James went at it several times and finally jerked it so hard a dish broke, shattering all over the kitchen floor.

"SHIT!" he yelled, and as he did, I believe the walls of 2914 Pounds Avenue trembled in fear.

This was ridiculously shocking stuff for us. James cussed? James cussed. James cussed! This meant so much all at one time. James was most definitely angry. James meant business. It was big.

Though we wouldn't have let him know it at the moment, after we got over the initial shock, James' outburst was extremely funny. Because it was fresh. When someone who never cusses says a curse word, it has so much more flavor than if they said it every other word. Think about it. What if your priest stubbed his toe and said, "Son of a bitch!" Imagine the Queen of England saying, "I call bullshit!" Wouldn't that be hilarious and newsworthy?

When I first started this blog, the original idea was that I would provide advice, partly because I'm bossy but partly because people thought it would be funny if I doled out advice. That's because everyone who knows me knows how ripe with imperfection I am as a mother, a wife, a friend and more, so advice from me would not only be funny, it would also be wildly hypocritical.

After many posts where I didn't dole out advice, I'll take this opportunity to offer some now. Consider when and where you choose to cuss. I promise that the less you do it, the more power it will hold. I'm not telling you not to cuss at all; I'm simply suggesting that you cuss sparingly, like you would when thoughtfully spritzing on body spray or slapping wasabi on your sashimi.  And please, do as I say, not as I do, because I drop an f bomb every time I catch my toe on the edge of the bed, which is at least three times a week.

My great grandmother Vera Conrad (the one with the chin whiskers who rode in a wheelchair and talked about idle hands being the devil's plaything) was a classy Methodist woman who lived in a nursing home when I was little. I never knew her very well, but what I did know of her was that she had great manners, was kind, and spent her latter years making quilts for her grandchildren and great grandchildren. In many ways, she was the picture perfect great grandmother. I certainly never heard the woman cuss.

One fateful day, Great Gran got into a fight with another little old lady at the nursing home. I don't know what the fight was about, but according to legend, Great Gran got up in the other lady's face and said,

"If you wash your face, you can kiss my ass."

And that, my friends, is how cussing should work. Save it for the right moment, and it can pack one hell of a punch.

You're welcome.

Ickle Me Pickle Me

A few weekends ago Tim and I celebrated our anniversary. We're terrible at remembering our anniversary, and particularly, what our anniversary date is. It's been a joke between us for years. Is it October 24th? 26th? Who knows.

The only way we can remember our anniversary date is because of our beloved handmade pottery bowl, a wedding gift by our family friend Dave Hendley of Old Farmhouse Pottery. (If you're in the market for some beautiful pottery, check it out.) Inscribed on the bottom of the bowl is our anniversary date. The key is to sneak into the kitchen, pull the bowl off of the top shelf, and flip it over to check the date without the other person busting you. Tim has the clear advantage because he's tall, so it's a little unfair, but whatever.

This year, our anniversary fell on a Saturday. We didn't even have a plan set the day before, and were discussing options at our daughter's school Halloween carnival when friends suggested a literary pub crawl, part of the weekend events at the Texas Book Festival. Since Tim and I are clinging to whatever sense of hipness we have left in us, and because it was taking place on Austin's East side, we figured it might be an interesting way to celebrate our anniversary. Plus, we like pubs and we kind of like crawling, so we agreed to give it a shot.

The pub crawl offered several different options so that you could map out your own custom crawl. One of the most appealing options was to check out Derek Waters, the host of Comedy Central's Drunk History. If you aren't familiar, the premise is simple but genius: wasted storytellers discuss historical events, and then famous actors act out the scenes using the drunk dialogue as their script.

Because we're lazy pub crawlers, I determined that if we stayed in one place, we could enjoy more pub than crawl, so we started at the first stop, then hurried over to the venue where they were playing Nerd Jeopardy. Nerd Jeopardy was Jeopardy with a literary twist -- definitely nerdy but hilarious all at the same time. Directly following Nerd Jeopardy was Drunk History, and by the time that was about to begin, the venue was totally packed out. I consider myself too old to stand at bars anymore, so as soon as we spotted six inches of available picnic table space, we landed like vultures and squeezed ourselves in.

Here's what the scene looked like. It was quite lovely. You might see us if were weren't sausaged in between 25 other people at the back table.

(photo courtesy of the Texas Book Festival website)

As we were figuring out how to adequately fold our butts without half-sitting on strangers, I checked out our table mates, and noticed that the girl across from me looked familiar. I also noticed the girl next to her looked exactly like her.

"I think I know you from somewhere," I said to both of the girls, studying them from across the picnic table.

We went through the various possibilities - school? Nope. Neighbors? Nope. Work? Nope. The guy next to me chimed in.

"Have you had her pickles, maybe?"

"Pickles?" I asked, getting tickled.

"She makes the best pickles I've ever had in my life," he said. "That's Sheena from Sheena's Pickles."

He said it like he was speaking about pickle royalty. The clouds parted and a host of angels squeezed in at the table behind us began to sing. His wife/girlfriend leaned in from down the table.

"Yes," she said, "Her pickles are TO DIE FOR."

Now, I don't know about you, but I don't know much about the pickle business. I've never had a huge passion for pickles. I'd consider myself to be a plain Jane Vlassic girl myself. But that wasn't going to stop me from learning. In a series of probably fifty questions, I began interviewing Sheena and her friends, and by the time it was over, I had a rip-roaring craving for pickles.

Here's what I learned that fateful night:

• Sheena makes home-made, hand-packed pickles, and offers up four varieties: "The Dilly" (dill), "Texas Heat" (spicy), "Bread & Butter" (B&B) and "The Jefe" (a beer pickle made form an IPA that's usually a special order item)
• She doesn't yet have a website, so to find her, you need to like Sheena's Pickles on FaceBook and you can message her there. If you order pickles from her now, she will deliver them to you. It's so great!
• The sister who sat down across from us is Sheena's beautiful twin, a graphic designer responsible for Sheena's adorable logo and personified pickle logo, a pickle named Pete. Pete has a gap in his teeth like Sheena. I love this so much.
• Sheena attracts amazing friends. She has a friend named Roxy who was also at the pub crawl that I want to somehow steal and bring into my friend world, mainly because when bragging on Sheena, Roxy said, "I swear to you, my pH is completely off because of these pickles. I'm like ALL vinegar now!"
• Sheena hosts an annual Pickle Party. I'm hoping to purchase enough pickles to get on the invite list.

By the way, the pickle discussion was much more entertaining than the Drunk History session, mainly because it was really crowded, and Derek Waters tried to get someone drunk enough to read a funny version of The Giving Tree, but it wasn't really funny because the guy simply wasn't drunk enough. I thought that was pretty funny that it was hard to find someone drunk enough at a literary pub crawl. After all, writers and literary types are not exactly afraid of the bottle. I guess the timing was just off.

Either way, it was fate that we stumbled upon Sheena, her sister, her hilarious friends, and the news of her blossoming pickle business. I feel strongly that I was meant to meet Sheena, and that big things are going to happen to this gal. Let me explain.

While my husband plugged his ears, I told Sheena that she needed to touch my arm, because at one point in time, I went on some dates with a certain vodka maker who was just dreaming up his ideas for a vodka company. I met him long before he made it very big in the vodka world. My husband isn't wild about this story, but that's just because my husband doesn't realize he's the much better catch, and also because I don't really like vodka anyway.

But given the fate of the vodka maker, I like to think I have something of the Midas touch when it comes to meeting people before they make it big. I met Matt Damon when he was barely starting out as an actor. He was absolutely the nicest guy -- he told me how lucky he was to be getting paid to do what he wanted to do for a living -- and look what happened to him. I met Ashton Kutcher before he was Ashton Kutcher. He's certainly doing okay. Once, Andy Dick was behind me at Randall's, and well, he was three sheets to the wind and belligerent, and nobody likes him anyway. But if you ever need a volunteer to read The Giving Tree drunk, Andy Dick is your guy.

So after our fateful anniversary night, we ordered up some pickles from Sheena. When the order was ready, Sheena delivered our pickles to Pei Wei, where we were having an early dinner with our 10-year old daughter. We resisted the temptation to open them at the table at Pei Wei, but as soon as we got home, we cracked a jar open and WOW. Holy moly, they're delicious. All three flavors we tried (Dilly, B&B and Texas Heat) were fantastic, and we had to pace ourselves not to wolf down all three jars in one sitting. They were even better the next day after chilling out in the fridge overnight. Sheena suggested that we make pimento cheese, so that weekend I made my mom's pimento cheese recipe, served up crackers and pickles, and that was lunch. And it was delicious.

I believe that Sheena is going to make it big in the pickle universe. I'm absolutely rooting for her, and am excited to help spread the word about this pickle dynasty in the making. In honor of today, National Pickle Day, here's to Sheena's Pickles!

(photo courtesy of Sheena's Pickles FB page)

The Upgrade

On Tuesday, my new phone arrived in the mail. Tim called me right away to deliver the news.

"Your phone's here!" he bellowed joyfully. It had been weeks, and we were beginning to wonder if it would ever arrive. "Are you excited?"

"I am! I can't wait!" I answered, doing my best to sound convincing.

Hanging up my loyal and trusty iPhone 4 and holding it tenderly, I thought back to when I got it, and how painful the process was to upgrade from my older version. I recalled how I hunkered down for what felt like half of an entire weekend and fretted over syncing decisions, settings, lost notes, photo sharing... the whole situation was intimidating and exhausting. And yes, as everyone is saying lately, these are clearly first world problems. I have to remind myself of this when I get weird about technology. And this is coming from a woman who works for a tech company, no less.

Still, forced and voluntary technology upgrades terrify me. Because my birthday fell around the release date of the new iPhone 5s, I succumbed to the temptation despite my paralyzing fear of gadget upgrades. I won't lie; I fell for the storage space and the dazzling gold exterior of the 5s. Tim made it easy for me by just casually letting me know that he and the kids were getting me a new phone for my birthday, so he eliminated all of the hemming and hawing that would have gone down had I visited the Apple store to make a selection. Tim, who's arguably one of the most patient individuals on the planet, took on the arduous task of going to the Apple store multiple times, waiting God knows how long on the right kind of blue-shirted youngster, only to find out the phone I wanted wasn't in stock. So he got online and made magic happen so that when my phone arrived, it was already a bit of a friend to me. I am delighted to state that the entire process has been very simple for the most part. If you're like me and never moved to a 5 model, and also never upgraded to the new iPhone software, a few notes:

• Siri can be a man! Because I've always wanted a little man, this is great news. It's a relatively simple settings change, too. It only took me like half an hour to figure it out. For the rest of you, that will be about 32 seconds. Also, since this is my first Siri, I've asked Male Version of Siri all of the inappropriate 7th grade questions. And he's still being cool so I'm kind of in love with him.
• The fingerprint technology to unlock your home screen is silly. It may be cool, but that's a lot of hype for a silly product enhancement, if you ask me. My stepdaughter Stephanie had to sit down with me and give me a full lesson, and she's patient as her father, thank goodness, because I was a terrible student. It reminded me of years ago when I took a computer class at work, and one of our older coworkers was so technologically challenged that she didn't know how to properly double-click a mouse, so the instructor began to get frustrated with her, and finally walked up to her and yelled, "It's like Little Caesar's! PIZZA, PIZZA!" With the fingerprint log-on, you have to push the button down and then release it, but keep your finger there while the phone identifies your fingerprint. It's a completely unnatural feeling to me. So I did what the smart folks do and I asked my 10-year old to disable the password option. I am willing to sacrifice password security for sanity.
• Evidently you don't need 32G or more of storage, and likely never will. My sister tried to explain something about this -- there's a service that costs way less that can store all of your music and photos in the cloud -- but I tuned her out because I was too busy beating myself up for asking for the fancy phone instead of the more affordable plastic variety. I also felt bad about the fact that it was a bit on the wasteful side, especially because the gold phone isn't really gold. As in, I kind of thought it was going to be dipped in real gold. Oops!
• You may lose your notes. I lost every note taken in 2013, but still have old notes. I don't understand why. So much for every good movie recommendation, random restaurant wine name, cab driver quote, short story idea, kid quote and unsecured password for 2013. All gone. Ugh.
• There's a flashlight. Big whoop!
• There's some extra stuff on the camera, including a watered-down Instagrammish filtering option and a fun panoramic option, which is great for seeing what my butt really looks like in dressing room mirrors. That, and my neighbor can use it to capture a group photo of every last one of her cats. It's handy!

Then there's Face Time. Since I'm way too wimpy to use an iPad, and I've never upgraded the software until now, my new phone gave me the opportunity to try out my first Face Time session. Completely by accident.

Saturday morning, I was grocery shopping when I remembered that I desperately needed my mom's pimento cheese recipe. (It's another story I intend to tell soon about this great girl Tim and I met who makes pickles, and how she suggested pimento cheese to eat alongside her pickles, so I was on a mission). I called mom's cell first, and it went to voice mail, so I called her home number and my stepfather James answered. Mom was in Dallas at a music rehearsal with her friends, the Choir Hoes. Now, they are not referring to landscaping tools here. My 65-year old mom and her friends, classically-trained musicians who sing in church choir, refer to themselves as the Choir Hoes because they jump around from choir to choir. I think they just spell it "hoe" so they appear respectable. And they really are respectable. They're just hoes.

Anyway, my stepfather and I are awkward and formal on the phone together, so while my mom was out hoeing around, James and I had a short but hilarious exchange about the key ingredients of pimento cheese, and determined that it's just pimentos, cheese, mayonnaise and salt and pepper. He's frugal, so he suggested that I just make a tiny bit and taste it first in case it was a disaster, and asked me to call him for a report after I made it. I thought that was cute.

Evidently when I called my mom's cell that morning, I did it via Face Time, so when my mom's rehearsal ended, she saw a missed Face Time call, or whatever you call it. Except I didn't know I used Face Time. Much later that night, I saw I'd missed a Face Time from my mom, but I don't think my mom knew she used Face Time, either. I was perplexed.

Later Saturday night, my girlfriends came over for an impromptu spa night -- a terrific idea my daughter had that day to invite over friends, soak our feet, do face masks, and read magazines. Tim served as our personal chef and made a fantastic vegetarian dinner, and we had such fun we never even opened up a magazine. Since I had kicked back with a few glasses of wine, a rejuvenating aloe mask and lots of giggles and girl talk, I was nice and relaxed. I picked up my new gadget and pushed the Face Time button to give it a whirl.

Lesson 1: It's a really good idea to forewarn someone before you invite them to a Face Time session what's about to happen. In this case, I only had a vague and general idea of what I was doing, and it was nearly 11:00 at night, so when I pushed the Face Time button, Mom answered the session. Right away I noticed a face on the top right hand corner. The face was of a scary woman with no make-up, unfamiliar forehead wrinkles, and she was contorting her face in unknown positions, trying make out the larger image. That was me. Note to Apple: let's get some filters on Face Time stat, mkay? Because thanks to Instagram, I'd forgotten what my real face looked like, and I liked it that way.

The larger image was almost 100% darkness, save for some undetectable movement and then two shiny dots that I later figured out were little dotty reflections of my mom's glasses that she had reached for in the dark when her phone began ringing. Just as I began to wonder if I'd called a random coal miner by mistake, the dots wiggled around a minute and finally Mom's bare arm and shoulder appeared as she flipped on the bedside lamp.

"Mom! Are you DRESSED?" the scary woman in the upper corner asked, mortified and very tickled all at the same time. Lesson 2: unless you have planned some kind of awkward online date night, answer Face Time calls when fully clothed.

"I'm in bed!" she replied, and instead of getting angry or annoyed like most parents, my mom just burst into a fit of laughter that easily tacked some extra years onto her full and rich life.

From there, my first official Face Time session consisted of at least five full minutes of non-stop hysterical laughter. Except even better is that my mom's service at home is spotty at best, so every few minutes her face would freeze in an open-mouthed fit of laughter, and my face would do the same on her end, so it just made us laugh even harder. I wish desperately that we could have recorded it.

Tim got the pleasure of witnessing this from the opposite couch, so all he could see was his scary wife looking at her phone and wiping tears, saying, "Mom! What is happening? Why is this happening?!" He was definitely amused by the whole scene.

There might have been a moment when, in an effort not to wet my pants, I used Face Time to show my mom the bathroom to explain where I would be for a minute while she kept on laughing. Because that's just how we roll in my family (and I'm famous for laughing so hard I wet my pants). There might also have been a moment where I left my mom looking at my bathroom ceiling while I left her on the laundry basket, and we might have laughed the entire time, because the moment was an instant family classic.

From there, we finally got things under control and I took my mom back to my daughter's room where I flipped on her light to let Rosie and Mimi say hello. I was waking up all sorts of people with Face Time that night! I even shoved the phone in our dog Taco's face and let him say hello as well. The only person in the family who didn't get in on the fun was my stepfather James, who was next to my mother, sleeping peacefully during the greatest Face Time session ever, dreaming of pimento cheese sandwiches.

Lesson 3? Even if you lose a little data along the way, go ahead and take the plunge and upgrade your gadgets. The fun awaiting you on the other side is well worth it.

Up to Here

For several months, my job has gotten a little on the nutty side. It's all good stuff, but my department is changing things around pretty drastically, and because of that, I've had to rely pretty heavily on my deep breathing exercises, daily walks, and a few bursts of headphone time where I listen to Spanish guitar. Or smooth jazz. And let's not judge, please. As I explained to you in the last post, everyone has their "isms." Smooth jazz is one of mine.

All of this recent work nuttiness reminded me again of that job I had years ago as a medical answering service operator. That was when I first started having a hard time coping with stress. One day, a coworker came by my desk with a pamphlet for a seminar called "Women and Stress in the Workplace." The co-worker was a loud man who worked in sales, and he thought I would benefit from a day out of the office. Or possibly, everyone needed a day without me (I was supervising people by that point). I was a bit offended at the suggestion, but I had to admit he was right; I needed some help. I later married that man, but that's another story for another time.

I don't remember the name of that outfit that offered the day-long seminars, but we were always getting mail from them, and they advertised all kinds of seminars to tackle a variety of work-related issues -- Wearing Many Hats in the Workplace (I thought briefly about signing up for that one, and showing up wearing a stack of hats), How to Get That Promotion!, How to Organize your ms-DOS disks -- wait, I'm showing my age here.

Anyway, I signed up for the session for women and stress, thinking I could use a day away, and if I learned something helpful, even better. The seminar took place in a B-grade conference center in a strip mall. We've all been there - the flimsy, carpeted movable walls, the dingy used hotel chairs with suspicious stains on the cushions, the sweaty, frazzled receptionist/greeter in tan hose and square heels -- you get the scene.

When I arrived, I made beeline for a seat on the outside edge, sort of near the front so I could participate but only if I wanted to, but in an aisle seat in case I needed to run for the exit. I took stock of the place and thought about my mom, who has bookoodles of girlfriends but has always despised organized groups of women. Since this was a group of stressed-out women, I looked around to check out the competition. Nobody stood out as particularly twitchy, and surprisingly, nobody looked particularly stressed out. Maybe it was already working!

The instructor was a pasty, meek type who made up for her lack of charisma by offering us glazed donuts. As I explained in my last segment, I can't have idle hands, so I helped myself. What I didn't consider while throwing down a freebie donut was that our instructor was likely drugging us to keep us there. Because we all stayed. The entire day.

The course was completely forgettable except for one key moment. The meek and pasty instructor -- let's call her Patty from here on out - asked us how we handle it when someone walks up to our desk when we're in the middle of something and don't have time to chit chat. I think there was some label for those people, like "Chatty Saboteurs" or something similarly ridiculous. The idea is that there are people who will approach you at work, and they don't mean to prevent you from working, it is completely not intentional -- they're just chatty. But you get the fun job of trying to figure out how to ask them to go away without offending them.

Now, I am THE chattiest person I know, so this is a tough one for me. That said, through the years, I have figured out how to pick up on non-verbal cues so that when I sidle up to someone's desk to say hello, when I start to sense they really can't talk, even if they're making eye contact at first and appearing engaged, I figure out the quickest way to wrap it up and I mosey along.

Here are the signs that someone is hinting for you to leave their desk:

• watch-looking
• looking at the computer screen
• typing
• looking down to appear to read notes
• closing their eyes and pinching that spot at the top of the nose in between the eyes

The last one is a dead giveaway that the person you're speaking with is busy. I know these are cues because I do them all myself. But I should think back to that seminar, because Patty didn't suggest any of those things, possibly because she knew from experience they don't really work. Instead, Patty said something like this:

"Now that we work in open environments, you can't close your door and have time to get your important work done. You have so many distractions -- the phone ringing, a meeting, an e-mail, and then you have the Chatty Ones. So, when a Chatty approaches your desk, and they say, 'Hey! How's it goin'?', you simply need to raise your arm above your head like this:

(And she began shaking her hand, firmly, with much more conviction than she seemed to truly possess)

"...and say, 'I am so sorry, but I am just UP TO HERE today. Let's catch up later!'"

And that was that. She had us practice on each other, and we did it with sincerity, fired up to go back to our open environments and practice on some unsuspecting Chatty Saboteurs. It was exciting. And when I got back to the office it worked, at least to some degree. What also worked was turning in my resignation, because the stress of that particular job was simply more than a day-long seminar could cure. But I never forgot that little bit of advice. 

Now here I am, years later, working at a company that I absolutely love. I believe in our product, our management, our vision, and we're in a big growth spurt so our office is getting more and more crowded. I am chatty, as I mentioned, and I genuinely like my coworkers. Yet, as we grow, I find that more and more often, when someone approaches my desk, I want to raise my hand and announce that I'm "UP TO HERE." Except it doesn't work. And it's kind of rude, right? And even if I do say it, we just end up chatting, and it's hard to stop.

I don't blame the people who come to chat, I blame myself for being someone that wants to chat along. 

So lately I've been brainstorming potential solutions to my problem. Working from home isn't an option, and I actually like being in an office. Raising a Pancho's flag isn't an option either, because I don't have a Pancho's flag. If you're not from these parts, Pancho's is a pretty terrible Mexican food buffet that I believe is defunct.  Once you serve yourself a heaping plate of crappy hangover Mexican food, then you can sit tight at your table, and if you want seconds, there's a flag on a little flagpole at your table, and you raise it up, and an underpaid server will appear to give you another enchilada. It's a pretty amazing idea. I kind of want one just to have when I go anywhere, and see what happens when I raise it. Except if I raise it, I'm afraid people will come to me, and that's not the goal at all.

Here's a picture, thanks to a random stranger who was snapping photos while waiting on more flautas. (And thanks to Google image results). There is not much documentation on Pancho's, I'm sad to say!

In lieu of a Pancho's flag, I have decided to go with the Hot Dog Hat.

I own a ridiculous hot dog hat, which is another great story, but I don't have time to tell it. Ask me later, please!

I decided that when I need 100% alone time, I'll slap on this hat and tell everyone what it's about, and that should do the trick. If it doesn't, I'll brainstorm another idea (a Nerf gun?), but I feel confident that my lovely coworkers will get the idea. I have even floated the idea around a few times, and the feedback has been positive. 

So it's official. I shall commence to wearing Hot Dog Hat very soon. When people approach me, I'm going to look up, raise my hands, and shrug. Here's my first attempt. I hope to appear friendly, but not too approachable, because that's what got me here in the first place.

I'll keep you posted on the results!

Managing the Isms

At some point in my early 20's, I started having difficulty managing stress.

For a lot of people who struggle with stress -- and isn't that all of us at some point in our lives? -- the root of our stress is the pressure we place on ourselves. For me, it's pressure to do well at work. By "doing well," I'm not referring to making a pile of money, or that I become a CEO of a Fortune 500 company. My definition of "doing well" at work is that my colleagues think of me as valuable, that my customers know I'm reliable, and that nobody ever questions my work ethic. This has always been the case for me.

That self-imposed pressure comes with a lot of stress. My need to work hard is most definitely an inherited thing. Both my mother and father are crazy hard workers. After they divorced, they each went off and married another hard worker. Look on both sides of my family and you can't find a slacker in the bunch. All of my family role models definitely earned their pay. As if that all of those busy bees in my family weren't doing a good enough job creating a false pressure to work hard, add my great grandmother Vera Conrad, lovingly known as Great Gran. When I was a little girl, Great Gran used to lean towards me in her wheelchair and whisper, "Idle hands are the devil's playthings." I assure you, there is nothing creepier than an ancient woman with long earlobes and chin whiskers telling you about devil's playthings to scare some work ethic into a little kid. And she practiced what she preached. Though she was wheelchair bound and no longer able to tend to a farm (talk about work!), Great Gran sat in her little wheelchair and quilted non-stop, keeping those wiry old hands as busy as could be.

Her creepy words stuck with me. At a very early age, I figured that I better work hard, or the devil would start playing with my hands and oh my goodness no! I'll just get to work, thanks. Given that pressure, it's no wonder I got pretty good at playing the piano. Busy hands. Busy hands.

During school and college, I managed stress enough not to cause problems, but I was always known as a bit of a "Stressball." It's just how I'm wired. But when I started full-time work in my early 20's, the stress of it all began manifesting itself in the form of some ugly little anxiety attacks. I didn't know how to handle it, and that stress fed on itself, so my anxiety worsened.

Lucky for me, when this started happening, one of my longest and closest friends was in grad school, getting her Masters in Social Work. I called her, and she came to my apartment with her hands full. In one hand, she held a six-pack of beer, in the other hand, she held a fat copy of the Diagnostic and Statistic Manual of Mental Disorders. I will never forget that. It's so indicative of the kind of friend she is: loyal, giving, and fully invested in helping you when you need her most. It's not surprising that to this day, she is still my dear friend, and a successful and highly-regarded private therapist who specializes in many things, among which are anxiety disorders.

That night, with a six-pack, tears and laughter, we began searching the DSM for answers. While we certainly didn't find them all that night (that DSM is one agonizingly difficult read, but a good cure for insomnia), it was a first step in identifying what was causing me to feel like I was completely out of my head. Soon enough, I began seeing a therapist, learning breathing techniques, and learning how to cope with my own definition of "normal."

I hated the way anxiety made me feel, so I didn't tell many people at all. I kept that secret close to my pounding chest. I was so afraid of people thinking that I was crazy. Except guess what? We're all crazy. It's just varying degrees, friends. And guess what? Most of the normal, honest people I know have admitted that they, too, struggled with anxiety at some point in their lives. If not anxiety, then depression. If not depression, then some kind of compulsion.

My sister calls these things "isms." "Isms" aren't always related to mental health. It could be that you need glasses and refuse to get them. That's your "ism."  It could be that you use baby talk when you talk to your boyfriend. Well, that's not an "ism," but it is annoying, so quit it. It could be that you detest laundromats. That's your "ism". Are you getting the idea? And honestly, if you live in this day and age and don't have some kind of "ism", well, congratulations on becoming a Buddhist monk. When you get back from your silent retreat, we'll all be back here in "ism" town when you're ready to talk again.

There's a Facebook thing that's been going around for a year or more that has a sad little drawing of a woman in an ugly pink robe that says, "Depression, anxiety and panic attacks are NOT a sign of weakness. They are signs of having tried to remain strong for way too long." The first time I saw it, I thought, "No wonder she's depressed. That robe is terrible." And then I read it again, and realized that the sentiment there is meant to promote acceptance of mental health issues - and that the sentiment is a good one. But it is a tad on the dramatic side. I certainly wasn't forced to be "strong" for a long time, I just got hit square on with anxiety issues. I believe my anxiety issues have much more to do with chemical make-up and a lot of forced pressures that I place on myself.

The post goes on to send a message of acceptance for those of us (1 in 3, evidently), who deal with "isms" at some point in their lives. It also mentions that this week is Mental Health Week. Every time somebody posts it, I "like" it. Because it's a good message. But I also get tickled that since it's on Facebook, that message keeps floating around, making every week Mental Health Week. But in case your particular "ism" is that you're a stickler for dates, October 6-12 is Mental Illness Awareness Week. And while I will always take a silly tone with serious topics, it really is a good time to reach out to someone that you know struggles in some way, and let them know that you are there for them. It might also be a good opportunity to ask them how they manage their issue, and how you might help.

For those of us who struggle with our "isms," every day is Mental Health Day. Not a day goes by that I don't think about what would happen if I had an anxiety attack while driving, speaking to customers, caring for my kids, you name it. If it weren't for years off an on in therapy, an extremely supportive family, meditation and prayer, regular exercise and deep breathing techniques, I'm fairly convinced I would be trying to figure out how to leave my people and make a beeline for the nearest ashram for a long-term recovery.

And just because I can talk openly about my anxiety issues, does not mean everyone feels that free. I wish it were easier for everyone, because it would help reduce the stigma associated with mental health problems.

In recognition of Mental Health Week, here's the link to the National Alliance on Mental Illness website, where you can tell your story. I shared mine; I hope you share yours.

Passion: Part 2

Now that I am focusing my attention on passion, it's all over the place. It's like my coworker who recently went on a road trip and rented a Kia, and when he kind of liked the Kia, registered online to learn more about them, and now he's getting Kia sales calls non-stop. Now, that is simply a very annoying sales tactic. Except he's also seeing Kias everywhere, when he hardly noticed them before. This happened to me, too, but it wasn't Kias. The Universe began sending me passionate people.

It started with the boy who works at the Starbucks by my office. I don't know him well, but since I'm in there frequently, we have brief chats about the weather, politics, why soy milk is superior to dairy in the matter of all things Chai...you get the idea. When I told him that I sold my car and walk to work, he perked up (pardon the bad coffee pun) and said that he sold his car, too.

"What made you sell your car?" I asked.

"I want to be a glassblower," he said, "To buy the equipment I need, the only way I could get that kind of money was to sell my car."

As I grabbed my chai and finished the walk to work that morning, I thought about how much guts it takes to sell your car to reach your dream, and that the Starbucks guy was willing to make a huge, bold move to get there. That's passion. Plain and simple.

The past few weeks, Starbucks guy hasn't been there. I miss him, especially because the woman who took his place seems to only be passionate about being slow as Christmas. But that's another story. And while I miss seeing Starbucks guy, I'm hoping that at this very instant, he's firing up his glassblowing thingamajig, the happiest he's ever been.

Shortly after that, I was reminded that for some people, it takes time to arrive at that place where you are willing to sell your car to buy glassblowing equipment. Take, for example, the server at the restaurant we went to for my stepdaughter's 18th birthday a few weeks ago. On an energy level scale of 1 to 10, she was about a four. And I've waited tables, so I know that at some point during your shift, you're so exhausted you want to die, but still. Suck it up. There are tips to be made.

Several annoying things took place at this girl's table that I won't even bother discussing. My husband -- a man who loves everyone -- was completely over her after just a few minutes. But I thought about that glassblowing Starbucks guy, and figured surely this girl had a similar story.

When you're dealing with someone who appears to be passionless, it may just be that they're not particularly outgoing. But there's a chance they lack passion, so it's better not to ask them what their passion is because it could make them feel terrible. You're better off starting with something less daunting.

I waited for her to plod back to our table, then asked,

"I have a weird question for you. What makes you laugh so hard your stomach hurts?"

I ask this question to people I have a hard time figuring out. You should try it. It says a lot about a person. Plus, you get to think about how great it would be to see that person laughing so hard they're grabbing their sides for relief.

So I asked the girl, and her first response was to shrug and say, "I don't know."

"No!" I wailed. "No! That is not acceptable! You have to say something!"

She stood there, passionless, and paused for what felt like eternity, and went fishing around in her memory bank of funny movies.

"Bridesmaids?"

Her response was a big bummer to me. Don't get me wrong, Bridesmaids is pretty hilarious, but that's not the point. It was the way she answered it. Had she had answered with absolute certainty, that would be one thing. But she didn't. She was almost asking for permission.

I hoped somehow in our brief exchange that I could figure out what made this girl tick. To learn that she was waiting tables while pursuing her degree in archaeology, because ever since she was a little girl, she was obsessed with fossils. Or Harrison Ford. Or, she really, really wanted to be a tight rope walker. Or that for her entire life, all she really wanted to do was become an assistant principal of a mediocre elementary school. I would have taken any of it had she delivered it with oomph.

If you're doing some self-reflecting and saying, "Aw, man, I'm not sure what I'm passionate about, and this makes me feel like a loser," don't fret. You are definitely not a loser. If you ask yourself the question, "What am I passionate about?" and you answer yourself by saying, "Dog fighting!" then you are a loser. Otherwise, you just need a bit of nudging.

A few weeks after the Passionless Server Incident, a fairly sizable group of my coworkers and I went to happy hour at a nearby upscale barbecue restaurant. Our server was outstanding (and it should be obvious by this point that I am a little on the picky side). She was completely at ease, making it feel like we were at her own dinner party. She knew when to come check on us, but wasn't ever in the way. She handled our special requests like they were no biggie. She was personable and fun, and very good at her job.

When it came time to leave, my coworker Katie and I walked over to where she was standing so we could thank her for her hard work. And for some reason, I was prompted to ask,

"What's your passion?"

She didn't have to stop and think about it. Her answer was immediate.

"I just graduated with a degree in business," she said, "So right now, I'm passionate about getting a job in sales or marketing."

I started digging in my purse for my business cards as Katie said, "As a matter of fact, we're hiring right now!"

From there, things began moving in fast forward. It's crazy how this all went down. Ralph, the person hiring for entry-level positions was with us, and we introduced him to the server. We all went outside to wait, and some time later, Ralph came out and announced that he would be interviewing our server the next morning. The next day, she came to interview, and blew it out of the water. She had done her homework, even though she had less than a full day to prepare. At every step in the interview process, she killed it. And now, she's no longer waiting tables, because we hired her. Yeah, it's a crazy, fantastic story. I love it.

But there is more to this story, and it has to do with the fact that everything lined up not because it was all simple coincidence, but because the right people with the right kind of passion were at the right place and the right time. Without passion, it wouldn't have been possible.

A key player in this story is Ralph, the man who hired our awesome server. Ralph is one of those people who does everything with passion. I have never seen him talk about anything or do anything in a lackluster fashion. When he talks about his wife, his eyes light up like he just went on his first date and he knows she's the woman with whom he'll spend the rest of his life. If you ask about his kids, he'll start showing you pictures of his adorable sons, and you can see how much he cares about being a good dad. Try asking him about how he feels about being a drummer. He's all pumped up. And at the same time, Ralph puts equal passion into Gable Heart Beats, the charity he supports to raise awareness about heart disease.

Ralph is a complete dynamo in the workplace. Every single person I know who has worked on his team at work agrees: when your boss is that excited, you can't help but be excited yourself. So maybe there is some truth to associating with passionate people. If you can be around people who are fired up about everything they do, maybe it will help you find your passion as well. It certainly can't hurt!

So here is your homework: Think about what makes you feel so excited your heart is pounding out of your chest. Has it been a while since you felt excited about something? It's okay. This isn't a test; we're just exploring your passion. Don't panic!

Think back to when you were a little kid. What made you so excited you could hardly sleep?

For me, I think about when I was little, we would go to my Aunt Pat and Uncle LB's ranch where adults with questionable judgment would let my sister and me ride their 4-wheelers all over the place for hours on end. 4-wheelers completely excite me to the point where if I think about them at night, I can't sleep. It's so silly! I also get that same feeling of excitement about riding those huge swinging pirate ships at amusement parks. At Six Flags in Texas, their version of the swinging pirate ship is called The Conquistador, and if I had the money, I would buy one of those for my backyard in a New York minute. Just watch this and try not to get excited! I also get completely stoked about Karaoke (so much that I had my first Karaoke injury last week - I back-up danced with so much passion I bruised my hip with the tambourine). I feel the same way about seeing my husband and kids when I've been away on work travel. Every time! And I get excited about writing, so that when I do it, hours pass and I hardly know it.

More homework: Grab a journal and jot down some of those initial thoughts. Get it down on paper, iPad, text yourself, it doesn't matter. Just write it down, and let's see what happens. And don't get all worried that you're going to mess up. It's just a little list of things that make you excited.

Like the Kias that keep popping into my coworker's line of sight, let's see if things start happening as a result. You're not paying me anything to do this, so don't expect some magic money-back guarantee if nothing works. You may just be a boring, passionless person, and if that's the case, I can't help you. I'm kidding, I just wanted to say that because it made me laugh. I really believe that if you start focusing on what makes you happy now, or at the very least what used to make you happy, that things are going to change.

And by all means, share stories with me. I look forward to hearing what happens next.