Perspective

We are but mere travelers, often times weary travelers, on a journey to somewhere, somehow, who should sometimes remember that our gaze, whether affixed on ahead or hindsight, will remain myopic if we forget to look, also, above.

Take A Beat–Revisited

Watch Necklace from Love Nail Tree: http://shop.lovenailtree.com/product/half-bar-globe

Update:  I finally received this a little while ago.  It wasn’t what I had expected.  But I  was okay with that .  However, the watch stopped working within a day.  So, I figured I could exchange it.  But when I corresponded  with a rep from LNT,  I was  told to try and replace the battery.  Um. No.  I really don’t think that should be something  a  retailer should suggest if a newly purchased item stops working.  Am I being a customer-service diva?  Keep in mind,  I used to work  retail in high school and college, so  I know proper etiquette. 

Original Post: I tend to loathe January.  It is the second-highest month prone to flu breakouts (February is the highest month for flu breakouts, but it is also the month of my birthday. So there’s that.).  The weather is usually miserable in Texas during this time.  But this year, January is growing on me.  During the past couple months, I have not had time to do much of anything besides work and Christmas shop.  Even when I had holiday break, I felt like I was working.

Christmas and New Years give off  the appearance of vaction, relaxation, and reflection.  But the reality is diametrically opposed.  You feel like you are on the go, go, go…desperately trying to savor every second, every ornament that captures the festive holiday season, because it only comes once a year.  Much like a glutton, your fill is insatiable.  Until things around you start to remind you, it’s time to let go.  That lush, green Douglas Fir is now a brittle, sad looking thing.  The wrapping paper that you have been meaning to organize has lost its charm and magic and makes you start to question how something can look so tacky but be so adored at the right time.

Once you take a beat from the holiday season, you realize there is the opportunity to do something you haven’t done in some time: look at things that interest you.  Instead of having it all planned out on a list, you can search and best of all, you can discover.  Recently, I was looking for a piece to catch my interest.  And I found one: the half-bar-globe watch necklace in the picture above from Love Nail Tree.  I look forward to its arrival.  I share it with you in hopes to help you with your post-Christmas detox…whatever or however it may be that you achieve yours.  Happy hunting!

Put It in (hand)Writing

Hand Written Lincoln Note from: http://www.picturehistory.com

Sure.  It’s cleaner, easier to read, and shows people you, or someone you know/hired, can type.  The  preceding sentence refers to a type-written letter or email.  I’m not discounting all type-written letter or emails.  But some of them I am.

What is your reaction to receiving a  typed letter from someone? Does the font style make any difference to you?   What about if it is in handwriting?  And does ugly or pretty handwriting, print or cursive, have varied impacts on you?

To me, type-written letters seem like an after thought.  Something you almost forgot to remember to do.  They are cliché just like saying that the word cliché is cliché .

So, in fundraising, I made a decision (I sounds all executive-like and important)  to send donors and corporations hand-written thank you letters (notoriously referenced as TKU letters around our office, which I hate because I keep saying it like TinkU.).  Even after I’ve sent a  TKU email, a TKU  typed letter with IRS language,  thanking them for  a donation or their interest, I still send out a handwritten TKU (you are saying it like TinkU now, aren’t you?). It is when I send out the handwritten note that I get the greatest feedback.  Meaning, I get noticed.  I am no longer lumped with the other organizations that send out template TKUS.  For me and the donor/potential donor, things just got personal.  And that is a good thing.

For instance, I recently had a company personally call me after receiving a note that I hand wrote, thanking them for a contribution.  The whole team was so grateful to see how appreciative we were.  So appreciative that they wanted to host a fundraising event for us.  Writing that thank you somehow conveyed my message across more effectively than an email or letter inscribed with sans-serif/serif type font (I’m sure it could have had a little to do with the charm of my fifth-grader-like handwriting).

So, if you are looking for ways to show your genuine thanks, I suggest handwriting over type writing.  Though it may not be appropriate for every TKU venue, in terms of fundraising,  and thanking friends for gifts, or guests for attending events, I think it is.  I’m not saying it is the Gossip Truth.   But it is something close to it.

Here are some cool stationery selections I came across to help you kickstart your new hand-writing TKUs commitment.  I am also conveniently out of stationery, so I will be selecting some as well.  I have pared the choices down to three.  Which one do you like best?

1. From Jack & Ella Paper Press ($10 for 12): http://www.etsy.com/listing/60773066/your-very-own-personalized-notecards-set2. From Jack & Ella Paper Press ($12 for 8)

2. Kate Spade: http://www.katespade.com/monogram-note-cards/paper-monogram-note-cards,default,sc.html  (apparently we are not allowed to share their pics).  Price is $26 for 10 (cray, I know).

3. From Jack & Ella Paper Press ($12 for 8) http://www.etsy.com/listing/60773066/your-very-own-personalized-notecards-set2

Need Suggestions

I’m looking to support a breast cancer foundation.  Please tell me which one you suggest, and why you think I should support it.  Thank you!

Take A Beat

Watch Necklace from Love Nail Tree: http://shop.lovenailtree.com/product/half-bar-globe

I tend to loathe January.  It is the second-highest month prone to flu breakouts (February is the highest month for flu breakouts, but it is also the month of my birthday. So there’s that.).  The weather is usually miserable in Texas during this time.  But this year, January is growing on me.  During the past couple months, I have not had time to do much of anything besides work and Christmas shop.  Even when I had holiday break, I felt like I was working.

Christmas and New Years give off  the appearance of vaction, relaxation, and reflection.  But the reality is diametrically opposed.  You feel like you are on the go, go, go…desperately trying to savor every second, every ornament that captures the festive holiday season, because it only comes once a year.  Much like a glutton, your fill is insatiable.  Until things around you start to remind you, it’s time to let go.  That lush, green Douglas Fir is now a brittle, sad looking thing.  The wrapping paper that you have been meaning to organize has lost its charm and magic and makes you start to question how something can look so tacky but be so adored at the right time.

Once you take a beat from the holiday season, you realize there is the opportunity to do something you haven’t done in some time: look at things that interest you.  Instead of having it all planned out on a list, you can search and best of all, you can discover.  Recently, I was looking for a piece to catch my interest.  And I found one: the half-bar-globe watch necklace in the picture above from Love Nail Tree.  I look forward to its arrival.  I share it with you in hopes to help you with your post-Christmas detox…whatever or however it may be that you acheive yours.  Happy hunting!

Turning Over a New Leaf

Watermarked

For days I saw this same leaf watermarked on the ground as I hustled through the revolving doors of the slender and sleek building and passed the bustling city crowd, to get to refuge: my car.  Everytime I saw it, I thought of that phrase “turning over a new leaf.”  I wasn’t really sure if that made sense.  But I wanted it to.  I wondered if anyone else noticed it and thought the same thing, or if everyone else was a little less naive than me.

Finally, on a day when I felt like it would be the last opportunity to see this leaf in this exact place, I snapped a picture of it.  Truthfully, I felt a little foolish taking the picture.  Simple girl, the passerbys would say.   Forty-one stories to this building; how could she still be fascinated by a soggy, silly leaf.  But I was.

It may seem a little out of season (leaves are so Fall), but I thought it was a relevant sentiment of the new year.  It’s that sentiment which keeps us in pursuit of a balance between absconding from seasons passed and embracing all that we have learned through weathering what is in the past.  So that one day when we look back, it will not serve as an onerous memory that  lurkes in muddy waters.  Rather, that it had served as divine foresight all the while,  gracefully supined in a winter puddle, waiting and prepared for seasons to come.

Sights of the Seasons

You don’t have to say it.  I know.  I have been absent.  But can I make it up to you?  What if I shared with you some of my favorite sightings of the winter-fall seasons?  Here is hoping…

Winter falls on us like leaves from an autumn tree.

Work days have definitely seemed longer because of the season.  Leaving at 6pm feels like 9:30.  But there is something like solace in the evenings where the roads are lit up with what looks like Christmas lights, while rain falls on your windsheild like  a reflective fog of  misty  calmness.

Rain Speed

I didn’t mean to take a picture of a beheaded gingerbread man. But I did. Someone from work brought these in and told me that they can be found at Whole Foods. One Saturday afternoon, I went to Whole Foods and inquired about these gingerbread cookies. I was being lead to all kinds and varieties of gingies but not this one in particular. Finally, and reluctantly, I pulled this picture from my phone, and the man behind the counter snickered. He knew exactly what I was talking about. Even with a missing head.

Off with his head

The Stress Factor

Stress Relief (do not drink this Kava tea if you need to operate a vehicle!)

I’ve sort of noticed this sudden surge of stress in my surroundings.  I’m not sure if people are aware, or if I’m even aware when I’m stressed, that a person’s particular mood can be extremely contagious. Contagious like the freaking flu.  I am not saying that I am some sort of Yogi (but I do drink Yogi tea, as you can see from the pic), but I’ve somewhat cooled down on the amount of stress I exude onto others. 

The leaves beneath my coworkers feet.

Maybe I am sort of in love with the fall season.  It might be that I’m enamored with the color accents on the autumn-toned leaves as they dance and swirl with the crisp, fall breeze.  Or it could be my acorn-crunching fetish.  Regardless, I am over being stressed out…that was so three months ago for me.  But this may just be a few fleeting months of stress-remission.  The stress factor may soon again emerge.  But until then, I will be cognizant of how I feel when others around me are stressed out.  I will realize the message that is being delivered, and in turn, I will remember not to do this when my turn comes.

Happy Fall!!!

Saving Hope

 

Click on post to see full picture.

The kids at Promsie House (a nonprofit that I support) were given an assignment to write about  “breaking news” stories featuring themselves.  They were supposed to tell about what they would be like in 10 years.  For them, it was probably just an assignment encapsulating something that they already know will happen.  For me, it was so much more.  I realized that they still had a pristine vision of the future despite the poision, chaos, and turmoil they have been subjected to.  They could be looking at the future with jaded eyes, but they do not.  I think it is pretty amazing that they can still have such an optimistic outlook even after they have been called failures by their own parents.  But kids can be pretty amazing like that.

PS, if you want to vote for Promise House to win a $7,500 grant, here are a few easy steps:

1. go to www.albertsonscpchallenge.com

2. enter your email addy (opt out of receiving emails)

3. enter a TX zipcode: 75208

4. verify your email by checking your inbox and clicking on the link

5. vote five times for charity code 0107

You can keep voting until Oct 15.  If you are interested in having someone else do it for you (no pw needed) after the initial set up, let me know:)

A Humble to Stumble Upon.

Today I was humbled.  It wasn’t any sort of day in particular where you or I would know that I could even find a moment to be humbled by.  In fact, there was nothing too saccharine, conspicuous, or lavish about my behavior to where I would suspect that I could be humbled.  I did not treat myself to a double-vente-soy-pumpkin-spice latte.  I did not scream or get angrified (yes, I made that word up, and yes I will collect royalties if you use it) when I could not listen to music because I wasn’t allowed to download Adobe Flash.  I didn’t curse at the sad, frozen meal that I had for lunch.  I was pretty complacent with everything.  Which is exactly why I was not expecting a humbling moment.  I sort of thought the day would go about with my cool-as-a-cucumber outlook.

I’m not sure about you, but for me, when I get humbled, I usually have it coming to me.  It typically occurs when I  either have a woe-is-me attitude, and then I will see someone who is in a real pile of plight, and I will feel that sickening, nauseated feeling in the pit of my stomach because I know that I was being so petty.  And the worst thing is that the person who really deserves to have the little violin playing for them–and justifiably so– he will not want it.  He will find something to be grateful for about his terrible situation.  Or, it will happen when I’m being a spoiled, little material-girl brat.  Then I will come across someone who has never had a birthday cake in his thirteen years of life, and suddenly, that double-vente, blah,blah,blah latte starts to taste a little like humble pie.

But none of those scenarios happened today.  Instead, I was doing work that made me feel good because it wasn’t about me; it was for a greater cause.  And then I ran into two kids.  They kind of scared me at first.  I was located in a bad part of town, after all.  They were dressed like they could do some real damage.  But then they smiled.  And any ounce of doubt I had was put to shame.

They were two, teenage boys that lived at the shelter I was at.  The boys were coming back from school, and they were excited to share an idea with one of the development coordinators.  It was an idea for a talent contest; one would rap, the other would sing.  Other kids could do other things.  And the best part–they could raise money to fund college.

One of the boys pulled out his report card.  It was all A’s &B’s.  You see, the kids at the shelter come from very troubled backgrounds.  Some have lost parents.  Some have parents who have lost them.  Others have been exposed to drugs, gangs, and violence.  But at this shelter, they can become the person that they want to be.  So today, I saw that one of these kids, who came from one of those troubled pasts, wants to go to college.  He was waiting all day to show the director that report card; I think he was waiting all day to make someone proud.  He rapped for us, and I sort of felt like I was at a Pimp C concert (without the dirty language).  His other friend that was there is top ten percent at his high school.  They both came from a nightmare life, but they can now pursue their dreams.

I knew that there was a cause–to help kids.  I saw the buildings that housed the children.  I met the staff that did the work.  I had heard the stories that filled the shelter.   But when I saw the kids  on this ordinary today, I was humbled.